INFLUENCER MARKETING: ADDRESSING THE CHALLENGES

INFLUENCER MARKETING IS INCREDIBLY EXCITING FOR BUSINESS OWNERS AND MARKETERS ALIKE. HOWEVER, AS RICHARD CONWAY EXPLAINS, IT ALSO COMES WITH ITS OWN SET OF RISKS.

Influencer marketing is incredibly exciting for business owners and marketers alike. However, it also comes with its own set of risks.

Influencer marketing is a hot topic at the moment. It’s something I’ve looked into, and followed, for some time now. Having recently attended a talk by Gary Vaynerchuk in Auckland, I was struck by the adoration he received from the audience and how they hung off his every word. In my experience influencer marketing has been shown to work well under certain conditions, and all signs are pointing to an increase in adoption and regulation surrounding the industry in the coming years. For business owners, it’s easy to look at these trends and examples and invest in influencer marketing without considering the risks.

RETURN ON INVESTMENT

For business owners, the common marker of a successful marketing campaign is a clear ROI. There is no doubt that global interest and adoption of influencer marketing is on the up; one look at Google trends show that searches for the topic are on the ascendancy when compared with other marketing channels. (See New Zealand and worldwide stats here )

According to Mediakix, adspend on influencer marketing is set to increase between US$5 billion and $10 billion by 2020. With this predicted growth, one of the biggest concerns that business owners and marketers are looking at is how they are going to measure the ROI from this channel.

Even if your objectives are simply to increase engagement and brand awareness, it’s still difficult to measure the impact of influencer marketing through social channels themselves. Small things like fake social accounts can impact the accuracy of results, and the inconsistency of follower engagement places little responsibility on the influencer.

DATA AND RESULTS MEASURING

From working in SEO for many years, it’s quickly apparent that data is vital for successful digital marketing. Data is used to inform and guide marketing decisions to such a great degree, though its use in campaigns is only as successful as the resulting data collected afterward.

Currently, influencer marketing doesn’t offer a reliable way to measure success for every business or in every situation. The difficulty faced by business owners is in ensuring influencer marketing is used for the right purpose, and combined with other complementary social campaigns to measure long-term engagement.

From a marketing perspective, influencer marketing is something everyone is talking about right now. It has already represented undeniable value in many cases, but marketers who traditionally rely on a wealth of data to inform, drive, and measure decisions are concerned about how it best fits into an overall strategy.

CUSTOMER TRANSPARENCY

From a current-events perspective, 2019 may see an increasingly wary public across social media channels. Choosing an influencer will undoubtedly require a greater focus on synergy with your brand and business. Authenticity has always been a strong element of great SEO, and the same principle applies to influencer marketing. Both as a representative of your brand, and the morals and attitudes of your company, your influencer can be a perfect match or a misguided marketing expense.

Measuring your present customer engagement and making careful judgements on how to market your business or product using influencer marketing is crucial for both marketers and business owners. The other issue here is time-sensitivity, where unlike other marketing – such as content, which can build up a following and regular traffic over time – success requires complete understanding of the present social environment, and the place of both your product and your influencer amongst it.

WILL INFLUENCER MARKETING CONTINUE?

Done well, influencer marketing can provide an unparalleled boost in customers and engagement for a small to medium-sized business. In general, this has seen success with manufactured products, or where businesses have ordered large shipments of overseas products in bulk and marketed them under their own branding.

In finding a long-term place in the world of digital, influencer marketing will be successful if there is greater access to data and increased care taken during the initial planning process.

For business owners, the viability is relevant to the initial investment into your product. Many of these success stories have shown low product investment and high marketing spend – reducing the level of risk is another aspect to consider.

Influencer marketing is incredibly exciting for business owners and marketers alike, and it’s something many of us are following in anticipation of offering it as a stable and reliable strategy. How it evolves in the coming years – and is shaped by customer perception and data availability – will offer a clearer indication of its long-term place in digital marketing.

With the current data showing nothing but increasing interest and budget spend, it’s important we make the most of it.