It is essential for brands to constantly improve their online marketing strategies in order to remain competitive in the digital market. It is essential to identify your buyer personas in order to reach them during the research phase. This will allow you to use a variety of strategies to capture visitors' attention, convert them into leads, and then follow up with the sales process to ensure customer satisfaction.

Influencer marketing is a powerful strategy that can be used for both business-to-business (B2B), and business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing initiatives. Most brands are capable of successfully implementing this type of marketing to reach their target audience.

An international study examined which types of advertising consumers trust most when making buying decisions. 83% of those surveyed said that they trust the recommendations of their family and friends when making purchasing decisions. 66 percent of respondents to the survey said they believed online consumer opinions. This is a remarkable figure.

Find The Right Influencers For Your Brand

It is not an easy task to find the right influencers. It takes time and effort to connect with those who will appeal to your target audience. To help your target audience make buying decisions, you want influencers who are familiar with your brand and can be trusted by them. You can leverage influencer marketplaces to help you find the right influencers that meet your marketing needs and goals.

Start by searching for people who not only have a large following but also match your buyer personas. To find out how engaged and active their followers are, research the content of potential influencers and the comments they get from them. Do their followers seek advice or suggestions? Do these influencers provide the information they need in order to make the right decision? These are the influencers you need to increase awareness for your brand.

How To Leverage Influencer Marketing

Once you have started networking with influential people in your industry, the next step will be to leverage influencer marketing to grab the attention of your target audience. These are five effective ways to use your influencer marketing strategy.

1. Shareable content marketing

This is a great way to start. Have your marketing department create shareable content such as infographics, video snippets and compelling images. Ask your influencers to suggest what works best for them. Combine talents to create original, shared content that they can share with their followers.

2. Social Media

Provide relevant information to influencers about your product and service. Also, give them a freebie or a sample of your product so that they can create their own content on social media. This is crucial because many influencers won't endorse products or services without first trying them out to make sure it doesn’t negatively impact their brand authenticity.

Read more about social media monetization here.

Your influencer marketing strategy should aim to get them to mention your brand and tag you on their social media platforms. This will allow you to reach a wider audience. 

One example is Simar Glossy- A designed clothing manufacturer from Surat, India. They did an influencer marketing campaign for the Bangladesh market and that was a huge success. 

It was a huge success and the post got 49K likes within 24 hours and the brand generated 500+ new inquiries. This shows the power of social media influencer marketing 

3. Email Marketing

Influencers might be open to sending a special email to their subscribers. Even if they aren't, you can still use influencer marketing to your email marketing and automation efforts. To further improve your brand reputation, and to build your brand credibility, you can use photos or quotes from influencers in targeted emails.

4. Video Marketing

To increase your brand's reach, leverage influencers to help you market your products and services. Video content from an influencer talking about your product/service gives them dynamic content that they can share with their followers and interactive content that you can share with your audiences. The video marketing efforts can be used on your website, blog, email marketing, and other platforms.

PS: use Instagram video downloader to save your video quickly.

5. A spokesperson

After you have found the right influencer that aligns with your brand goals and buyer personas consider making them your primary spokesperson. They will represent your brand on their channels as well as yours based upon a long-term contract. This approach is most effective if the influencer engages with their followers regularly with new content. They will provide a steady stream of information for their followers about your product or services.

6. Influencer Content as Paid Social Ads

We can see a significant increase in influencer content being used as paid social advertising for remarketing audiences. This allows companies not to succumb to ad fatigue, and allows them to leverage unique influencer content in order to build trust, credibility and desire for their product or service.

7. Turning Employees Into Influencers

Influencer marketing is a unique form of marketing that involves taking someone who works for you and making them an influencer. Our clients sell beauty products. They have their own customers using the products and instead of hiring someone outside. The company now has an internal influencer on staff as they build a following. This is even better, as it can be repeated.

8. Brand Ambassadors Programs

As a form of influencer marketing, brand ambassadors programs sound more authentic and impactful to audiences. Brand ambassadors are people who feel a strong emotional connection to the brand and love it so much that they are willing to share it with others. Brand ambassadors programs make consumers feel like they are part of the brand, and can be fully engaged with it.

Learnyst- A platform which helps to teach online courses and make money did this and it got very good response.

They tie up with influencers who are highly successful by selling online courses. The influencer promoted the brand through his social media and he did a webinar for the brand. This was a huge success for Learnsyt, as it got more high paying customers from that campaign.

9. Influencer Content

Although influencer marketing began as an awareness tactic initially, the industry has matured. If you want to optimize your site, you can do the blogger outreach efforts. We have seen how influencers can tell compelling stories to not only increase awareness but also generate purchase intent. With click-to-cart companies like SmartCommerce, and new features in Instagram's Instagram, influencer content is now shoppable. This allows consumers to move from interest to cart in a single click.

10. Podcast Host Endorsements

Podcast host endorsements can be a powerful form of influencer marketing. Recent audience research shows that at least one third of Americans have listened to podcasts in the past month. Advertisers and marketers are noticing the unique ability of the host (influencer) to provide not only reach but also connection and economic outcomes. This channel is "opt-in", meaning that show hosts are able to receive listeners' full attention and trust.

11. Brands' Social Media is being taken over by Influencers

Influencers can help brands gain credibility and reach new markets by taking over their social media channels. This form of marketing is growing in importance. Fashion labels have celebrity DJs stream live on their channels, while celebrities edit the magazine's feed online.

Wrapping Up

In today's highly competitive market, influencer marketing is a powerful tool. There is no single approach to influencer marketing that works for everyone. It is important to be open to trying new things in order to find out what works and doesn't work for your niche.

We will see more brands using influencer marketing or an affiliate program in the years ahead.