Starting a new online business but seeing no growth?
Many small businesses are struggling to expand and build their online presence.
A common mistake is using outdated methods for driving traffic to your website. The thing is, many businesses aren’t aware of the most effective methods to do so.
That being said, promoting growth and driving traffic to your business can be achieved using something particularly effective – influencer marketing.
Influencer marketing benefits your business in more ways than just one. Read on to see just how many influencer marketing benefits there are and how they can help you reach your online goals.
First off, What is Influencer Marketing?
Simply put, influencer marketing is a type of social media marketing and is one of the most effective strategies. Influencer marketing consists of an influencer advertising a product or service and affirming the said product or service.
As Werner Geyser said on Influencer Marketing Hub,
«An influencer is someone who has:
- The power to affect the purchasing decisions of others because of his or her authority, knowledge, position, or relationship with his or her audience.
- A following in a distinct niche with whom he or she actively engages. The size of the following depends on the size of his/her topic of the niche.»
So, the influencer marketing strategy uses influencers to drive traffic to your and the influencer’s target audience.
Influencers create content in a specific niche, and their audience can be moved to your business with a social media post.
You could say that influencer marketing is somewhat similar to word-of-mouth recommendations. These recommendations work rather well – 8 out of 10 people have bought something an influencer recommended. However, the influencer’s influence can do much more for your business.
Besides boosting sales, the influencer can increase your brand’s awareness and open the door for new products you wish to launch.
Some businesses even rely solely on influencer marketing to boost their sales. The key point is – 93% of marketers use influencer marketing to increase sales. However, we feel that influencer marketing works best if it’s a part of your entire marketing campaign that contains other strategies.
Benefits of Influencer Marketing
Now that we’ve established what influencer marketing is, it’s time to discuss something important:
How can influencer marketing help my business?
This is where it gets interesting – this form of social media marketing can help you achieve many of your goals.
Influencer marketing is incredibly effective in increasing your business’s online presence.
For example Nykaa had about three million reach within 48 hours from influencers.
That is why we have compiled a list of all the key benefits of influencer marketing to let you know why you need it as a part of your growth and promotion strategy.
An analysis from Quicksprout proved that social media interactions could, indirectly or directly, enhance SEO signals. As you engage with new social communities, there is an opportunity for you to get additional followers and interactions, which will lead to additional organic traffic, backlinks, and other metrics that progress SEO.
Generally, creating more and more content through influencer marketing will give you more chances to rank your brand higher in Google search results.
Improves the Website's SEO
Search engine optimization is perhaps the principal part of boosting your brand. With good SEO, your visibility on search engines increases, and people are more likely to come across your website.
So, how does influencer marketing improve a website’s performance?
Influencer marketing has a direct and an indirect effect on search engine optimization. Most influencers have a large following, which can be driven to your website with the link in the post, directly affecting how your website ranks.
Also, adding the link into the post will make it more optimized, as it’s one of the most important criteria, so it indirectly affects how your website performs. On top of that, quality backlinks will drive traffic to your website and increase brand awareness.
Quicksprout analysis showed that social media could enhance how your website ranks with a new engagement. With influencer marketing, your brand is exposed to new communities, and with them comes the organic growth of your social media and website visitors.
Improves the Conversion Rate
Conversion rate is one of the most important metrics for building small businesses, and influencer marketing can significantly benefit that rate. Research shows that every dollar spent on product endorsement returns $18 to the company.
The right influencer can impact the purchase decisions of their followers – 40% of the survey participants have purchased something after they saw an influencer use a specific product.
That shows how much the audience trusts the said influencer and their opinion. Influencer marketing can do so much for your sales funnel and make a real difference in your growth.
Brings Leads
Partnering with an influencer in your niche presents an opportunity to reach millions of potential customers. Many influencer post viewers will click on your business’s profile and increase your social media presence.
Various complex ads and heavy product promotions are considered outdated, as they deliver the same result as social media marketing efforts. The only difference is – influencer marketing costs much less.
What is the best way to reach a targeted audience now?
When you collaborate with an influencer, they will work your products into their brand and usual style, making it seem light and effortless, as if they tried the product out of their intent and loved it.
«With social media overloaded with commercials and ads of all kinds, word-of-mouth marketing such as an influencer endorsement increases the number of visitors to your website organically,» says Serg Aspidoff, Founder & CEO of Shoutcart.
It does a good job of boosting sales and much better brand recognition.
Helps Your Content Strategy
Creating enticing, follower-attracting content is hard work, and it can be an impossible mission for startup brands. It can be a straight-out challenge to attract highly-engaged audiences when you can’t make great content – all the time.
Luckily, this is where the right influencers come in.
You can use influencer-created content for your brand when you don’t have any more new ideas. Influencer marketing is an easy way to fill the gaps in your content plan without needing to hire more content writers.
Even micro-influencers know how to attract internet users and keep their following engaged with quality content.
Content distribution is a vital part of a digital marketing strategy. When you are having trouble creating exciting content, that means it’s time for a collaboration with a relevant influencer.
Builds Trust and Authority
All social users have a favorite influencer, and the influencers try to build strong relationships with their followers to boost their engagement rate – which is especially important for micro-influencers. They build those relationships with their audience and only present genuine recommendations.
«Selling anything requires trust and there is no quicker route to trust than having it passed to you from someone who already has it. This is why the value of influencer marketing cannot be overstated.” says Nate McCallister, founder of EntreResource.
People trust influencers and value their opinion. Because of that relationship, the sponsored content to promote products doesn’t feel like an ad, which drives more people to your small business.
Raises Brand Awareness
A crucial part of business growth is improving your market position. Influencer marketing can introduce your brand to your target audience by telling them about your story and your products.
Improving brand awareness is one of the vital benefits influencer marketing can bring to your business. As it increases, it expands your company’s reach and takes your business to a whole new level.
Influencer Marketing is Cost-Effective
Growing your business can cost a lot of money. When your business is still in the works, every cent matters, but it’s important to remember the age-old quote:
You have to spend money to make money.
Luckily, influencer marketing is one of those budget-friendly strategies. Despite being more affordable than most marketing strategies, it’s still as effective as other methods – if not more. Paid ads do not get the attention an influencer’s post does. On average, brands earn $5.78 for every dollar spent on influencer marketing.
What’s more – you should consider collaborating with a micro-influencer. They might not have the follower count of a world-known influencer, but their engagement rate is through the roof. Their market share used to be 89% in 2020, but it grew to 91% in 2021.
Provides Social Proof
Nowadays, people won’t purchase something just because of a flashy ad or an enticing TV commercial. Someone has to try it first and tell you all about it – influencer marketing bridges that gap perfectly.
Content created by influencers gives away an impression of a genuine recommendation – and that does an amazing job of increasing your brand’s reach. However, that’s not the only thing – it provides social proof of how great your product is.
Branded content proves to loyal followers that an influencer loved your product – and they will too. It’s the essence of the influencer-marketing industry – promoting products while simply talking about their experience with them.
Final Thoughts
Now that you know all the benefits of influencer marketing, it’s high time you used it to your advantage. Soon enough, you will see how much small businesses have improved with a good influencer marketing plan and how leveraging an influencer marketing platform can help take your strategy to the next level!
Next up, it’s time to collaborate with the right influencers. Find a relevant influencer and contact them about a collaboration. If you’re not sure exactly where to begin, check who your competitors are working with and check the competitors of those influencers. Happy hunting!
