We’ve all heard stories about what proportion internet celebrities, or influencers, make from posting a few company’s products or services on Instagram or Twitter. you'll imagine what percentage businesses are paying for sponsored posts from influencers with many followers. With such a lot of money flying around for influencer marketing, you'll be asking yourself: is it really worth it? While the hit-or-miss is often challenging with social media, I’ve used several different marketing tools and see influencer marketing campaigns as a far better return on investment.

The Basics Of Social Media Influencer Marketing

Influencers have actually existed within the marketing space for many years — long before social media companies began to dominate the conversation surrounding them. they vary from popular actors in commercials to athletes promoting apparel companies. Influencers serve a crucial role. People wish to buy products from people that they like and trust. consistent with 2016 Think with Google research, 70% of teenagers on YouTube relate to YouTube creators over traditional celebrities, so it’s clear to me that social media influencer marketing is here to remain.

Given the increase of this marketing trend, your retail business could also be curious about getting involved. To do so, you'll begin by creating an inventory of influencers your targeted demographic likes and trusts. this may vary supported the merchandise you sell, so make certain to try to your research before proceeding.

Once you’ve narrowed your options down, you'll begin reaching bent the influencers you’re considering and posing for their rates. Charges can vary drastically, counting on factors like:

  • The amount of followers an influencer has
  • The sort of post you would like (text, photo, video, audio, etc.)
  • The amount of posts you would like
  • The influencer’s average rate of engagement

Identifying the proper Influencer To Partner With

There are hundreds and many Instagram, Facebook and Twitter account with enough users to draw in significant interest in your retail company. Narrowing your list right down to only one is often challenging. However, the widespread availability of influencers also gives your business the proper to be picky about who it partners with.

Think about influencer marketing during a similar thanks to how you'd believe a standard ad placement. Ask yourself questions like:

• What’s our ROI potential?

• what percentage users can we reach?

• How valuable is that the influencer’s audience?

• How do the advantages of partnering with this influencer compare to our other paid marketing opportunities?

Your company should also make it some extent to ask the influencers you’re considering for more detailed information about their metrics. you'll even want to ask which brands the influencer has partnered with within the past and what they did for those companies.

The Challenges Of Influencer Marketing

Retail companies got to take care of how they spend their precious ad dollars. a part of that caution is knowing the challenges you'll encounter while you’re pursuing social media marketing campaigns.

One of the foremost interesting challenges of social media marketing is that brands may have real difficulty with accurately measuring the ROI they receive from influencer partnerships. Many reasons are suggested why this is often the case. the foremost likely seems to be that companies don’t quite understand the way to tie their influencer marketing campaigns to hard sales data. due to this, many brands are still that specialize in things like “reach” and follower count, which don’t mean much in and of themselves.

Another challenge your company should remember of is that the danger of partnering with influencers who have inflated follower counts. It’s incredibly easy to get followers online now. It’s also easy enough to shop for accounts that have follower counts built around niches the purchasing influencer not targets. this will drive down total engagement and spell disaster for your company’s ad efforts.

This information underscores why you would like to carefully conduct research before partnering with any social media influencers. You don’t want to pay an inflated rate for a partnership that gives little real ROI. Your company should even be measuring its leads in a uniform way so it can quickly identify which influencer partnerships are worth maintaining.

The Real Value In Influencer Marketing

Your company might not be brooding about reviews when it decides to partner with social media influencers. However, studies have shown their importance in customers’ decision-making processes. consistent with 2016 Pew research, “fully 82% of U.S. adults say they a minimum of sometimes read online customer ratings or reviews before purchasing items for the primary time.”

Your retail company should believe its influencer partnerships as high-profile reviews of the products you offer. There are dozens of reviews available online through platforms like Yelp, Amazon and Google. However, none of those are as valuable as a review that comes from an influencer your targeted audience likes and trusts.

This is where influencer relationships really stand aside from other methods of advertising. It’s difficult to call another quite marketing that gives an identical opportunity for your brand to earn a high-profile, highly-valuable positive review. When combined with the reach and engagement many influencers have, seeing the ROI on your influencer relationships becomes a neater thing to try to to.

Finding Influencers Who Can Drive Sales

When you’re making important decisions about the way to spend your marketing dollars, it’s best to concentrate on the info. the straightforward truth is that I’ve found many of us trust people quite they trust brands or marketers. they will mention your retail company’s products in exciting, engaging ways in which drive customers to your website or storefront.

However, it’s incredibly important to try to your research before starting a partnership with an influencer. confirm your company has considered an influencer’s niche, audience and engagement before creating a contract with them.

If you’ve done this and therefore the influencer passes all of your tests, then you’ve found a highly valuable thanks to engaging with an outsized pool of consumers. Your business can earn positive reviews that mean quite the random reviews they read elsewhere. All of this is often to mention that the proper social media influencers really can drive sales.

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