What are the Pros and Cons of Influencer Marketing?

At Mars Digital, our marketing experts receive many enquiries. One of them is if we offer influencer marketing or our take on onboarding influencers as part of a marketing strategy. I want you to know that all of your questions are valid. While there are no right answers to this topic, as a digital marketing agency, it is right to shed light on this topic.

 

Influencer marketing combines traditional and modern marketing strategies. A brand works with an online influencer to promote its goods or services. Some partnerships between brands and influencers in influencer marketing are less concrete. Instead, they aim to raise brand recognition.

The Pros of Influencer Marketing

It is a significant advantage to affect the target audience’s perception, and influencer marketing has that power. As published by Influencer Marketing Hub, having social media influencers promote a product might influence consumers’ purchase choices. As with the focus on influential people, here are the pros of using influencers in promoting the brand.

Cheaper Way of Promotion

For startups, collaborating with a budding influencer may come in very economical. Micro-influencers would be very grateful to work in partnership as they build their portfolio and your products. Brands can exchange deals for a post on all social media platforms. A cheaper way, wider reach, therefore, a win-win situation.

Credibility and Trust

Experts in the fields are the ones that people will listen to. Influencers also choose a field they want to be associated with and focus on. With their knowledge, they build their credibility. As they engage, they build followers’ trust. Influencer marketing is also about developing a connection and eventually gaining the trust of your leads and potential consumers.

Marketing Message Distribution That Is Targeted or Niche-Specific

Influencer marketing is considered a type of niche marketing. One of the most specialised benefits of influencer marketing is its potential to aid in disseminating marketing messages intended to develop and boost brand awareness, product recognition, or specific ideas related to a particular cause to a specialised or targeted audience. Therefore, finding and selecting the proper kind of influencer is crucial to the success of influencer marketing.

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Building and Gaining Audience

Influencer marketing utilises a link built between an influencer and their followers. A significant amount of these followers are loyal to a specific influencer. Therefore, having an established influencer to relay marketing messages and do product endorsements for a business or a cause will enable marketers to gain the trust of the influencer’s followers.

Personifying a Brand or Product

Influencers create and disseminate content that resonates with them. Compared to celebrity endorsements seen in conventional advertising, influencers deliver more relatable messages. In essence, influencers also hold the role of being great storytellers. This strategy makes a brand more welcoming to the market by humanising it.

Making Use of Influencer Marketing to Harness Herd Behavior

The desire to fit in and be accepted is a fundamental human instinct represented by the herd mentality. This phenomenon has been used in marketing. The prominent status of influencers and their power over their audience can be utilised as a catalyst to start the natural propensity of their followers to act as a like-minded collective group.

It Blends Well with Other Digital and Social Media Marketing Initiatives

Influencer marketing is a particular endeavour within the broader field of digital marketing. A marketing plan should include all appropriate strategies, approaches, actions, and outlets. Influencers can aid in expanding a brand’s social media presence, viral marketing, and aiming marketing campaigns at boosting brand recognition. You could think of influencers as salespeople who assist in the creation of marketing content.

The Cons of Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing has become one of the practical tools for reaching out by utilising unique resources. But it comes with some cons too. Using social media influencers to promote a brand, item, or cause does not ensure that marketing goals and objectives will be met, despite the benefits outlined above. The inherent drawbacks of influencer marketing might compromise a brand’s integrity in addition to the desired outcomes of a more extensive marketing campaign.

Risk of Unfavorable Publicity

A potential influencer and the brand should be aligned. This risk exists when using social media influencers and celebrities to promote a brand. The image of the influencer also plays a vital role. When they support an idea that is not conforming with the majority, it suddenly impacts the brand. Then will come the cancelled culture, which will strongly affect the brand. On the other hand, negative publicity is still publicity.

Fraud Followers

With the easy way to make social media accounts, it’s also a very effortless way to create fake ones. These are means to increase the so-called reach just for the sake of numbers and a technique to make one look “influential.” Some low-quality followers don’t engage or even exist. Trolls, for that matter, do not help achieve the brand’s objective. And as they say, quality over quantity.

Influencer marketing in digital marketing is an effective way of engaging people. Merging a quality influencer via social media platforms where a broad audience is reached is one innovative and modern marketing method. After all, it banks on people to get more people.

The Necessity of Selecting the Best Social Media Influencers

One major drawback of social media marketing is that it requires digital marketers to select the platforms that are best for their overall marketing campaign, mainly the social media marketing approach. Furthermore, to guarantee targeted reach, it is critical to match the collective profile of an influencer’s followers with the brand’s determined target demographic.

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Influencer Marketing

Making informed judgments in marketing and assessing the efficacy of a particular marketing campaign or the overall marketing strategy requires collecting and analysing data. Selecting the right influencers is crucial for marketers. Using someone with a sizable following on one of their platforms does not always ensure success. Marketers must gather the information and audience insights necessary to comprehend the general characteristics and calibre of a specific group of an influencer’s followers that they are interested in.

A Propensity for Standardising Shared Contents

Marketers work with influencers to take advantage of their ability to create captivating and compelling content and attract and influence their followers. But unfortunately, influencer marketing is beginning to suffer from the so-called “professionalisation” of these social media figures. The pressure these influencers have been under due to the professionalisation of the entire process has led to the standardisation of the information they disseminate, which has harmed their authenticity.

It’s All About Relevance and Authenticity

The Digital era has come. In this day and age of gadgets and lots of screen time, marketing has also evolved to use a modern approach. Digital marketing, particularly, is making such a huge impact on the future of a particular product, company, or service. Besides advertising in the digital world, people tend to turn to someone for their choices since these people are mostly seen online. Influencer marketing is a more recent approach to connecting technology and people.

Just like any practice, influencer marketing has its bright and dark aspects. At the end of the day, marketers and influencers alike hold the heavy task of bringing a brand to life. It is inevitable to encounter hurdles along the way, but persistence, consistency, and authenticity are the qualities that promise success in this strenuous trust-building field.

 

When in doubt, chat with our Marketing experts at www.marsdigital.co.nz.

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