There has never been a better time to incorporate influencer marketing into your company’s marketing strategy. Influencer marketing campaigns drive 16 times more engagement with a target audience than paid or owned media – that’s because 74% of consumers rely on social media to inform their purchase decisions. Influencer marketing has also generated twice the sales of paid advertising.
At the core, influencer marketing consists of two essential pieces: an influencer and a target audience. An influencer is someone who persuades others and their purchasing decisions. These influencers market products and services to their followers which matches a brand’s target audience. Their influence can originate from their reputation, expertise, or popularity, or all three.
How to Use Influencer Marketing to Reach Your Target Audience
Here are 5 guaranteed ways to reach your target audience:
1. Sponsored Blog Posts
Influencers with popular blogs have an excellent platform to increase brand awareness and drive product sales. They have an established audience, who already trusts the influencer’s opinion. Brands can engage influencers to write blog posts that feature key messages in personal and/or creative ways. While it is important to provide general guidelines and key marketing messages, it’s best to give influencers creative freedom. They will create post that seamlessly incorporates brand messaging and feels natural to their readers. Brands can then use this content in their own social media efforts.
2. Social Platforms
Social platforms help reach your brand’s target demographic whenever and wherever they are. The trick to successfully engaging your brand’s target audience is connecting with the right influencers on the right social network. Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter posts all pair visual and written storytelling – each reaching different audiences. Your target audience may not be on all three platforms so your brand doesn’t need to engage influencers on all three either. Instagram’s new “Swipe Up” feature in Stories allows influencers to invite their audiences to view a coupon, link to a blog post or explore a landing page and will drive additional engagement on the platform. Facebook and Instagram Live’s are also great ways to reach your target audience with influencers – when they go live it notifies followers, garnering great organic reach.
3. Targeted Ads
Targeted ads are the easiest way to reach your target audience since you can specify which demographics you’re looking to reach as your content is actively tailored to them. Sway manages social media advertising across Facebook on behalf of clients by purchasing ads and boosting influencer-created content. By combining Facebook boosts and influencer’s organic shares, we see extremely high engagement rates on influencer-created content.
4. Live Event Advertising
Hosting live events is also an effective way use influencers to communicate brand messaging. Bring several influencers together for a party and ask them to amplify your message on social media and/or in a blog post. You will then reach their audiences in a real, authentic way. Readers can see exactly how your product works and understand its advantages, whether it’s a food product they can experiment with in several dishes or a baby product.
5. Brand Ambassadors
Influencers make for great brand ambassadors. They combine the qualities of a traditional spokesperson with all the benefits of a strong online following. Brands can engage ambassadors in a variety of ways, from social media updates to blog posts, live appearances and more. By hiring an ambassador that uses multiple platforms to amplify your brand’s message, you can have even more sway over their followers.
While these five influencer activations often make up the foundation of a successful influencer campaign, they are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to reaching your target audience. We’d love to get together with you via phone or in person to share more about how Sway Group can help. Please fill out the below form and we will be in touch!
