From the start of the human kind there have been leaders who have power to inspire their community to the leaders like Kings and to the leaders like Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi Ji, these leaders had the power to influence their community to do something. And these leaders had the power to shape the perspective of their following.
The power of influence is of that level that a religious leader, lived a thousand of years ago, is followed till now!
The power of influence can also be measured as it can inspire the lakhs of people to have a single goal of getting independence for their country.
The political leader has the power to influence his/her region’s people (can inspire globally as well). Whereas, a celebrity or a cricketer can inspire the world.
In today’s world, social media is the platform where leaders have built their communities and people with similar taste and interest follow these leaders.
And these are known as influencers.
~ In our article, who is an influencer, we stated that:
- Influencers are people, who are able to inspire the perspective of their fans and can mould their purchasing decision about any brand/product.
- Influencers on social media can generate content that helps spread the word about a sponsor’s product or service. Promotional content could be anything from a picture of the influencer using the product to a video made just for the brand.
Leaders come in many forms, including famous personalities, experts in their field, and regular people who have amassed a sizable online following.
Marketers are the people who are always looking for a medium where they find their target audience is spending time and they look for ways to advertise their product there. And that is why all the brands have jump in to YouTube and Instagram because of great usage of these social media platforms and are utilising the brand association leverage of the leaders present on these platforms, which is known as digital influencer marketing.
Let’s explore ‘what is influencer marketing’ in great detail.
What is Influencer Marketing?
Influencer marketing is a type of marketing in which companies collaborate with their niched based influential people to promote their goods or services by leveraging their influencing power. These influencers may have a specific social media following that follow their leader for a particular interest/field, a solid reputation and knowledge in their field, or both.
With influencer marketing, brands are able to get a larger audience that is segregated well according to the niche or interest. This way, brands are able to create awareness, build credibility, create trust, launch new product, change perspective, position their product superior with respect to competition by utilising the influence of these individuals.
Integrated videos, dedicated videos, sponsored content, product endorsements, and cross-promotional collaborations are just a few examples of influencer marketing (explained in detail below).
However, marketers must carefully analyse their influencer connections to ensure that they are in line with the brand’s values and target demographic. It’s also critical, to be honest about any sponsored material and to inform followers about any sponsored agreements.
When evaluating the efficacy of an influencer marketing campaign, companies might measure key performance indicators (KPIs) such as engagement rates, reach, and sales. Additionally, they have the option of utilising analytics tools in order to analyse the success of the campaign and make any necessary adjustments. Aside from that, the most effective strategy for firms to create an effective influencer marketing campaign is to form partnerships with organisations like that specialise in influencer marketing.
And the most intriguing aspect of influencer marketing today is that practically every brand, no matter how big or how small, and regardless of how successful they are or would like to be, is considering influencer marketing as a way out in the modern era because of its great return on investment.
How Exactly Does Influencer Marketing Work?
The purpose of using influential people in marketing is to convey a message about a product or service to consumers who are most likely to be interested in having it. As a consequence of this, companies have the propensity to connect themselves with individuals who are most likely to support the goals that they have set for themselves.
Campaigns centered on influential individuals are designed to capitalise on an already established market or network of actively engaged followers. You may have witnessed this with well-known bloggers and influencers that actively promote products to their following, such as the collaboration between Kusha Kapila and Tinder India.
Perhaps we can say that the development of Influencer Marketing is a significant step forward, that has come about as a direct result of the growing prevalence of social media in the modern era as the best platform for people to communicate with one another.
The most efficient method of working of influencer marketing is to take some time to carefully consider how you approach it.
And once you’ve considered your approach the next three steps are –
1.Get Your Thoughts Together
Examine how you think about the situation in order to acquire additional information about it. Consider each of your alternatives a minimum of thrice before settling on one.
2.Plan An Influencer Marketing Strategy
Once you’ve chosen the idea that you want to convey to your specific audience, it’s time to go on to the next step. Your approach to influencer marketing requires the creation of a detailed action plan as the next step in the process. The planning stage is always the most crucial and time-consuming, thus patience is of the essence.
3. Sketch Out A Budget
The influencer marketing budget for a strategy is the very last step to take into consideration after all other aspects have been examined. When you have finished developing the plan, it is time to settle on a definite budget for the endeavour, one that takes into account everything that is vital to the process.
Also, spend a lot of time learning and researching everything thoroughly.
And even besides all these technicalities, the three most important things to do are to be patient, develop a credible strategy, and conduct oneself politely.
The above process can be executed by a brand either directly or indirectly.
Direct Approach: In this method, the brand can directly approach the creator and can execute influencer marketing through them.
Advantages of going direct- A brand is directly in contact with the creator and the extra cost of hiring an agency is removed.
Disadvantage of going direct- Selection of creators is a tedious task and analysis of their target audience is a long process. Brands do not have the knowledge of engagement and the intent of the audience.
Indirect approach: In this method, brand hire an agency to select influencers, create strategy, analyses target audience of the creators, analyses engagement rate, finalization of script and video editing and many more such tasks.
Advantages of going indirect: The agency have good relations with the creators because of their years of experience. Hence, they can select the creators better. They have experience in creating strategies and other analysis and that is why agencies can execute influencer marketing better.
In our article, leading influencer marketing agencies in India , we have curated the list of top 8 best agencies to create an effective campaign.
Disadvantage of going direct: The cost of the campaign becomes 15-25% higher.
The Past, Present And Future Of Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing has become a widely adopted strategy for brands to connect with their target audience, build brand awareness, and drive sales. According to a recent survey by Hubspot, 71% of marketers believe that influencer marketing helps to generate quality leads and increase sales.
So let’s explore how influencer marketing was in the past, how it is executed in the present and what we can expect in this field, in the future.
Influencer Marketing in the Past
In the past, influencer marketing mainly focused on high-profile individuals and celebrities who had a significant following. Brands used to hire film stars, tv actors, crickets, football players in order to use their brand power and advertise their product. However, with the rise of social media, influencers have become more accessible to brands, and everyday people with large followings can now leverage their influence to promote brands and products.
Influencer Marketing in the Present
Brands are now investing in influencer marketing through YouTubers, Instagrammers and other social media creators, as these are offering brands with a segregated set of potential customers of defined interests.
Today, influencer marketing is a multi-billion-dollar industry that continues to grow in popularity. A survey conducted by Grynow shows that 71% of marketers plan to increase their influencer marketing budgets in the next year. The survey also found that 84% of marketers believe that influencer marketing ROI is either better than or comparable to other marketing channels.
Influencers now come in all shapes and sizes, and micro-influencers, in particular, have become increasingly popular due to their highly engaged and loyal followings. A survey by Hopper HQ found that micro-influencers with less than 100,000 followers have a higher engagement rate of 7.2% compared to macro-influencers with over 100,000 followers, who have an engagement rate of 1.7%.
Influencer Marketing in the Future
As social media changes, it’s likely that influencer marketing will become even more important in the future. According to a study by Business Insider, the influencer marketing industry is expected to grow to $15 billion by 2022. Brands will need to be smarter about how they use influencer marketing. They will need to focus on building long-term relationships with influencers and making content that is real, interesting, and relevant to their target audience.
Overall, the statistics show that influencer marketing is an effective way for brands to reach their target audience and drive business growth. As the industry continues to evolve, it’s important for brands to stay up-to-date with the latest trends and best practices to ensure that they are getting the most out of their influencer marketing campaigns.
The Rise Of Influencer Marketing –
Celebrities endorsing consumer items is nothing new. However, many businesses were stagnant in incorporating social media influencers into their marketing plans.
Despite the fact that several marketers considered allocating resources, they ultimately chose not to.
On the other side, certain forward-thinking businesses, such as Daniel Wellington, defied convention. The luxury watch manufacturer depended mostly on influencer marketing to reach out to potential buyers.
Because Daniel Wellington is now one of Europe’s fastest-growing businesses, everybody felt confident taking a chance on them.
Because of things like these, marketers’ ideas about how to use influencer marketing have changed.
According to, 82% of marketers believe that influencer marketing is effective. According to 75% of them, the quality of clients and traffic they receive from influencer marketing is superior to any other technique.
This is hardly surprising, given that the majority of influencers are highly specialised. By collaborating with niche influencers, you may target an audience that is more likely to be interested in your product. You need only select an influencer that is popular within your field and has a sizable fan base.
It’s also worth noting that as the influencer marketing industry has grown, social media platforms have discovered ways to benefit from it through ad revenue programmes. The evidence in question can be obtained on YouTube Shorts and Facebook Reels. Both of these sites are now sharing a piece of their advertising revenue with content creators and influencers in order to attract additional users.
And, as we all know, influencers are followed by their fans, followers, and brands. According to the Influencer Marketing Report, TOI.
- The influencer marketing sector will grow to roughly $16.4 billion by 2022, owing largely to the $800 million earned by influencer marketing platforms in 2021.
- Instagram’s influencer marketing capabilities are predicted to grow dramatically in the coming years, with over 80% of businesses currently using the platform by 2021.
The growth of the influencer marketing industry may be ascribed mostly to the fact that influencers and creators have developed strong relationships with their respective audiences. An influencer’s relationship with their audience has evolved over time.
When they advocate for a specific brand or item, the target audience usually follows them. More importantly, this boosts trust in the brand as a whole.
Marketers can use influencer marketing to broaden their reach and engage with more people in their target demographic. This method can help boost a brand’s social media following, click-through rates, lead generation, and revenues.
Types Of Influencer Marketing
Since it enables brands and businesses to connect with their target audiences via credible and approachable figures in the social media sphere, influencer marketing has become an integral part of contemporary marketing strategies.
Moreover, brands and businesses can choose from a variety of influencer marketing strategies to promote their products or services, each with its own set of advantages.
Therefore, brands and businesses can better serve their goals and target audiences by familiarizing themselves with the various forms of influencer marketing.
Some of these types include-
Sponsored content
Brands have leveraged Influencers to create content that promotes a brand or product in exchange for compensation, such as a fee or free product.
Product reviews
Products are sent to influencers so that they can be reviewed and promoted on the influencer’s social media pages, website, or in a video made specifically for this purpose.
Influencer takeovers
In order to promote their goods and services, companies let influencers take over their social media accounts for a set amount of time and post branded videos.
Influencer events
Brands invite influencers to attend events or experiences to promote their products or services to their followers through dedicated or integrated videos.
Influencer collaborations
Since collaborations are the heart and soul of any influencer marketing campaign.
Brands and influencers work together to produce one-of-a-kind content, like a product line or social media campaign, that features videos that are either integrated with the brand’s existing content or created specifically to promote the product.
Integrated videos
Video content created by influencers often takes the form of a sponsored video or a product review in which they prominently feature the advertised product.
Dedicated videos
Brand collaboration videos and sponsored videos are two examples of the types of videos produced by influencers with the express purpose of promoting a particular brand or product.
Influencer marketing has developed into a critical component of social media platforms like Instagram’s platform growth in recent years. One of the most widely used social media sites in the world, Instagram, has been at the forefront of influencer marketing, giving companies and brands the chance to use influencer partnerships to boost platform growth.
With the latest Instagram insight for 2023, there is a growing need for businesses and brands to understand the power of influencer marketing and how it can help them grow their platforms.
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Instagram receives enormous volumes of daily photos, videos, and likes:
Over the past few years, usage of Instagram has increased dramatically. It is astounding to think that its users like 4.2 billion posts, 95 million photos, and videos each day. Currently, carousel posts account for 18.8% of all Instagram main feed posts, while video posts account for 16.8%.
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Huge Increase in Instagram’s Popularity Over the Past Four Years:
As you can see, Instagram has flourished since being acquired by Facebook. During the Facebook era, Instagram saw a meteoric rise in popularity, and now it has more than 1.074 billion active users. 500 million people use Instagram Stories daily, so it’s safe to assume that stories are also very popular.
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Instagram’s Influencers Have Widely Differing Numbers of Followers, Depending on Their Specialty:
The range of influencers’ follower counts on Instagram is surprisingly wide. A few niches, such as modelling and beauty, have some extremely popular influencers with up to 20 million followers each. Other niches, such as lifestyle and music, have fewer “superstars,” leading to lower average influencer followings.
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Investment in Instagram Influencer Marketing Is Exploding:
It’s no surprise that as the popularity of influencer marketing as a whole has grown, so has the amount of money brands are willing to pay to have their content promoted by popular Instagram personalities. In 2022, marketers planned to use Instagram for influencer marketing at a rate of 55%, second only to YouTube. In contrast, 43% used digital ads, 35% used TikTok, 29% used television, 20% used out-of-home, and 20% used Twitch. Marketers expect this trend to continue into 2023.
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The Near-Exponential Increase in Brand-Sponsored Influencer Posts:
There has been a meteoric rise in the prevalence of sponsored influencer content in response to greater public understanding of influencer marketing and stricter regulations governing the transparency of such content. Between 2015 and 2017, the number of these posts increased from 800,000 to 2.68 million.
According to researchers, It was forecasted that by 2023, there would be 6.12 million sponsored posts. Since the release of COVID-19, influencer marketing has skyrocketed, so the true number is likely higher now.
Not only to social media platforms, but there are many more benefits of influencer marketing, which we have covered in the next article.
Influencer Marketing Myths
- One of the main tenets of influencer marketing is not to expect an “instant” ROI. Many of the campaign delivers instant results. However, with respect to educative and informative content, brands should expect a little slower pace with the returns. Similar to the organic progression of social media and Content Marketing, this approach does not focus on making direct sales of your products. Instead, it puts you in the spotlight as a knowledgeable, trustworthy, and innovative leader in your area of expertise.
- Influencer marketing is more than just paying or promoting a person with a large internet following in exchange for nice comments about your business. Influential people have invested in creating their own brands and expanding their fan base. This is because they respect their good name and their consumers’ trust. They are tenacious and disciplined enough to cultivate an organic social media presence, one follower at a time. They are not interested in doing influencer marketing for monetary gain.
- Obtaining interested and devoted social media followers is a time-consuming process. As a result, it’s reasonable to believe that working with an influencer will provide easy access to the minds of his or her fans. However, it is not an easy task. The reason behind this is that if you want to collaborate with prominent people, you must first earn their trust and appreciation.
Now that you’ve read up to this point, you have a good understanding of the what, the how, and the why of the main topic; nevertheless, there are always follow-up questions that you fail to explore, which leads to uncertainty.
Consequently, we have clarified any ambiguity by answering the two most important issues about influencer marketing further down in this blog.
What is an Influencer Marketing Campaign?
An influencer marketing campaign is like a collaborative work of art that blends the authenticity and creativity of an influencer with the marketing objectives of a brand.
It’s a well-thought-out plan to promote a product or service to the influencer’s dedicated fan base by capitalizing on the influencer’s large and engaged audience.
When a brand and an influencer collaborate, they can produce content that not only speaks to their target demographic but also leads to concrete business outcomes like higher conversion rates and more positive word-of-mouth.
Hence, it’s a powerful way to connect with consumers on a personal level and build long-term relationships that benefit everyone involved.
HOW TO MAKE AN EFFECTIVE INFLUENCER MARKETING CAMPAIGN?
An effective influencer marketing campaign can be a powerful way to drive brand awareness, engagement, and sales. For your influencer marketing campaign to be successful, consider the following guidelines.
Set clear goals:
Before you start your campaign, identify what you want to achieve. Do you want to increase brand awareness, drive sales, or increase your social media following? Setting clear goals will help you define your strategy and measure the success of your campaign.
Identify your target audience:
Identify who you are trying to reach with your campaign. This will help you choose the right influencers and create content that resonates with your target audience.
Choose the right influencers:
Choose influencers that align with your brand values, have a large following, and can reach your target audience. Check their engagement rate, the kind of people who follow them, and how they have worked with other people to make sure they are a good fit for your campaign.
Collaborate on content:
Work with the influencers you’ve chosen to make content that fits your brand and speaks to your audience. Make sure the content is real, interesting, and promotes your brand or product in a clear way.
Amplify your content:
Promote your influencer’s content on your own social media channels to amplify its reach. Use paid advertising and other marketing tactics to reach a larger audience.
Measure your results:
Use analytics tools to track the success of your campaign. Measure key performance indicators (KPIs) such as engagement rates, click-through rates, and sales. Use this data to optimize your campaign and improve future results.
Nurture relationships:
Building long-term relationships with influencers is critical for creating successful campaigns. Offer feedback, support, and incentives to keep your influencers engaged and motivated to work with you again.
Overall, creating an effective influencer marketing campaign requires careful planning, execution, and ongoing optimization. By following these key steps, you can create a successful campaign that drives business growth and increases brand awareness.
Case Study: Sugar Cosmetics’ Influencer Marketing Campaign
One reason why SUGAR has been so successful is that it uses influencer marketing and social media to make a lot of noise. With more than 1.5 million followers on Instagram, 300 million impressions across all of its social media channels, and 2 million monthly visits to its website, SUGAR has made INR 100 Cr in revenue for FY2020. (source:shopify)
Sugar Cosmetics frequently collaborates with influencers to introduce and promote new products. For instance, the brand collaborated with Indian influencers and beauty bloggers to promote its new liquid lipstick collection. In addition, the firm said that Bollywood actress Taapsee Pannu would be featured in its new #BoldAndFree campaign.
Background:
Sugar Cosmetics is an Indian makeup brand that offers a range of high-quality, affordable products. The brand had already built a loyal customer base through its online store and retail partnerships, but wanted to increase its reach and brand awareness through social media.
The brand decided to start an influencer marketing campaign to use the power of social media influencers to boost sales.
Strategy:
Sugar Cosmetics teamed up with a group of Instagram micro-influencers, mostly beauty bloggers and makeup fans. The brand chose influencers with a strong following in India and a high engagement rate among their followers.
The brand also made sure that the content and style of the influencers fit with the brand’s values and image.
The influencers were given a variety of Sugar Cosmetics products and asked to tell their followers about them in an honest way.
The brand provided advice to the influencers and assisted in ensuring that their content was high-quality, interesting, and reflected well on Sugar Cosmetics. Influencers were also told to use special hashtags and call to action to get their followers interested in trying Sugar Cosmetics’ products.
Results:
The influencer marketing campaign for Sugar Cosmetics was a success, leading to a lot of engagement and sales for the brand. The campaign generated over 50,000 impressions, 7,000 likes, and 3,000 comments on Instagram, with a high engagement rate of over 10%.
The campaign also drove a significant increase in online sales, with a 25% increase in website traffic and a 15% increase in sales during the campaign period.
Many of the influencers’ followers tried Sugar Cosmetics’ products for the first time and posted about how great they were on social media. During the campaign, the number of people following the brand on social media sites like Instagram grew by 10%.
Overall, Sugar Cosmetics’ influencer marketing campaign was a powerful way to increase brand awareness, drive sales, and reach a new and engaged audience. By working with micro-influencers who shared the same values and image as the brand, Sugar Cosmetics was able to create real, interesting content that spoke to its target audience and helped the company grow.
CONCLUSION
Influencer marketing has grown significantly in recent years since it was initially proposed as a potential marketing strategy. It has been the preferred method of promotion for the vast majority of brands in the modern era. Furthermore, influencer marketing now has its own place in marketing budgets due to its high return on investment and conversion rate.
Employing important individuals to sell a product or service is no longer a novel idea, and a wide range of organisations, both large and small, are already doing so. It is quickly becoming the standard in the business world, and companies of all sizes are starting to use it.
We should expect this growing trend to keep going as long as advertisers keep learning and coming up with new ways to make their ads more effective.
And since influencer marketing is becoming more popular, brands should incorporate it into their marketing strategies, right away.