In a nutshell, influencer marketing is a specific type of marketing that focuses heavily on utilizing key industry leaders to convey a brand’s message to a sizable market. While traditional companies focus on reaching a target audience through direct means, marketing companies that employ an influencer-based approach either hire, pay or motivate influencers to spread the word about a brand, product or service to the general public — both online and offline.
Influencer Campaigns Thrive with Social Media, Content Marketing
Influencer marketing requires a couple of different types of marketing support to be successful. Almost every influencer campaign employs two additional advertising tactics: social media marketing and content marketing. Because most legitimate marketing companies should already have a solid grasp on both these areas (and if they don’t, you should seriously question their capabilities), incorporating influencer marketing tactics is more of a natural next step than it is a step in a different direction.
Influencer Marketing Isn’t Word-of-Mouth
Don’t be fooled; influencer campaigns are not the same as word-of-mouth campaigns, although the two can be (and are often) used interchangeably. Most marketing companies who employ influencer-heavy tactics almost certainly utilize word-of-mouth communication channels to spread positive information about particular brands, messaging and product popularity. How influencer campaigns differ, however, is that they designate a key person or correspondent to leverage their status, influence and connections to create buzz for a product, service or idea.
Using Influence, Connections and Status to Target Audiences
This type of non-traditional marketing uses a set of unique building blocks to create successful campaigns. Aside from identifying the initial influencers for the designated product, brand or service, influencer marketing goes one step further by creating a campaign that directly and aggressively targets specified audiences within an influencer’s direct reach. It’s essential for influencer campaigns to conclude with thorough, conclusive metrics tallying the reach and sales for the sum of the campaign. Based on how successful or unsuccessful this data may be, future influencer campaigns may change accordingly.
