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Marketing Problems Overcome by Influencers
Worldwide, the digital marketing landscape is becoming more complex and challenging than ever before. Irrespective of the size and nature of your business, guaranteeing the best possible ROI and remaining competitive demands a comprehensively strategic and innovative approach.
These days, there are certain obstacles standing in the way of marketers that simply didn’t exist in times gone by. Each of which brings new challenges into the mix and makes it even more difficult to succeed. But what’s interesting is how in at least three instances, such challenges can be overcome or sidestepped with one simple yet effective strategy:
Collaborating with influencers.
Influencer marketing is one of the most powerful and potentially lucrative tools at the disposal of the modern business. Get it right with influencer marketing and the rest takes care of itself naturally.
Just to illustrate its power and potential a little more clearly, here are three significant marketing challenges influencer marketing can be used to solve:
1. Lack of Brand Trust
First and foremost, research suggests that the modern consumer simply doesn’t trust whatever it is a brand itself has to say. More than 40% of consumers have little to no trust in brands in general, while closer to 70% don’t trust anything they hear or see that qualifies as traditional advertising. All of which would seem to suggest that traditional advertising is pretty much dead in the water.
By contrast, the same 40% of consumers are significantly more likely to believe what they hear from influencers. Social media users in particular have a tendency to trust recommendations they encounter online to the same extent they would personal recommendations from friends or colleagues. Influencers earn the kind of trust very few brands will ever build.
2. Ad Blocking
Statistically speaking, it’s more likely than not that you yourself are using ad blocking technology right now. Worldwide, somewhere in the region of 600 million devices are known to be using ad blocking software, though the accurate number is probably far greater than this. In any case, research suggests that businesses are now losing a collective $22 billion every year due to this kind of software.
What’s great about influencer marketing is that not only is it trusted by the modern consumer, it’s also immune to ad blocking. Influencer marketing is a perfect example of marketing without marketing – no hard sell, no traditional ads. Simply the personal recommendations of those consumers believe they can trust.
3. Appealing to Google
Contemporary SEO often has you feeling as if you’re banging your head against a brick wall. Google has always hated and will always hate the conventional approach to SEO. After all, the folks behind the scenes are hardly going to salute attempts to curry favour through fabrication. The difference with influencer marketing being that Google has nothing but positive things to say about this kind of content.
So if looking to boost your marketing and SEO strategies at the same time, research suggests influencer content is a great way of going about it. Two birds killed with the same proverbial stone, if you like.
If you’re not already capitalising on the value of influencer marketing, now’s the time to modify your approach accordingly.
4. TMI
Too much information – one of the biggest turn-offs for contemporary consumers and web users in general. Believe it or not, 90% of the data in the entire world was created within the last 24 months. On average, consumers worldwide are sent somewhere in the region of 74GB of data and media, every single day. Hence, we’ve reached a point where the average consumer also comprehensively ignores the vast majority of information they come across.
Unless, of course, the information comes courtesy of influencers. The appeal and authority of influencers translates to the kind of content that rarely goes overlooked or ignored. Consumers rarely listen to brands, consistently ignore marketers and have no time for sales spiel of any kind. But when experts in their field start talking, consumers instinctively listen. A great way of ensuring your message is heard.
5. Fresh, Unique Content
One of the biggest challenges facing the modern marketer is the production and delivery of fresh, relevant and unique content. Ideally, the kind of content that isn’t interpreted as marketing spiel and therefore largely ignored. Content produced by third parties is always welcome. Particularly if the third parties in question have a voice of authority and nothing but good things to say about your products and services.
For obvious reasons therefore, this is precisely where the value of influencer marketing comes into the equation. Influencer content has the potential to enrich and expand your primary content, ensure fresh content is regularly added to your pages and furthers your SEO strategy in the process. Guest posting is great, but posts, comments and recommendations provided by influencers hold unique power and appeal.
6. Organic Social Issues
Last but not least, many marketers are convinced that organic social is 100% dead in the water. Something of an exaggeration, but nonetheless built on somewhat troubling evidence. One example of which being the fact that the organic reach on Facebook has declined by 52% - other platforms not faring particularly well either. It’s not that the power and potential of social media has in any way diminished, it’s simply a case of approaching things from a different angle.
Whichever way you look at it, influencers have taken over social media and made it their own. Social media is the primary stamping ground of influencers, who in many cases have built fame and fortune without branching out anywhere else. If you can bring influence and marketing into your social media marketing strategy, you stand the best possible chance of making your voice heard and building a competitive edge. If not, you run the risk of being drowned out by the noise.