Trust is paid for. And now, people are more willing to pay influencers.
What will be discussed
- Influencer—closer to the people
- Features of influencer marketing
- Influencer VS Blogger
- Classification of influencers
- Audience size of influencers
- Business niches and the impact of bloggers
- Channels of access to followers
- Virtual influencers
- Social influencer
- Working with influencers
- Engagement
- What to consider when working with influencers?
- How to track the effectiveness of working with influencers
- How to calculate CAC—customer acquisition cost
- Payment formats to influencers
- Common mistakes in working with influencers
- Useful tips for working with influencers
- Conclusions
Influencer—closer to people
To attract attention on social networks to a brand, you can do it through a live festival. That’s what Nikon did by giving cameras to the most influential people. The Japanese corporation’s team invited celebrities to the Warner Sound Festival music festival. Influencers documented their experience participating in the event and posted emotional photos on their pages.
This is an example of how influencer marketing sells through a person. Personal recommendations from influential people work better when you need to present a product or service. Let’s delve into the nuances of influencer marketing that work in practice.
Features of influencer marketing
Nativity
Advertising content is very organically integrated into the blog’s theme and is useful to the audience.
Targeting
If you successfully choose an influencer, you can engage an audience that is maximally interested in discussing the product or service.
Live traffic
It can be redirected to the website or the business owner’s personal account.
Feedback
The audience’s reaction is visible in the influencer’s account, which means emotions are monetized in numbers.
The goal of influencer marketing is to enlighten, entertain, and engage, increasing reach and traffic. Unlike traditional advertising, which bluntly hits the mark, influencer marketing can generate 11 times better return on investment.
Influence marketing helps solve business tasks and build relationships with subscribers, as well as:
- introduce a new product to the audience,
- demonstrate the product’s capabilities,
- increase trust in the company,
- address objections,
- increase sales.
Influencer VS Blogger
A blogger is not equal to an influencer. These concepts are often confused with each other. Bloggers’ social pages most often resemble a life chronicle without a specific theme. The number of subscribers can be off the charts, and this is an indicator of the audience’s purchasing power.
Influencers, on the other hand, are the ones who set trends in a specific area. They may have fewer followers, but such an audience is more likely to respond to the influencer’s suggestions. Nutritionists, journalists, doctors, pastry chefs, photographers—the professions of influential people can vary. They are experts who specialize in a specific topic. That’s why their opinions are trusted by thousands and millions.
Classification of influencers
Influencers are categorized based on their type of activity, audience size, niches, and platforms of influence. Forbes magazine classifies thought leaders into these six types of activities.
Celebrities or Celebrities
Famous people who are widely known. People want to get closer and observe them while they are at the peak of fame. The example of actress Jennifer Aniston is illustrative—it took a record 5 hours and 16 minutes from her appearance on Instagram to her first million followers.
Journalists
Thanks to quality content and the influence of the publication, such thought leaders quickly win the sympathy of their followers. Examples of famous TV journalists include Larry King, Oprah Winfrey.
Experts
Experts may have a small audience, but it will steadily grow thanks to the influencer’s specialization. Marketing expert Neil Patel blogs on Instagram and YouTube. The content is geared towards newbies who want to learn marketing.
Brand Influencers
A thought leader with a bright public image. He or she can be associated with a certain company or personal image. Such influencers usually write about their work, not trying to attract subscribers. The target audience comes for the name.
Analysts
This thought leader often represents a certain industry or a specific company and makes predictions or analyzes situations, for example, in the economy. He develops his name. And if he leaves his position, he will be quickly forgotten.
The Web Person
Or network person. Usually acts as a mediator. This influential person has many contacts from different fields. He quickly helps find partners or employees for each other. Among them are often journalists who communicate with people from various fields.
Audience size of influencers
The number of followers also matters. A thought leader can have from 1,000 followers to several million. Therefore, they are distinguished by micro-, macro-, and mega-levels.
Micro-Influencers
They are favored by 1,000 to 40,000 followers. Beginner actors or experts who are just starting to emerge at the online level typically fall into the micro-influencers category. They have a lively and active audience with a high degree of trust.
Macro-Influencers
They have 40,000 subscribers to one million. This category includes stars who have not reached the peak of popularity and niche experts who, due to their chosen topics, do not seek wide coverage.
Mega-Influencers
Typically, they gain popularity offline. These are athletes, show stars, actors. There are also those who gather over one hundred million thanks to active online promotion.
Business Niches and the Influence of Bloggers
Unnoticed by themselves, every follower gets involved in the topic broadcasted by the thought leader. And this can be any business niche. Here are just a few influencers by niche:
- Auto;
- Beauty;
- Gaming;
- Cinema;
- Coaching;
- Lifestyle;
- Travel;
- Fitness/Sport/Healthy Lifestyle/Nutrition;
- Food;
- Fashion-influencer and others.
Access Channels to Followers
Instagram and YouTube are the two most popular platforms for promotion. YouTube is more popular globally, with daily visitors reaching 600 million. Instagram, favored for its visual content, sees daily active users ranging from 450 to 500 million. There’s plenty of room to make an impact, right?
Virtual Influencers
Not only real individuals but also artificial intelligence is now promoting global brands. Companies like the American fast-food chain KFC, the Italian platform for exclusive items from prestigious world designers Yoox, and the French fashion house Balmain are utilizing illustrated characters.
Digital influencers are the product of entire studios’ work
3D artists and animators create new characters using computer graphics. These characters give concerts, participate in fashion shows, and are active on social media. The team’s efforts are well worth it. For example, pop idol singer Hatsune Miku can gather $300,000 from a single concert. Her voice is synthesized by the Vocaloid program created by Yamaha Corporation.
The composite image of virtual influencers is popular among youth aged 13 to 17 years. Characters are transmedia—several stories involving them unfold across different media platforms: websites, TV, social networks, etc. Moreover, virtual influencers easily collaborate with real individuals and manage to appear in relevant events.
Social Influencer
Social influencers might also be called brand ambassadors. An American basketball player, collaborating with Nike, not only wore sports clothing and shoes. The athlete helped create a subscriber community for the famous company. The Nike brand united hashtags, and now community members can post their photos and express their involvement with the community. Impressively, 5000 photos are posted daily under the hashtag #nikerunning.
Social influencers can be among the authors of communities on specific topics, such as eco-themes or recycling. Businesses operating in this area can look to such communities to promote their products or services.
Working with influencers
Working with influencers involves various interaction formats between businesses and influencers.
Native product advertising
This technique is often used in movies. When a character in the frame eats or drinks a product from a well-known brand. This type of advertising works best when the influencer’s lifestyle and values align with those of the company.
Native advertising is more effective than direct advertising. Statistics show that from 2016 to 2023, investments in influencer marketing grew from $1.7 billion to $9.7 billion. Subscribers are more receptive to native advertising because they resonate with the influencer’s lifestyle, shared values, and tastes.
Direct advertising
Influencers have a warm audience that trusts them. Therefore, direct advertising to followers of an influencer will work better than targeting a cold and unfamiliar audience.
Influencers should avoid frequently selling to their subscribers, as this can decrease their popularity.
The advertising of a product or service should align with the values and themes promoted by the influencer.
Brand Ambassador
A person who represents a brand’s interests and protects its reputation over a long period is a brand ambassador. They often use the product or service themselves.
The main task of a brand is to introduce the product into the lifestyle of the influencer’s followers through recommendations. Moreover, under contract, the influencer not only demonstrates their allegiance to the company in public but also uses the product or service in their daily life. For example, since 2021, Charlotte Casiraghi, the first lady of the Principality of Monaco, has been a brand ambassador for Chanel.
Blogging
This communication style with the audience is something in between a blog, where you express your opinion, and a glossy magazine—with its own presentation and formatting style. Blogging is an electronic diary. The platform can be anything: Instagram, Youtube, etc.
Guest Posts
Inviting stars to your blog or account is the best way to expand your audience. Influencers can invite celebrities who are somehow related to their theme. The goal of a guest post is to showcase the guest’s expertise and create a “viral” wave.
It’s important to research:
- On which platforms competitors most often write guest posts;
- What trends are declared in the themes;
- How practical the presented information is for use;
- Which headlines caused a stir
To make the guest post really work, it’s important to consider how its publication will affect your reputation. A beginner’s mistake is to direct the audience from the guest post to the homepage of the site via a link. This is a taboo. Trust will be lost immediately. In the comments under the post, you can start a discussion. For this, it’s worth monitoring the appearance of new comments in the service—Google Alerts.
Attention to Engagement
To avoid wasting your advertising budget, it’s important to pay attention to audience engagement. The simplest way is to look at the ratio of the number of followers to comments under posts. Here are a few more effective recommendations:
- for promoting your business, choose an influencer with a similar audience. Then targeted advertising will work better;
- collaborate with micro-influencers. Especially if you have a small company, there’s no need to aim for friendship with stars;
- try influencer exchanges. Look for those who are already open to partnerships. Explore the offers of services.
What else should be considered when working with influencers?
Prepare a detailed technical task
It’s crucial to convey to the influencer exactly what you want from the advertisement and how it should look. The text should contain the exact name of the service or your company.
Consider risks
Unreliable bloggers may “disappear”—taking the money without delivering results. Think ahead about what amount of loss would be non-critical for you.
Create a reserve
A blogger may unexpectedly increase their advertising rate. If they consider the time and effort that need to be invested in your partnership, then a price increase is common. You should be prepared to pay extra to ensure the advertisement goes live.
Maintain boundaries and do not tolerate rudeness
Some bloggers, due to their popularity, may lose their sense of respect. Rudeness, coarse expressions, and yelling are behaviors that can emerge during discussions of conflicting interests. The best solution would be to have prepared responses that you’ve thought through in advance.
Do not collaborate with those who cannot reach an agreement
Immediately filter out unreasonable representatives. Spend your energy searching for productive influencers. There are plenty of thought leaders ready to collaborate with a loyal audience.
When choosing an influencer, evaluate several parameters at once. Followers are important, but the engagement rate and the geography of visitors are more crucial.
Before reaching out, follow the influencer yourself and see what is being discussed on their profile.
Prepare a list of deal-breakers before researching, and if something seems off from the start, it’s likely to get worse, so move on to the next blogger. Ideally, the influencer should specialize in your field: for instance, a car dealership shouldn’t order advertising from a photographer.
How to track the effectiveness of working with influencers
An influencer marketer is a specialist who works with thought leaders and brands. They act as a mediator and negotiate with bloggers about advertising a product or service. Their main task is to find a promotion platform that yields results. For this, preliminary analytical work is necessary.
To calculate the success of advertising, marketers use UTM tags.
These tools help to find out from which platforms visitors came and how they behave on the site. UTM tags are used to request a report in Google Analytics.
Useful tools for gathering information include:
- Amazon Associates for tracking clicks and purchases;
- Fohr Card, a platform for managing ambassadors;
- SocialBlade, a resource that tracks social media statistics: YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and others.
To assess the results of each channel, marketers need to set up reports in Google Analytics (GA). Otherwise, how to know what traffic was received, how many regular users became buyers, and what revenue was earned?
So, connect Google Analytics to your site, then set up goals and enable e-commerce.
Key metrics to track in Google Analytics include:
- views;
- clicks;
- CTR (click-through rate of the ad message);
- number of purchases (transactions);
- number of items sold;
- total purchase amount;
- average purchase value.
How to calculate CAC—customer acquisition cost
CAC, or Customer Acquisition Cost, in simple terms, is the cost of acquiring a customer. This metric helps to track the effectiveness of a marketing strategy and optimize the advertising budget.
There are two ways to calculate CAC:
The first considers the approximate cost of acquiring a customer. This includes targeted advertising, messenger marketing, radio advertising, and other channels.
The second method includes not only direct advertising expenses but also the payment for specialists, tools, and services.
So, CAC = the total of direct marketing expenses for a specific period divided by the number of acquired customers.
This formula helps determine which campaign channels bring in more profit. A more precise calculation looks like this:
CAC = MCC + W + S + PS + O / CA
Where MCC is the cost of advertising;
W is the payment to marketers;
S is the cost of online services and other tools;
PS is the salary of involved specialists;
O is overhead costs: from training staff to buying stationery;
CA is the number of customers that were successfully attracted.
The dynamics of some channels can be seen in the long term since expenses on content marketing or SEO do not immediately yield results. To get accurate data, it’s advisable to use comprehensive analytics and a CRM system.
If the CAC is $15 and the average bill is $10, then acquiring a customer costs more than the revenue they bring. Experienced marketers recommend comparing CAC with LTV—the customer’s lifetime value to the company. This indicator helps understand how much profit a specific customer brings over the entire period of interaction with the company.
Payment Formats for Influencers
Some influencers have agents who negotiate advertisements. However, businesses prefer to deal directly with bloggers because it tends to be cheaper.
What are the existing payment formats for content?
Payment per Post
Businesses and influencers typically agree on a series of posts. However, it varies: payment can be a fixed or variable rate for text or video, depending on the format.
Payment per Click
Bloggers do not always offer this option. For advertisers, it’s more interesting to pay based on the number of clicks and visits to the website.
Payment per Deal
In this arrangement, the publication’s conversion rate is evaluated, from purchasing a product to subscribing to a newsletter. This collaboration model is rare because influencers usually help increase brand awareness rather than meet sales targets.
Payment per Subscriber
The number of subscribers does not always equal the number of interested audience members. Loyal active users are immediately noticeable: they engage in content discussion and stay updated on the topics raised.
Payment per View
This collaboration format is result-oriented. The price depends on the number of views on the company’s page after the blogger publishes a post. Influencers confident in their followers’ loyalty readily accept this format.
Common Mistakes in Working with Influencers
- Lack of clear goals. Ensure the goal is specific, has a set deadline, and the right tools for analysis are selected.
- Poor tracking of metrics. To gather information about the audience, services like Kochava and Adjust can be used, or you can ask the influencer to share data provided by YouTube or Instagram.
- Fear of experimentation. While proven strategies work, don’t stick to the same tactics. Sometimes, seeking a new target audience in a different geographic location can yield the best results.
- Poor briefing. The less specificity you provide, the worse the campaign will be. Influencers can better express their creativity with clear information: product description, hashtags, key phrases, etc.
Useful tips for working with influencers
And finally, three useful life hacks from marketers for working with influencers.
Look for hidden influencers
Typically, they are not in the spotlight and not focused on advertising. But their opinion is trusted by the target audience, and the engagement of such followers is higher.
Look for practitioners and reviewers willing to test your product and write about their results
They will find an expert approach, study the product, and show its benefits to the audience.
Use the influencer’s superpower
This is the ability to engage their followers in the discussion of an interesting topic.
Frequently asked questions
An influencer is a thought leader with a large audience. They are trusted, listened to, and people buy from them.
CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) is the cost of acquiring a new customer. It helps track the effectiveness of marketing strategies and optimize the advertising budget. CAC is calculated as the total direct marketing expenses for a specific period divided by the number of acquired customers.
CAC = MCC + W + S + PS + O / CA
Where MCC is advertising expenses;
W is payment to marketers;
S is expenses for online services and other tools;
PS is salary for specialists involved;
O is overhead costs, from training staff to buying office supplies;
CA is the number of customers acquired.
Influencers are paid by agreement: for clicks, deals, subscribers, posted posts or videos, for views, for reach, etc.
Conclusions
It’s important to understand that no two influencers are the same—neither in terms of the number of followers nor their chosen niche. Everything is individual, so it’s crucial to conduct an analysis.
If you’re choosing influencers based on whom you can reach an agreement with, you’re likely focusing more on reach than on building a campaign around the influencer.
Choose the right influencer carefully, and let them creatively tell their followers about your brand.
