8 Benefits of Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing benefits extend far beyond just increasing brand awareness and sales. However, working with influencers and creators can provide many other benefits that are not as well-known. For example, influencers can help you do consumer research by getting feedback from their engaged followers. They can also boost your website’s search engine rankings through backlinks and by driving relevant traffic to your site. But why is influencer marketing important? There are many influencer marketing examples that can answer this question but let’s understand it with the lesser-known benefits of influencer marketing beyond just raising your brand profile and making more sales. Partnering with creators can help your business in surprising ways that go beyond the basics.
1. Helps you avoid ad blockers
Many people, especially younger adults, use ad-blocking software to avoid seeing advertisements on their devices. As concerns about online privacy grow, more people are likely to start using ad blockers. While ad blockers get rid of things like banner ads, they don’t block sponsored posts from influencers on social media. People are much more willing to pay attention to product promotions from influencers they like and trust, compared to regular ads that disrupt their experience. By working with influencers instead of relying only on traditional ads, brands can get their message across while avoiding the ad blocker issue altogether. Influencer marketing lets you reach people in a way they actually want to engage with, rather than forcing ads they’ll just skip or ignore.
2. Aid content strategy
Creating new, engaging content for your brand on an ongoing basis can be really difficult and expensive. Whether you’ve run out of fresh ideas or don’t have the budget for major productions, partnering with creators is a great solution. Working with influencers is often cheaper than hiring separate designers, videographers, writers, etc. to make new content from scratch. You might ask, “What does an influencer do”? Well, creators are experts at producing content that really excites their followers. Reach out to influencers from creators marketplace whose style and voice fit your brand. Propose working together on creating new content. Because influencers put so much effort into making quality, visually appealing posts, this content can be extremely valuable for your brand.
3. Opens up new opportunities
Let’s say you are working with some creators who make great content for audiences similar to your target customers. Wouldn’t it be great if you could use their audience data to run your own ads? With creator licensing, you can do exactly that. The creators allow you to advertise through their social media accounts. You get to use their audience insights to find more people to target. And since the ads look like regular creator posts, people may see them as more authentic compared to obvious brand ads. This arrangement benefits the creators too. Their accounts get exposed to new potential followers from your advertising. And if you pay creators a commission, having more people see their branded content means they can make more money.
So creator licensing opens up new advertising opportunities for brands to leverage creators’ audiences and authenticity. At the same time, it allows creators to monetize their accounts and gain more followers through the partnership. It’s a win-win for both sides.
4. Help you boost your brand accounts
Growing your brand’s following on social media is extremely valuable. The more followers you have, the more people will see and engage with your products and content. Partnering with influencers can really help increase your follower count. When their fans see the creators using and promoting your products, they’ll likely want to check out your brand too. As they look into your offerings more, they’ll discover your social accounts and have an easy opportunity to hit “Follow.” To maximize this, make sure the influencers are properly tagging and mentioning your official accounts in their sponsored posts. This makes it simple for their audiences to find and connect with your brand’s profiles. Another effective approach is collaborating on giveaways or contests where people have to follow both the influencer and your brand’s accounts in order to enter and win prizes. This directly drives new follower growth.
Either through organic promotion or incentivized giveaways, influencer marketing allows you to leverage creators’ popularity to expose your brand to new audiences and convert them into engaged followers.
5. Provide the “halo effect”
The “halo effect” is when people’s positive feelings about someone influence their opinions about other things associated with that person. If fans really like an influencer, they’ll tend to also like whatever that influencer promotes. This psychological effect can provide a big boost for brands partnering with influencers. When an influencer with a loyal following talks positively about a product or service, their fans’ existing admiration for the influencer gets transferred into warm feelings toward that product too. The halo effect builds trust and makes fans more interested in buying items their favorite creator endorses. This can be especially valuable for brands in crowded markets or selling products people are hesitant to purchase online.
An influencer’s passionate recommendation cuts through the noise and skepticism. Their fans think, “If my favorite creator loves it, it must be good!” The creator’s glowing review creates a “halo” that shines onto the brand. So in addition to reaching an engaged audience, influencer marketing provides an aspirational appeal. The influencer’s influence halos over and enhances positive perceptions of the partnering brand and products.
6. Boost your SEO rankings
If you want to get more traffic to your website from Google and other search engines, working with influencers can really help boost your search rankings. One way it helps is through backlinks. When influencers write about and link to your site from their blogs or social platforms, it signals to search engines that your content is high-quality. Those inbound links from popular creators act as endorsements for your site in the eyes of Google. Additionally, partnering with influencers builds more awareness around your brand. As their audiences learn about you, more people will search for your name or products online out of interest. This increase in search traffic and demand is another signal to search engines that your content is relevant and worth ranking higher.
So through both earning authoritative backlinks and driving more branded search interest, an influencer marketing strategy provides valuable SEO benefits. It helps get your website in front of more potential customers coming directly from search results pages. The more visibility and traffic you get from high rankings, the more successful your site and business can become.
7. Brainstorm with experts
Creators are experts on what their followers like. Brands can take influencer advantage of this expertise by collaborating with creators. Many creators are open to working together with brands on projects. By combining the brand’s knowledge about their products with the creator’s skills in communicating with their audience, they can make really great content together. This works best with creators with the brand already has an ongoing partnership with already. But brands can also reach out to new creators about collaboration ideas.
The key is to clearly explain the collaboration idea when contacting creators. This allows the creators to decide if the project is a good fit for their skills and followers. With an open invitation for creators to lend their talents and insights, brands can boost their marketing messages. Creators understand their fans deeply. Brands understand their products deeply. When the two sides join forces creatively, exciting promotions can come to life that truly click with the intended audience. Collaborate with creators and tap into their expertise.
8. Accessible to businesses of all sizes
Influencer marketing is an option for businesses of all sizes and industries. As long as there are influential people in your particular area, you can work with them for marketing. This is especially useful for small businesses with limited marketing budgets. Working with nano or micro-influencers who have smaller followings is usually more affordable. However, it does take some planning to find right mico-influencers to partner with. You need to identify the influencers whose followers, values, and content style match well with your brand’s goals. The great thing about influencer marketing is that any business can take advantage of it in some way. Big companies can find major influencers through the content creator marketplace. Smaller companies can team up with niche, local influencers on a tighter budget.
No matter your business size or industry, there are influential people out there who can help promote your products or services to an audience already interested in that topic. It just requires putting in the research work upfront to find good influencer partners. With smart planning, influencer marketing provides marketing opportunities for businesses big and small across all industries.
Key Takeaway on Influencer Marketing Benefits
There are various benefits of influencer marketing for brands. It can help grow your social media following, improve your website’s search rankings, and create a positive impression of your brand. To experience the advantages of influencer marketing, brands should research and partner with influencers whose audience matches their target customers. Gleewee offers an influencer marketing platform to help brands find and work with the right influencers for their needs.
