Marketing services/influencer marketing - quite a broad concept, including advertising campaigns and various works on strengthening the reputation or market analysis. Be that as it may, each of their options will be useful to almost any business, regardless of the stage of development or field of activity.
Influencer marketing can be done independently or choose a specialized influencer marketing agency. In this article we will tell you what kind of influencer marketing work there is, we will analyze their important indicators, and also talk about how to choose a good influencer marketing agency and make an agreement with it. The topics of relationship management, talent management, and influencer identification are also worth touching upon.
For example, InstaJet provides unique offers for an Instagram Influencer campaign. You can choose the one suitable for your task on this page.
What is influencer marketing?
The result of the service is also content creation services and the identification of key factors that influence the produced product - influencing both from within the company and from outside. Marketing today is inseparable from digital technology.
What are marketing services?
Interactive and targeting types of performance marketing have a common name - influencer marketing. Its essence is the application of digital technologies for the sake of pushing customers to buy goods and consume services offered by the company. The main task of performance marketing is to improve the brand image in the minds of potential customers and to stimulate sales in one way or another. The Internet is the main tool by which this problem is solved.
The term was coined in the 90s, but at the peak of its development, digital marketing has reached only in 2010, when its toolbox of influence on the consumer has greatly expanded.
And although before that time this name was not used and did not give a definition of the phenomenon, the first attempts at digital marketing took place in the 80s. One major automaker ran an advertising campaign in a magazine that simply stirred up the public. According to the terms of the campaign, anyone who will write a letter to the company received a floppy disk and a multimedia booklet, where the consumer is guaranteed free test drives of different cars.
Today, influencer marketing is at its peak. Every day at least 4.5 trillion advertising messages pass through the Internet, designed to boost sales. To successfully apply the tools of influencer marketing global campaigns of medium and large scale are actively researching consumer behavior in the online environment.
Influence marketing: what is it?
Influencer marketing is a modern tool, in which the target audience of the brand is addressed by social media influencers with industry insights, which consumers trust and which they listen to. Social networks (YouTube videos, Instagram posts, various competitions, reviews, etc.) are used for this purpose.
Such people are called social media influencers, they are divided into two categories. The first includes a popular celebrity, such as a singer or actor. The second category includes experts in a particular field who have sufficient influence in a particular niche, such as Dr. Komarovsky.
How does influencer marketing work?
First of all, it should be said that influencer marketing services refer more to image tools. With the help of social media influencers increase the reach of the target audience, ensuring its involvement. As a result - an increase in the number of loyal customers leads to an increase in sales.
There are several options for using influence marketing:
- ๐ Sending gifts. A certain celebrity is presented with a gift, which he if he wants, will talk about on social media platforms. This allows attention to a certain product, especially if it is new.
- ๐ Content creation services. For this, Instagram influencers are given samples of the product or service. After that, he chooses the format and direction of the content on his own (there may be negative ratings).
- ๐ Events. During any event, the relevant influencers are invited to cover the event. For example, the opening of a restaurant, the presentation of a new car, and the like.
- ๐ Sponsorship. On the rights of advertising, the relevant influencers place certain information, which is created or agreed with the sponsor. To make it less intrusive or blatant praise, it is better to resort to this method for the presentation of a new collection, product, or service.
- ๐ Ambassador. In this case, creative campaigns collaborate with social influencers, who are the face of the brand: creative content is published in the brand profile with the participation of this well-known person, she can hold live broadcasts, talk about products and services, and answer questions. Such collaboration is also used to announce promotions, and give away.
A striking example of such influencer marketing is relevant influencers, who use certain cosmetics to create an image, or travelers, who tell you that it is better to book accommodation through a certain website.
Influence marketing is actually based on two behavioral factors: the desire to imitate an idol (when, for example, a show business star says that she uses this face cream, then you should buy it for yourself), the trust in the expert (to buy these or those products that will help lose weight).
Classification of Members
Content marketing services are a whole arsenal of methods and techniques, and not all of them are costly. To make the customer aware of your company and come to you, use targeting and pulse advertising, mailing lists, and publications in the core media, hold sales and promotions, cooperate with distributors in your niche, and regularly post information on social media platforms.
Producer Companies
Produce their own creative content, and produce social influencers, mostly specializing in content creation. Sell placements both independently and through influencer marketing agencies. Core competencies: content creation, demanded audience, project, and persona promotion.
Influencer marketing agencies
Influencer marketing agencies plan and execute campaigns for advertisers and full-service agencies. Are in direct relationship with the persons, their agents, and production companies. Core competencies of full-service agencies: settlement and project management. Complementary competencies: creative and content production.
Blogger Exchanges
Systems for centralized recruiting of bloggers for uncomplicated tasks when a large number of participants have to be involved. Core competencies: personas selection, mutual payments, online statistics of an influencer marketing campaign by accounts (engagement, audience parameters), operative interaction directly with bloggers.
Seeding Systems
Automated systems for promotion and content creation. Used when it is necessary to attract a new audience to a video/channel. Influencer platforms and social media presence - market ecosystem. Social networks and other platforms within which Instagram influencers work.
Seeding in communities is the most effective social media marketing tool to generate web traffic to your resources. When a person has a problem - he starts looking for information about it on the Internet. The search leads him to the thematic communities on social media platforms.
- ๐ Viral nation. Viral nation easily creates effective TikTok influencer marketing solutions for brands and influencers, from influencer management to influencer marketing.
- ๐ Hireinfluence - influencer agency. Influencer marketing activities with brands to ensure their presence among the most influential Instagram influencer in a specific niche, category, or audience.
- ๐ Stargazer - a leading influencer agency dedicated to influencing how people think, feel, and act
- ๐ Ubiquitous - a New York-based influencer agency that connects brands with social media influencers. The company's services range from strategy to implementation and include the opportunity to become an influencer yourself.
- ๐ The influencer marketing factory is a full-service influencer agency in London.
- ๐ Americanoize is a leading influencer agency specializing in the global fashion and beauty space.
- ๐ Moburst is an influencer agency. Influencer agencies focus on delivering unique and effective campaigns for clients while providing high-quality, client-focused Instagram influencer services.
Decide on an influencer marketing campaign
In and of itself, it doesn't matter how much a product costs. What matters is that the customer recognizes that price as fair and understands what they are paying their money for. Influencer marketing campaigns aim to set the price within the average rate for their niche, taking into account the ability of customers to pay.
The interests of a particular segment of consumers in the influencer marketing campaign determine the figure on the price tag, and the justification of its advertising. This can be a guarantee of high quality, economy, or, conversely, elitism at the expense of high value. In addition, market research allows us to choose the best sales promotion methods for a particular situation (free testers, promotions).
Setting up sales
Knowing your target audience will help you understand where your customers are. The task of Instagram influencer marketing is ultimately to make the customer comfortable and eager to buy products - more and more often. Social media platforms are a phenomenon of today's internet - the key difference is that people are on them for hours (if not all the time). Hence the simple idea: if your customers are online, why aren't your products there?
Brand Community
The first step to take within social media platforms is to create your brand community - a representation of your creative campaigns on the web. In essence, Instagram influencer marketing will, on the one hand, serve as your website within the social media channels and on the other hand will be unique and controlled only by your interactive and personal communication channel or search engine optimization.
All members of your community will automatically see the newly published materials in the community in their news feeds, through the community people can chat with your managers or bots, in social media platforms you will be able to conduct polls, integrate services to collect feedback about the company and services to order products.
Promotion
The second step is the maintenance and promotion of your branded community with the help of social media marketing. Maintenance - this is a regular, planned period of time publication of a unique, attractively designed, and interesting participants' content, in accordance with the initially approved content plan. Promotion is a constantly going social media marketing of your community having the purpose to increase the number of participants.
The final goal of the actions described above is to get your own communication channel, a "pocket media" in the form of a branded community, with a unique audience, to which you will make repeated sales for years.
Seeding and Influencer Agents
Influencer marketing agencies are a modern way to create an online information field of a certain tone. Thousands of specially created and implemented community accounts publish pre-conceived scripts in accordance with the tasks of influencer management, for example, to increase brand awareness, reduce the level of negativity, disorient competitors, and so on.
There are thousands of communities that you can start seeding in networks on any topic, however, it makes sense to create (or better to buy) influencer management - because you have to constantly pay for publications in other communities, developing your own communities you will create your own unique digital asset where only you and nobody else can advertise.
Proprietary analytics platform
In order to start promoting, it's necessary first of all to analyze the specifics of your business and study the target audience. These two points are worked out in detail later, already at the stage of formation of optimal strategy for your target audience, but there are tasks, which should be done at the stage of preliminary analysis:
- ๐ Study the peculiarities of the advertising environment and the behavior of your competitors. This is especially important for firms entering new markets.
- ๐ To analyze the data on the previous marketing strategies: the progress of their work, the distribution of funds, and the mistakes made.
- ๐ Look at the statistics on marketing channels. It is necessary to have access to all advertising offices in order to get information on previous launches. In addition, you can assess the profitability of pr-advertisements.
- ๐ Evaluate the cumulative effect of the whole micro-influencer marketing complex in past reporting periods: find out the effectiveness of each channel and select those where the campaign should be relaunched.
Word of mouth
The fourth step is word of mouth, that is, paraphrasing the product or service. The mechanism of the advertising campaign is quite simple and consists of three main stages: the creation of advertising materials, information campaign among the target audience, and "launch" of viral effect.
The main advantages of word-of-mouth radio:
- ๐ High speed of dissemination of information from relevant influencers. The current functionality of social networks and sites with integrated "social buttons" allows the user to tell his friends about a product or service he likes literally in one click.
- ๐ Properly designed viral influencer marketing work not only significantly increases brand awareness, but also saves money on promotion: in fact, only yesterday the company paid money for each view or click to the site, but today the same result is achieved by users who distribute advertising materials they like.
Manage influencers
Even a small conflict between a customer and an employee of a company, somewhere in the regional office can lead to a real scandal that casts a shadow on the entire business. Needless to say, what a scandal can be blown up, for little money.
Reputation management and attracting influencers
Online reputation management is the purposeful work of specialists which is called to form a positive opinion about a brand among a wide audience.
The main stages of reputation building:
- ๐ Outreach work of a marketing agency. Dozens of thousands of articles, reviews, favorable video reviews, and product video reviews in blogs, forums, in social networks, where interesting and positive information about the product, company life, and people who create and promote the product is given. This is done as an alternative point of view, which will be in a huge network at the moment of throwing in negative information. Pr of the company on the Internet: the publication of announcements, articles in the media, blogs, and other resources.
- ๐ The work of a marketing agency with the audience or feedback. In order to form an opinion, it's necessary to control the audience: to monitor the mood, and complaints, encourage positive reactions, thank them for their activity, and do it publicly, so users can feel feedback from the company and the active participation of the company representatives in all processes.
What areas of business require marketing services?
All entrepreneurs without exception use influencer marketing and marketing agency technologies in one way or another (not always realizing it). This is why the question of whether a business needs a marketing agency is being replaced by a more pressing one: how many and which marketing agency services do a business need and how to effectively integrate them with sales.
These are questions of the utmost importance since it is marketing that is the toolkit for ensuring that commerce or production thrives. The more marketing efforts are made, the higher the economic performance of the enterprise. The better the pricing and assortment policy is thought out, the more profit the company can make.
Therefore, it is safe to answer such questions, that the business definitely needs marketing, because they are inextricably linked.
By the way, marketing is also a way to accumulate expertise and experience, which are also significant intangible assets. When competitors compete, as a rule, the more experienced firm, based on the laws of the market, wins. Even if the opponent invests more money. That's a strong case for accumulation, reflection, and retention of results, isn't it?
How does an advertiser look for Instagram influencers?
Today's influencer marketing marketplace consists of advertisers, micro-influencers themselves, and their audiences. In addition, a layer of intermediaries and services has formed that make it easier for advertisers to find and interact with Instagram influencers.
Among such intermediaries, three groups can be distinguished:
๐ Marketing agency. Over a thousand influencers work specifically through these influencer marketing activities. Top influencer marketing agencies enter into exclusive contracts with the micro-influencer, so you can hardly negotiate the placement directly. At the same time, the top influencer marketing agency takes on the development of the advertising campaign and contacts with an Instagram influencer. As a rule, marketing agencies work for a decent commission from the budget - from 15 to 300%. Leading influencer marketing agencies are suitable for brands that find it beneficial to outsource the development and implementation of the campaign completely to a contractor.
๐ Blogger Exchanges. These are online influencer platforms for working with bloggers. As a rule, there is a directory with search and filters, analytics on the accounts of each blogger, the possibility of secure deals, and other functionality to facilitate search and cooperation. Useful for small and medium-sized companies that plan to work with several bloggers at once, as well as other customers who want to make working with bloggers as easy as possible without overpaying the agency.
๐ Blogger directories. Just lists of bloggers, sometimes with filters, but without any other functionality to work with. As a rule, they are free and are suitable when you only need to find a couple of bloggers for a one-time placement, without wasting time comparing and analyzing them.
Influencer marketing factory
After finding the right micro-influencer, defining clear goals, and agreeing on the necessary content format, you need to determine specific metrics to measure the results of the Instagram influencers campaign you're launching. These metrics will help you stay on track and influence the success of the chosen strategy development for the micro-influencer as a whole.
Key points of Instagram influencer marketing
The influencer marketing factory takes care of all the important issues to make sure the campaign is successful. However, the advertiser clearly knows his product much better than any intermediary. And this is where the agency needs help - it needs all the information: why people use the product/service, what the key message of the campaign is, what kinds of utilities exist, etc.
Promo Codes/Trials
If global brands can give the audience promo codes/trials or bloggers can be given some promotional material with Instagram influencer marketing, this will help make the campaign more effective. The audience trusts the Instagram influencer agency only if he is convincing enough. Therefore, it is important to help him understand the product, provide a trial, sample, etc.
In addition, it is very important to get information about brand policies and restrictions. For some companies, it is crucial to avoid any foul language or political topics in the influencer campaign. Other brands want to be as natty and close to the people as possible, so they are loyal to all types of speech.
Choosing influencers
Using all of this influencer campaign data, we are more likely to find the most appropriate influencers or influencer agencies and be able to inform them in detail. At the same time, influencer marketing agencies have impressive experience with Instagram influencer agencies and are always interested in the best results of the influencer campaign. Thus, their credibility and willingness to follow recommendations greatly empower the influencer marketing agencies and help to achieve a better effect.
Indicators help to measure the results of an influencer campaign
It depends on the brand and the ultimate goal of the campaign. Influencer campaigns can be divided into two types: performance (focus on a specific action in influencer marketing campaigns) and image-based influencer marketing campaigns (increasing brand awareness). To measure the effectiveness of successful influencer marketing campaigns usually use different metrics. Let's look at them separately.
Performance influencer marketing campaigns are usually launched in order to get certain actions from the user (for example, installation, registration, etc.). To measure the effectiveness of influencer marketing agencies, it is worth paying attention to the metrics that show you the value of these or intermediate actions of marketing agencies:
1) The first and most basic metric for influencer marketing campaigns is CPM (cost per mile). The more users see the video/publication, the lower the price per thousand impressions will be, and there is a high probability that you will get more targeted actions.
2) The second metric to be aware of is CPC (cost per click). In this case, the more people are interested in the ad by clicking on it, the more effective it is.
3) After checking the CPC level, we need to pay attention to cr (conversion rate). To measure it, we divide the number of clicks by the number of targeted actions of marketing agencies (for example, the number of installations, orders, etc.).
4) Cpi (cost per install) or CPA (cost per action). Here you pay attention to the number of installations of marketing agencies or actions, respectively.
5) And finally, the most important indicator - ROI (return of investment). It is very important that it remains positive, this means you are on the right track. If not, you better choose another strategy development.
Brand recognition helps the audience feel comfortable with its products/services. It's much easier to engage your target audience when people already know your brand. And that's fine if the first association with the product/service is your company name.
The benefits of influencer mar keting for businesses
It should be noted that influencer marketing services work mainly in the market of marketing agencies because this is where there is more emotion among the decision-making factors, as well as trust in "other people's" thoughts. It is not a good idea to sell pipes or raw materials in this way.
What formats of advertising do influencers offer?
The choice of formats depends on the platform on which you are going to place it. On youtube, the best-established formats are:
- ๐ Preroll. This is a 10-15 seconds splash screen before the clip itself authentic influencers. Usually, this is the place to advertise on youtube. But the blogger can record a video himself, voice it and insert it at the beginning of his video. The effect of advertising from influencer marketing services will, understandably, depend on the creativity of the influencers, the quality of the video, and many other factors, but this approach guarantees very high views preroll.
- ๐ A review of a product or service. The entire video from micro-influencers (or a significant part of it) is devoted to the study of the product - the pros, cons, comparison with peers, and the experience of operation. Honest review of micro-influencers generates loyalty and trust in buyers.
- ๐ Integration. Here micro-influencers natively "embed" product advertising in their content, without any emphasis on advertising content. Quality integration of micro-influencers today is one of the most effective advertising formats.
- ๐ Special Projects. In this case, the content creation of the blogger is branded by the advertiser, or the advertiser pays the blogger's expenses for its production. For example, one day the blogger becomes a cab driver of the advertised cab ordering service.
This way the audience can see from the inside the quality of the processes, the relationship between the dispatchers and the cab driver, and why cab drivers are sometimes so delayed. However, this should not be confused with a review of the service - in a review micro-influencer would not be a cab driver, but a passenger in one or more cabs to share their impressions.
Instagram formats
On Instagram, the basic formats are somewhat different. The most common ones used here are:
- ๐ An Instagram influencer agency review of a product or service. Similar to youtube, the blogger shows the product and in the description shares impressions of its use. The review can be in the post, in the story, as a text or video review.
- ๐ Integration (or product placement). This is more native advertising, such as a blogger talking about a cool sunblock while on vacation at the sea, as if by accident.
- ๐ A contest during which prizes provided by the advertiser are used. Or, as an alternative, one of the conditions for participation in the contest becomes a subscription to the advertiser's account or performance of some other agreed actions.
Among the advantages of the advertising marketing can be highlighted:
- ๐ Accessibility. Previously, only large companies with growth marketing could influence the target audience. Now, even a small regional company can afford to cooperate with an Instagram influencer marketing agency with 10,000 subscribers.
- ๐ The degree of confidence in the materials of influencer agents is 63-65% higher than in classic advertising. Thus more than 92 % of network users listen to the responses, and recommendations of other people, making a choice before purchase.
- ๐ Higher efficiency. When analyzing the use of this tool, it was found that almost 40% more customers decide to make a purchase of a product or service based on the recommendations of bloggers. At the same time, every $1 investment generates up to $6.5 in profits.
- ๐ The constant growth of the influence of the Internet, and the number of bloggers. The number of those who watch TV annually decreases by 9,5%, this audience goes to social networks, where they learn even the news.
A few words about the negative sides of influence marketing
This is a really effective tool with lots of possibilities and manifestations. But it also has certain negative aspects, which should be considered when planning marketing agencies and developing creative strategies.
Among them, the most important are:
- ๐ Finding influencer marketing agencies and micro-influencer and communicating with them. Among a large number of different influencer agencies, it is quite difficult to choose the one that is best suited for the campaign to promote products or services. Also, there are no digital marketing statistics available to help you make the right choice.
- ๐ The number of subscribers and fame of the person affect the cost of cooperation with the influencer agencies. Stars of show business for one post in their own social network account can demand several thousand dollars, which is unacceptable for the majority of medium and small companies.
- ๐ Unpredictability of results. Unlike traditional advertising channels, there is almost no data to analyze and predict. It's also impossible to predict what the impact on the target audience will be because any negativity on a person automatically translates to everything they do or say. There are even more risks when the blogger is the content creator himself - he can provide negative feedback if he really doesn't like the product or service.
But despite this, the use of influencer marketing is on a positive upward trend. The largest influencer agencies with world-renowned names are increasing their budgets to attract Instagram influencers, reducing spending on other promotion channels. Influencer relationships are different everywhere, but you should not neglect the services of an influencer marketing agency.
Questions to answer
Do Instagram influencers have agents?
Influencer marketing agencies provide a service to all brands that want to partner with influencers on Instagram.
How much does an influencer agency cost?
On average, influencer marketing agencies range in price from $1,000 to $18,000 per month.
How to start working with an influential agency?
You can explore unique offers from InstaJet, Influencer platform, and choose a more suitable offer for your task.
