Tools #other
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29 December 2021
Are influencers the key to customer centric marketing?
Unsplash © George Pagan III

Are influencers the key to customer-centric marketing?

In the world of marketing, trends, techniques and norms change frequently. Techniques that were considered as the key players have faded with new ones taking over the market. There is a popular saying, "there are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks when decades happen.”

So much has happened in the last couple of years and the pandemic has further contributed to the change. During this time, the one thing that has drastically changed is the techniques of interacting with the target audience. Customer preferences are given the most attention, thereby creating customer-centric campaigns that can garner greater attention and ensure to develop an unbreakable bond.

With that said, one of the most effective techniques to take a step closer to your audience is by influencer marketing. Here, you are going to learn about ways through which you can engage your audience and how influencers can be a key player. 

The value of influencer marketing

According to the research, influencer marketing has become a $5-10B dollar industry. Considering the outcomes, more than 17% of the companies are investing in influencer marketing and the count is said to grow in the coming years.

Apart from this, Instagram influencer marketing has turned out to be a well-known strategy to boost engagements. Not only this, Adweek predicted the industry to hit $20B in the year 2020. Many leading social media platforms like Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and Snapchat have contributed to rising conversions through influencer marketing. Furthermore, around 89% of marketers have stated the ROI generated through influencers have been better or greater than that of other networks.

The impact on customer relationships of influencer marketing

Establishing a strong bond with your customers does not happen overnight. You need to put in a lot of effort and plan a million things that can directly or indirectly create a bond with your people. However, with the help of influencer marketing, you can power-struck the process and in a short time garner great attention. 

Each influencer provides tens and thousands of prospective leads. Their single post can put your brand in the limelight and increase traffic on your site. Along with word of mouth marketing, using influencers could be the most impactful promotional tactic. However, the basic thing you need to focus on is hunting the right influencer and creating a robust strategy for your campaign.

Hunt down the best influencers for your brand 

To find the most suitable influencer for your brand, you need to focus on certain factors and you need to know if the influencer is specific to your niche or not. If you’re marketing real estate on social media, you need to find those who have a following in this particular niche. You need to monitor their activities and how they are promoting other brands. Their tactics may differ from your brand’s ideology, so there must be a touch of uniformity in their way of communication.

Secondly, you need to check how responsive and interactive their audience and posts are respectively. This analysis will help create a better footing for your influencer marketing.

Let your influencers boost engagements 

Influencers and micro-influencers both can multiply your brand’s engagements. They have better online reach and follower count that makes it easier to deliver your word. Their creative posting styles and the style of getting close to the audience helps in generating prospective leads. You need to work on offering more targeted strategies to your influencers for spreading the word about your products across their target audience. Try creating contests or other interactive posts that can keep the audience involved.

Utilise the power of performance-based influencer marketing

Nowadays, customers want multiple touch points to convert and they want to interact with a brand in more than one way. As influencers are your main content production, you can harness their performance-based creativity to dig out better outcomes for your brand.

The best thing about influencers is that they create native ads. These ads resonate with the consumers bringing them closer to them. In return, these ads increase the advertising performance of your brand and massively increase the overall conversions.

More directly, you can create dedicated promo codes for these influencers and see which of these are being used to buy your products. For instance, fashion retailers can create clothing coupons and provide these to influencers to accurately measure their effectiveness. This is one of the commonly used techniques to track the performance of different influencers. 

Let the influencer communicate your brand’s authenticity

Customers are getting more aware and conscious. They would rather want to rely on an authentic brand with reliable offering than to blindly fall for anyone. During this time, your influencers can play a role in showcasing your brand as a reliable and trusted entity. As influencers – especially the micro-influencers – are considered common people, anything they say is considered more reliable. They usually try out the product and are regarded to give honest advice and recommendation. 

When you ask your influencer to talk about your product, make sure not to simply brag about the bright sides. Instead, address the commonly faced problems first and then advertise how effective the product is and useful its features are. 

Offer personalised customer experience

With the help of influencers, you can create more personalised content for your customers. Your influencers best know what type of content is more effective to engage their followers, whether it’s the short lived stories that can captivate the viewers or the visuals based on user generated content that can expand the horizon.

You need to pay attention to create the most captivating content that can not only garner attention, but keep the viewers involved. Hardly anybody wishes to read lengthy blogs or posts online, so you need to rely on means that can ensure better online reach and greater outcomes. 

Build trust and gain loyalty 

As stated above, followers deeply rely on what their influencers have recommended. Through influencer marketing, you can gain more loyal customers and create a stronger relationship with your consumers. Address the concerns and work on offering better solutions to your audience, in order to enjoy an increasing conversion rate.

A business without sales is nothing. If your business is not generating sales along with building loyal clientele – no matter how big of an investment you make – you will still be lagged. Secondly, you can learn about a million marketing tactics, but to survive in this competitive landscape you need to innovate. Therefore, you need to think out of the box and unleash creativity if you want to be a game-changer.