The growth of influencer marketing plays a vital role in the changing marketing landscape. Primarily on social media, it creates new opportunities for retailers to acquire, engage, and retain customers.
This post is for brands, retailers, and marketplaces who want to know what influencer marketing is, where to start, and how to ensure influencers deliver outcomes. It looks into the power of influencers to support a holistic marketing strategy. One that focuses on customer preference for more authentic, community-driven, and personalized online shopping experiences.
Table of Contents
How did it all start?
It may have started long before, but one of the memorable moments in the changing face of high fashion happened in 2010. Rebecca Minkoff used digital influencer Rumi Neely as a model in her runway show. Neely is the blogger behind Fashion Toast and currently has 679K followers on Instagram.
Unfortunately, the reception was not great. The fashion designer said of the experience, “I remember people said, ‘Ew, why are you using a blogger in your show? That’s disgusting, it’s so C-list.’ We definitely got heat for it.”
Brands were already inviting famous bloggers to runway shows that time—either as part of the audience or the show. But the exclusive fashion industry was not yet welcoming of bloggers and influencers.
Fast forward seven years later, heritage luxury fashion house, Dolce & Gabbana, followed suit. The Italian brand tapped Alexandra Pereira and Negin Mirsalehi to reach a younger, more socially-driven market.
Today, the use of influencers within the retail industry is prevalent. Ninety-one percent of luxury brands reported using influencers, followed by activewear at 84%, and beauty brands at 83%. Across industries, 70% of consumer brands are working with influencers.
What are influencers and influencer marketing?
Influencer marketing is the process of identifying and partnering with individuals who have a strong and engaged social media following. These influential people, aptly called influencers, create conversations about the brand with its audience. Through influencers, brands form deeper, person-to-person communications with customers.
Influencers are generally divided into two groups: Micro-influencers and macro-influencers. The former refers to individuals with about 10,000 to 200,000 followers. The latter has hundreds of thousands or millions. Regardless of the following, a comprehensive and holistic influencer marketing strategy helps turn retailers’ goals into reality.
Quote: “[The] value [of influencers] is measured by their degree of expertise around a topic, validated by the relationships they in turn have nurtured. These influencers—a blogger, a celebrity or industry leader—all have the ability to help move ideas, from creators to analysts to media and beyond.” – PAN Communications
By 2020, influencer marketing is projected to grow to an $8 billion business on visual social platform Instagram alone. In relation, 44% of CMOs are increasing their brands’ connectivity with their audience through social, while 30.5% are focusing on influencers.
Like any marketing strategy, influencer marketing can bring a lot of benefits for retailers—as long as the execution is right.
What are the pros?
Market reach and brand awareness
In 2019, there were 2.77 billion social media users around the world. This makes partnering with influencers a powerful marketing tactic to reach audiences at scale. In relation, influencers unlock new consumers for retailers. For instance, a brand can partner with influencers to reach Millennial and Gen Z shoppers who are prone to spontaneous purchases.
Besides targeting a new audience through demographics, influencers can also help brands enhance market reach within specific categories. For instance, niche communities such as cross-training, luxury travel, mirrorless camera, or sustainable beauty.
Customer acquisition and sales
By simply uploading a photo wearing a specific brand or a video talking about a certain product, influencers connect consumers and drive traffic to brands. In fact, 34% of daily US Instagram users have purchased a product or service based on an influencer or blogger. Followed by 29% on Twitter, 26% on Youtube, and 23% on Facebook.
Social currency and organic engagement
With an already strong kinship with their community, consumers trust influencers and are more engaged with the content (sponsored or not) they create, as long as there is transparency. As consumers expect relevant and meaningful engagement with brands, influencers fill the gap in a way.
In fact, for purchase ideas and decisions, only 20% of consumers go to in-store employees while 41% trust influencers and bloggers. The rest rely on communities, word-of-mouth, or even just an attractive look encountered while out and about.
Quote: “Influencers can lend credibility to a piece of content or brand. They can help amplify reach and awareness which, in turn, helps ensure that the desired target audience will consume the content. Companies can also piggyback on an influencer’s brand to get a jump start on developing their own brand preference and thought leadership in the market.” – Amanda Maksymiw, Content Marketing Manager, Lattice Engines
However, partnering with influencers comes with risks. Influencer marketing needs a balance between a brand’s message and an influencer’s personal touch and creativity which the former doesn’t have full control of.
What are the cons?
Inauthenticity
One of the key factors that make influencers successful is how people can relate to them. Influencers have a connection or a relationship with their community, resulting in organic engagement. For 90% of marketers, providing authenticity is critical to the future of influencer marketing.
So, when consumers feel that they’re being advertised to in a manner that is not within the “brand” of the influencer they know, they get turned off. As a result, the influencer marketing partnership backfires. Some instances that come off as inauthentic are:
- Partnering with influencers who aren’t aligned with the brand
- Discouraging personality and creativity in order to push a rigid script about the brand
- Publishing blatantly promotional content
Controversy
Safeguarding brand reputation is a concern when collaborating with influencers, especially since over the last few years, there have been a number of controversies involving influencers with millions of followers.
For instance, Logan Paul, whose YouTube channel has 19M subscribers as of August 2019, posted a video showing the body of an apparent suicide victim in Japan’s Aokigahara Forest in early 2018. YouTube removed the American influencer from its Google Preferred program and put his projects on hold.
Another example is Sondos Alqattan, a beauty influencer who has 2.5M followers on Instagram. In July 2018, she posted a video criticizing “recently introduced laws giving Filipino workers a day off per week and banning employers from holding their passports.” Brands such as Max Factor, French perfume brand M. Micallef and London-based Chelsea Beautique cut ties with her.
Fake followers
On top of inauthenticity and potential controversies, ‘fake followers’ ranks as the number one concern within influencer marketing. In 2018, $102M out of the $744M that brands spent on influencer marketing were wasted because of bots and fake followers.[15]
A solution is looking very closely at other results beyond follower count and likes. This is also one of the reasons why brands are increasingly preferring micro-influencers for maximum impact. Because macro-influencers like celebrities have both genuine fans and casual viewers who are not actually engaged.
How much does it cost?
In 2019, influencer marketing is expected to increase by 65%, and 17% of surveyed companies are spending over half their marketing budget on influencers. The most commonly cited budget per year is between $1,000 to $10,000, followed by $100,000 to $500,000.
Influencers usually have a press kit with their rates and types of partnerships. Usually, special rates negotiation depends on the type of content, campaign length, level of creativity, and more. But as a baseline, the standard formula is:
$100 x 10,000 followers + extras = total rate
What are examples of successful use of influencers?
Influencer marketing can be successful when done right. In fact, “89% of marketers say ROI from influencer marketing is comparable to or better than other marketing channels.” Here are a couple of examples.
- One of China’s top fashion influencers, Tao Liang, also known as Mr. Bags, has more than 4.1M followers on Weibo. Givenchy worked with Mr. Bags to create a pink Mini Horizon limited edition bag for Valentine’s day 2017. All 80 handbags were sold in just 12 minutes, netting $173,652.
- Another one is Arielle Charnas, boasting 1.2M followers on Instagram. Her Something Navy collection with Nordstrom crashed the website when it launched in September 2018 and raked in more than $4 million in sales in less than 24 hours.
- The Champagne Pop highlighter by Jaclyn Hill, who now has 5.9M subscribers on Youtube, together with Becca Cosmetics broke the record on the Sephora website in 2015 and sold out in 20 minutes.
- One of the most successful influencers to date, Italian personality Chiara Ferragni. Her brand, The Blonde Salad, collaborated with Steve Madden in 2014, and the result? 16,000 pairs of shoes sold in the first two weeks.
- A recent influencer-brand collaboration is Aimee Song’s Song of Style with Revolve. Launched in May 2019, many of the products were sold out in minutes like the two-tone fruit print top, showing proof that the line is an immediate success. Speaking of Revolve, the retailer that is particularly famous for leveraging social media and influencers’ clout, they just went public in June 2019.
How to tap influencers to enhance the shopping journey?
Like social media, influencers are everywhere. When it comes to the shopping journey, influencers play a multifaceted role in improving product discovery, enhancing brand awareness, and maintaining customer loyalty.
What are the different types of brand-influencer partnerships?
As social media platforms continue to release different features, retailers and influencers have more ways to engage with the target audience. Depending on the campaign goal, brands can mix and match strategies and enhance individual assets with an influencer’s creativity.
Among U.S. adults and teens, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Snapchat are the most widely used online platforms. Here are the different influencer marketing tactics on Instagram and YouTube, which are also applicable to other platforms.
Instagram is constantly releasing new features that highlight users’ personality, boost engagement, and increase the usage time of the app.
- Posts, slideshow, and videos. Introduce a product or a campaign through a photo, a series of photos, or a video. Also take advantage of the caption section where brands and influencers can talk more about the product. It is also a useful place to tag the brand, put relevant hashtags, and include a short link.
- Stories and Live videos. Allow influencers to showcase more originality and personality with Stories and Live Videos. Both offer a more casual approach to user engagement. Stories also gathers customer sentiments through polls and directs users to links via the swipe-up function. While brands and influencers can use Live videos to increase interactions with live comments.
- IGTV. Take advantage of long-form storytelling. Allow influencers more space to incorporate product mentions more naturally through IGTV. Videos posted on IGTV have high visibility throughout the app.
- Highlights. Remain visible when users go to the influencer’s account. This is especially useful when brands have a long-term partnership with an influencer. Or, an ongoing promo or campaign. Highlights direct customers with old and upcoming branded content—all in one place.
- Link in Bio. Links on the user’s profile are the only working links on Instagram. With a brand link in bio, influencers can mention it on the post and brands remain visible for the duration of the collaboration.
- Takeover. Influencers can take over the brand’s Instagram account, or vice versa. This usually happens during an event, or a short duration campaign, for instance, a product launch. With an Instagram Takeover, anything or everything of the above can be used.
YouTube (applicable to other platforms too)
Storytelling and experiences are becoming important elements in retail. YouTube provides the channel for brands, through influencers, to reach audiences who prefer more in-depth, long-form content. Compared to Instagram and other social media platforms, users go to YouTube for intentional viewing rather than passive scrolling.
- Sponsored videos. With an already engaged audience, influencers can talk more about the product or demonstrate how it works in a fun and personal way. Moreover, the description box is useful for links, relevant hashtag, and more information about the sponsored content.
- Paid trips. Not limited to YouTube, brands offer to sends influencers to hot destinations around the world. This showcases not only curated products in the process but also desirable travel experiences that consumers want to attain for themselves. Paid trips can be festivals, hotel accommodations, brand insider experience, and more.
- Promo codes, contests, and giveaways. A bonus not only to encourage consumers to buy, but also to track the effectivity of a campaign. Brands and influencers can include the promo code in the description box or post caption. Or, mix it up a bit and offer promo codes simultaneously with a contest or giveaway.
What are the steps to deliver successful influencer marketing campaigns?
The key to achieving success and minimizing risks in influencer marketing is a comprehensive strategy that covers all the bases.
1. Define your goals
To make influencer marketing work, brands need to tap the right influencer who is appropriate for the project or campaign. Considering followers, engagement, personality, and industry, brands can look at influencers for the following, but not limited to, goals.
- Brand awareness. If the goal is awareness, macro-influencers are mostly the most effective since they have the followers. However, a large following doesn’t automatically mean engaged audience, so consider that on the next step.
- Sales and conversions. Consumers usually find micro-influencers more relatable and authentic, viewing the influencer as a trustworthy friend who actually uses the product, and recommends it rather than endorses it. With a natural delivery, partnerships with multiple micro-influencers can affect the bottom line.
Quote: “We came in with data and metrics saying [companies] should choose multiple, relevant people to create conversation. And at the same time…brands started asking themselves ‘Why would I pick one big name that’s going to screw me over a few months down the line? It’s now jumped to the point where literally every kind of brand, from automotive to entertainment, have embraced the idea of working with more influencers of smaller size.” – Ryan Detert, CEO, Influential
- Niche market reach. Niche influencers work well for a specific product for the relevant, specific industry segment. Frequently viewed as the go-to within the niche, these influencers can provide brands the medium to reach the intended target audience.
2. Research and engage with potential influencers
Research is important to ensure that brands work with the right influencers who not only have the required number of followers and engagement but also, and equally important, share the same brand values and voice.
- Check related social media hashtags
- Search on Google
- Use platforms like Audiense and Social Blade (but need further human validation)
- Dive into the influencer’s profile, comments, other social media accounts
3. Identify deliverables, fees, and timeline
Once you have a list of potential influencers, it is time to reach out and create a project timeline. During this time, brands need to have a set of expectations and guidelines to negotiate with the influencer. At the same time, expect that influencers have to incorporate their own voice to stay consistent with what their audience is familiar with.
- Press kit. Influencers usually have a press kit, stating rates with the duration of the campaign and amount of work involved.
- Brand guidelines. This is important so influencers know how and what brand-related information and style to incorporate during the project.
- Costs. There are many ways to manage costs. Some brands combine free trips and products with fees. Some base the final pay to the number of engagement and sales made.
- Duration and posting schedule. Make sure that influencers deliver. Agree on specific dates for posting as well as the number and type of content. For instance, an Instagram post with Stories on Monday, followed by a Live video three days after, and so on.
Regardless of the final influencer marketing plan, transparency is important throughout the project. Ensure that consumers don’t find the partnership fake. Influencers are also required by the FTC to disclose brand relationships and endorsements.
4. Establish KPIs, measure and evaluate
Finally, check the effectivity of the influencer marketing. To do so, set up KPIs before the start of the campaign. Track statistics then evaluate if the campaign is effective enough for future similar partnerships. Typical measurements to consider are engagement, followers, website traffic, conversions, sales, duration, and so on.
Which is the right support technology to adopt?
In 2018, the average daily usage of social media worldwide is 136 minutes. What this means is consumers are exposed to influencers and purchase ideas multiple times a day. When consumers start looking for these items they see on social media, they either take a screenshot for future reference, or make a search right away.
What remains consistent across influencer marketing and the different sources of consumer inspiration today is the reliance on and the power of visual content and social networks. In fact, 59% of consumers think that visual information is more important than textual information.
This is where visual search and visual AI comes in. It enables brands and retailers to leverage the inspiration shoppers encounter every day and be relevant and present when consumers start their product search.
Syte’s Visual Marketplace
Product discovery made possible anytime, anywhere. From Google and social media influencers to retailers’ websites and native camera or gallery app. When consumers type in a keyword or do an image search, visual AI empowers retailers to show up at the exact moment of customer inspiration.
Visual AI solutions
Brand and retailers can also integrate a combination of visual AI solutions into their website, app, or device. This creates a smooth and cohesive shopping experience. Addressing the limitations of textual search, Syte simplifies product discovery and purchase for shoppers and provide purchase-ready traffic to retailers. How?
- AI Stylist and Related Looks. Connect relevant user-generated content (UGC) from social media platforms to catalog products. Pairing influencer and celebrity content with the product detail page (PDP) or product listing page (PLP) image contextualizes the items. As a result, it increases social relatability and inspires shoppers to discover more products.
- Camera Search. Allow shoppers to get visually similar products to those promoted by influencers. Users just have to open the camera app or upload a photo to the mobile app or website.
- Product Recommendations. Engage consumers by helping them complete the look they are searching for. Populate recommendation carousels to show similar options and expose more products on the PDP or PLP.
- In-Store Smart Solutions. Enable shoppers to relate influencer content they encounter online to brick-and-mortar store shopping. With In-Store Smart Mirror and Tablet, consumers get inventory visibility, relevant social media content, and similar products.
With a projected 168.7M mobile buyers in 2020, convenient shopping on mobile must also be a top priority. Powered by Syte, Samsung enables users to shop visually similar products directly from their camera and browser. The Bixby Vision Shopping Assistant, the first native visual AI marketplace within Samsung, is now active on 800M devices.
What to do next?
Inspiration from influencers jumpstarts consumers’ shopping journey. It is a powerful marketing strategy that exposes consumers to more organic yet branded content.
Consumers would not always buy the products promoted by influencers. Some would rather look for alternatives such as cheaper options or similar styles. In this instance, Visual AI helps shoppers find what they are looking for. Without the struggles of finding the right words to describe the visual inspiration.
Note: I wrote this content as a contract at Syte, a visual search technology company.
