Attracting the attention of your customers is becoming increasingly difficult. Articles about hero dogs, urgent work emails, tweet notifications on smartphones … all of these digital distractions mean you have to be creative to get your message to penetrate the noise.
that show how influencer marketing provides better engagement rates and ROI than traditional social media marketing.
1. It is built on trust
Time and time again, we hear that word-of-mouth marketing outperforms traditional advertising – and this prevailing wisdom applies doubly to influencer marketing. According to Nielsen, 90 percent of consumers trust peer recommendations, while only 33 percent trust ads. That means that for every successful ad interaction your campaign delivers, you could have seen nearly three equally (or more) valuable word-of-mouth engagements.
Trust is essential for developing a long-term relationship with your customers. By tapping into a local celebrity, niche social media star, or other influencer, you’re fusing your brand with theirs, and benefiting from the trust they’ve established with their followers and fans. Your customers will associate your message with the trust they feel for the influencer; and not only will you see more actions, you’ll see more meaningful actions.
2. It encourages purchases
Social media is quickly becoming the first (and often last) place consumers go before they make a purchase. According to one recent survey, three quarters of consumers say they rely on social media to inform their purchases.
However, social ads simply don’t cut it. They are perceived much the same as other ads across the web, and – largely because of the lack of trust consumers place in traditional ads – they are not driving as many purchases as word-of-mouth marketing does. In fact, 74 percent of consumers indicate that word-of-mouth recommendations were most influential in their recent purchases.
Recommendations from trusted sources go much further in encouraging consumers to purchase because they feel more genuine and honest to consumers. Ethical influencers who endorse a product genuinely believe that product will benefit their audience, and this comes through in their tweets and other recommendations. Consumers are much more likely to make a purchase if it is relevant to their interests, and if they trust the source of a recommendation.
3. It is cost-effective
nfluencer marketing doesn’t always mean shelling out hundreds of thousands for a top tier celebrity endorsement. “Power middle” influencers – those with smaller but more loyal and engaged followings – have become a driving force in product recommendations for brands.
A SocialChorus analysis of over 200 social media word-of-mouth campaigns shows that “Power Middle” influencers drive 16x more engagement than paid and owned media alternatives… at a much lower cost than traditional influencers. So, for less than your average Facebook ad campaign, you can launch an influencer campaign that will result in more engagement, deeper trust, and more purchases.
Of course, influencer campaigns require informed goal-setting, execution and measurement, just like any other digital marketing campaign – the difference is, you’ll be much happier with the result. For more information about Adly and our celebrity and influencer marketing campaign services, CLICK HERE.