As of 2020, companies in the U.S. alone had spent nearly $8 billion on influencer-led campaigns. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, there’s no denying how impactful influencer marketing has become over the last few years. While traditional marketing is slow to adapt to modern customer needs, influencer marketing has been a space for disruption. It can benefit both big and small business brands across all industries and the use cases are endless.

If you’re still unsure whether this form of marketing is for your business, here are seven reasons influencer marketing is a game-changer.

1.   It’s The New Word of Mouth Marketing

Marketing evolves with time and technology. Before the internet, marketing was limited, and only big brands with huge spending could unlock the best opportunities. Technology and the internet have changed the game significantly. Brands wanted the best calligraphers to design lettering for newspaper ads and signposts in the past. Today, brands need to tell a compelling story to get ahead of the curve. Nowadays, companies use specialist tools like these Lenovo laptops for 3D modelling and other options to help them attain their marketing goals.

The overarching aim of marketing to establish a personal connection with customers remains the same as different marketing concepts and strategies evolve. For this reason, word of mouth marketing has been one of the most effective ways for companies to facilitate their marketing.

Marketers use word-of-mouth marketing to arouse consumer interests ensuring these interests reflect in consumers’ daily actions and interactions. However, there have also been challenges on which lines marketers can cross to make products and services attractive to consumers without leading the charge. Enter influencer marketing.

Finally, brands can contract influencers to tell their stories and expose the believable features of their products and services. Telling compelling brand stories has taken a new turn with the rise of influencer marketing. It’s fair to say that in many cases, influencers have become better storytellers than the brands themselves. If there’s nothing to show for this change, the dip in branded content consumption can be it. About 51 percent out of 81 percent of marketers who use influencer marketing say it outperforms brand-created content.

According to a Harvard Business Review survey, today’s social media seems to have made the brand less significant while influencers are calling the shots. Studies reveal that about 92 percent of modern consumers trust influencers even more than a celebrity endorsement. Therefore, businesses seeking these results from their word-of-mouth marketing have little to no choice but to join the influencer marketing bandwagon.

2.   It Improves Brand Awareness

Influencer marketing happens to be one of the fastest-growing online customer acquisition and brand awareness methods. Brand awareness involves familiarizing customers with a brand’s products or services. It’s an indicator of how memorable a brand is to its core audience.

Building such a brand has never been easy and today’s noisy social media world doesn’t make it any easier. Over 720,000 video hours are published on YouTube each day. It could take an average YouTube user over 72 years to watch a day’s worth of YouTube content. Facebook also sees over a billion posts daily. Other social media sites are either doing similar numbers or are on their way there.

These statistics make it difficult to improve brand awareness across digital platforms. It’s more like finding a needle in a room full of hay. However, finding your needle with influencers can make the brand improvement process more manageable.

So how do influencers do it? Unlike brands that only engage fans during marketing campaigns, influencers have the time and convenience to relate with customers on a personal level. They create relatable and funny content to make them laugh and touch base with their realities.

In contrast, brands undertaking awareness campaigns first have to break the relationship barrier and find a way to connect with customers. That’s where influencers have the upper hand.

3.   It Offers Easy Access To Different Established Markets

An influencer can impact brand awareness campaigns because their number one business is to build a following. The influencer with the most active following has the ultimate power. However, there’s another twist to this influence marketing feature that companies may find helpful. In that, the difficulties of marketing begin with the inability to locate a specific target audience for niche products and services.

Influencer marketing can make things a little easier by finding your target audience. Influencers are a mirror reflection of their already built fanbase. For instance, a children’s toy-loving influencer is likely to have toy enthusiasts dominating the user base. That influencer can be your best bet if your product or service revolves around children’s interests. With this premise, you can choose different influencers to lead you to different target groups making it easier to cast your net wide through influencer marketing.

4.   It Directly Impacts Sales

Influencer marketing spending grew by 30 percent in 2021. About 90 percent increased their influencer marketing budgets entering this year. These statistics may appear to be a fluke, but the only reason companies are spending more on influencer marketing is because the ROI rate is as clear as day. Companies can enjoy about six dollars more as a return on investment (ROI) for every dollar spent on influencer marketing.

5.   It Helps Build Credibility

The trustworthy relationship between consumers and influencer marketers plays a huge role in influencer marketing’s effectiveness and growth. About 33 percent of modern customers say influencers are trusted sources they consider in shopping decisions over recommendations from family and friends. Trust and authenticity are paramount in today’s marketing, but brands are already disadvantaged by their position as product manufacturers and service providers. On the other hand, influencers appear to be neutral and more trustworthy.

6.   Brand Becomes More Attractive to Younger Generation

Generation Zs have become the golden demographic of marketing. But attracting them can be difficult because their tastes and preferences vary widely and change frequently. Remember, the influencer’s core business is to build followers. Your business’s version is to make money. So, influencers can speak gen Z’s language more than brands with ulterior motives.

7.   Influencers Have Their Tried and Tested Strategies

The template for becoming an influencer isn’t straightforward. There’s no academic course that can prepare an influencer for the hard work of getting a million followers. Influencers live by their own ideas. They test, fail, evaluate, and tweak strategies as they grow. That’s how they can lead you to the heart of the younger generations and help you achieve your marketing goals faster.

Generally, there’s no shying away from building mutually beneficial relationships with influencers as a business. Influencer marketing strategies like social media account takeovers can afford your business significant game-changing results.