People are now expecting to look at faces and not brands. They want brands to connect with them and entertain them in ways more than one, and not treat them as money generating folk. The entire ‘sales’ paradigm is becoming more and more obsolete as the days pass by. Advertising is like an unsung hero these days.
Everybody knows it’s there, everybody knows it’s well and truly alive and how, all marketing managers are flocking towards it, all that matters is the gravity with which it is being tapped. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows when it comes to the advertising and marketing sector. Given the ever increasing competition and the fact that new players are entering the sector on a daily basis, evolution is the key here!
Having said all that, the top 2 requirements for any brand are brand building and visibility. This is where influencers enter the fray. Ever heard of customer seduction? Well, it is the current buzzword in the marketing segment, especially on the lines of digital marketing. Brands these days are partnering up with eminent personalities to seduce the targeted clientele and nullify the frantic competition.
Social media isn’t just an alternative concept anymore; it’s the only thing, the only thing that matters. If you don’t have an online face, your business simply doesn’t exist. No offense!
- The Power of Brand Building:
Arguably ‘word-of-mouth’ is still the biggest sales driving factor in the entire world – ahead of paid advertising, social media marketing and many others. A recent study conducted by the international juggernaut McKinsey stated that the concept of word-of-mouth generated so much as double the numbers generated from paid ads. Moreover, the latter also generated a higher retention rate by no less than 37 percent. And when this concept is under the microscope, having influencers around doesn’t hurt, does it?
- Everybody Talks About it:
Do you even remember the name of the brand which brought in Aamir Khan for their ads? Me neither! Truth be told, Snapdeal was the one who were big enough to get his signature, a feat which hasn’t been achieved by anybody in the past 2 decades of his stardom. That’s the power an influencer brings with him. All credibility issues are laid to rest. People might not be talking about brand names per se but they’d definitely be talking about that particular star which they saw on their TV sets.
- An Arbitrage Is Coming:
For those who don’t know, an arbitrage is induced when a product sells for a lesser value than its worth. You will get bundles of discounts as what you get is much lesser than the market price of the product. Also, the difference between the real value and the market price is what your profit is all about.
Just to make things clear, when Facebook came up with its ad network at first, business managers earned massive ROIs as there were no competitors for those ad spaces in the first place. And then we all know about Facebook’s boom don’t we? This popularity surge drove up the prices by 335 percent in 2014 which obviously turned backed the ROIs. And hence, the arbitrage shut down. In the same manner, influencer marketing is currently facing an arbitrage. The supply of influencers is gigantic, but not many are tapping it.
Influencer Marketing
- It Is A Modern Alternative To Paid Advertising:
People are well and truly tired of paid ads. Every John Doe comes up with his very own banner displaying several products and a range of discounts. No one wants to see that anymore! For instance, remember how our Facebook news feeds used to be just about us and our close people? Now, all of that has been disrupted by ads on every single page, there is no escape whatsoever. There’s a phenomenon known as banner blindness, which states that due to the fact that we’ve seen umpteen ads now, we’ve become blind to all the banners that show up; you might be looking at the images but you wouldn’t know what the brand was promoting. No wonder ad blocking platforms are gaining pace now.
- Boosts Your SEO Prowess
Apart from brand building and indirectly boosting up sales, influencer marketing also optimizes your SEO quotient. SEO or Search Engine Optimization as it stands is deemed as optimizing your business on the lines of search engines. And according to a recent study, customer engagements which are user generated amassed no less than 25 percent search results for the world’s top 20 brands. It is a directly proportional link – the more people talk about your brand through social media; the more relevant you will become on Google and other search engines. And when will people talk about you? When they see someone they’re passionate about connected with your brand as an influencer.
After all that has been said and done, you don’t need a celebrity per se to indulge in influencer marketing. Any personality who has a large following on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram or YouTube can now take centre stage and trigger their followers to make healthy purchases based on a certain common interest. Ergo, influencer marketing is clearly a buzzword in the industry today.
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