In Europe, 58% of readers trust the recommendations of bloggers, and the size of the advertising market for opinion leaders is close to 5 billion rubles a year. Let us examine why this type of marketing is so effective and what features of influence marketing contribute to this.
Communication with a loyal audience
Opinion leaders have their own audience. These are loyal subscribers – they know their idol and believe that he will not advise bad things. In addition, this audience is lively, as influencers constantly involve subscribers in their communication.
Advertising as a recommendation
Internet users ignore ads and content reminiscent of ads. This is called advertising blindness or banner blindness. Brand information on behalf of influencers is perceived as a recommendation, not an advertisement. It is not striking and does not annoy people.
Help the influencer create content and promote it
Opinion leaders communicate with their audience every day. They know which posts are becoming popular, which publication will be approved, and which will pass by. Therefore, they can present an advertising message so that it is positively perceived by Central Asia.
Sales growth
If advertising through stars and celebrities works to promote the brand, then advertising through small influencers brings real leads and sales. This is possible due to the fact that subscribers often rely on their opinion in choosing goods and services.
During the study by the Best SEO Los Angeles team, about 40% of respondents said they made a purchase after they saw the blogger’s recommendation on social networks. Of course, for subscribers of these influencers to become your customers after viewing an advertising post, you need to work with them. How to do this, we will tell you below.
Promotional posts on behalf of opinion leaders have great viral potential
Content published on behalf of an opinion leader is additionally distributed by its subscribers and may even become viral.
How to implement influence marketing
Promotion work through influencers consists of a set of steps. Here are the main ones.
1. Formulate the purpose of promotion
What is your main goal: to increase brand awareness, increase sales, attract subscribers to the company’s social networks? The choice of channel, the type of content and the content of the advertising message will depend on the answer to this question.
2. Describe your audience
Make a portrait of the client : age, gender, income, where he works and how he relaxes. This will help in choosing opinion leaders, as you will have a clear understanding of what kind of audience you are looking for.
3. Make a list of suitable influencers
When searching for influencers use different approaches. To search for experts, they monitor profile blogs and the media, browse the lists of speakers at conferences. Experts can be found inside your company, work on their personal delusions and do promotion. Along with their popularity, company recognition will increase.
You can find bloggers using the following methods:
- Search for keywords related to your business and hashtags. Hashtags help you find bloggers on Instagram. The combination “keyword + Youtube” works when searching for video bloggers.
- Blogger directories are lists with resource names and blogger contacts. You communicate and work directly. For example, to search for bloggers on Telegram use the directories Tgstat, Telegros, Telegram.
- Agencies that specialize in working with bloggers are Carrot.moscow, Helloblogger, Rad-prerad and others. They not only help to choose bloggers, but take on other work: the development of a creative concept, an advertising message. But the commission is higher than on exchanges.
4. Examine influencer profiles and select the appropriate
Select from the initial list of opinion leaders to whom you want to send an offer:
- Analyze the content – how much it matches the image of your brand.
- Check for posts that could negatively impact your reputation.
- Examine audience engagement: how actively commenting on posts, whether comments seem artificial.
There are services that help you to check if the indicators are winding up – likes, views, comments.
5. Send applications and agree on cooperation
To work with opinion leaders, you need to prepare. First, write a letter with a clear sentence. Secondly, to collect materials that will help to get acquainted with the product: description, marketing kit, video.
All actions are conveniently written in the table: to whom and when the offer was sent, what are the requirements of the influencer, its prices, published publications and the result.
