Influencer marketing is a type of marketing that relies deeply on individuals (figures, accounts, etc.) to get your message across to specific audiences.
Rather than sending marketing messages directly to a general group of people, you would use influencers to send the word for you. Influencers have built quasi-personal relationships with their followers and can often achieve terrific results for brands. From the audience’s viewpoint, every post, regardless of whether it is sponsored or not, shows up as a support or validation of a specific product.
In particular, let’s say we’re starting an energy drink brand called Nado. Our target audience is active, young and fit people in LA, California. In theory, we could launch a Facebook campaign targeting this set of demographics, but we might be able to get more for our money with influencer marketing.
From our extensive analysis, we found out that Los Angeles, more so than most major cities in the United States, tends to gravitate towards the glamor, fitness and fame. We also learn that there are hundreds of LA-based influencers with followings over 1 million and thousands with followings between 100k to 1m.
So, we decided to work with five of the top influencers in the city, offering them $ 1k each to make an Instagram post drinking Nado energy drink, tagging our social channels, and offering them a personalized 20% off code to share with their audience.
Boom- the $ 5,000 we spent got us 150,000 new followers and sold $ 12,500 worth of Nado. Not only were we able to realize a healthy 2.5x RoAS, but we also boosted our own audience for pennies ($ 0.033 per follower.)
Influencer marketing is often intertwined with digital marketing strategies, like social media marketing and content marketing. To get the most out of influencer marketing, you need to make sure your brand’s social profiles are in the lead and your influencers need to have some content to provide (often created by the influencers themselves).