Startup Entrepreneur's Guide On How To Grow Your Brand With Influencer Marketing

By Yulia Aslamova, Head of Asia, DRIM- India's 1st performance-based influencer marketing platform.

If you’re a startup chasing that million-dollar dream, then you’ve got to have this key marketing medium in your mix. Influencer marketing today is a terrific tool to skyrocket your sales and boost business recognition. Unlike traditional advertising strategies, influencers can convey a sense of authenticity that can motivate their followers, who reflect your target market, to seek out the company for themselves. In contrast to influencer marketing in 2017, in the modern day world, it entails much more than just securing the endorsement of people with sizable social media followings, as everything today is performance- and purpose-driven. According to a report by Statista, nine billion Indian rupees were spent on influencer marketing in India as of 2021. Over the subsequent five years, it was expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate of 25%. A 22 billion Indian rupee market value was predicted for the sector by 2025.

Let’s dive deeper into how you can grow your brand using influencer marketing.

Create an army of affiliates led by influencers

Micro influencers are the fastest growing sales channel. Use them wisely in your marketing mix to reap the maximum benefits. Micro influencers particularly prove great when used as affiliates, owing to the very niche and highly engaged follower base. As affiliate marketing is intended to direct customers to a brand's website so they may make a purchase, a number of brands have started their small business and startups with only affiliate marketing. Micro-influencers can join an affiliate marketing network and start promoting products, receiving a cut of every sale made by anyone they refer. Not only a marketing tagline or sponsor notice will be added to your product by an influencer. They can persuade your audience and demonstrate the value of your product or service by enlisting convincing expressions as recognised industry experts. Furthermore, the advertisement appeals more strongly to an audience that already believes in the influencer and feels more engaged.

Find the right influencer and audience match

We call this the ideal matchmaking in the digital era. After all, any effective influencer marketing plan requires collaborating with the right influencers. Your campaigns will benefit immensely from the contributions of influencers who are pertinent, genuine, engaging, and compatible with the values and image of your business. But what makes your influencer strategy a cut above the rest is finding the perfect influencer-audience match. Finding the ideal influencer requires knowing your target market and identifying a creator who can speak for that market. Searching for audience alignment between your brand and a potential partner is critical to your creative vetting process. Brands must have more than simply a positive relationship with their creator. Additionally, you must know that your influencer team upholds sincere connections with the proper audience members. With that data, it will be easier to predict whether those brand-creator interactions will actually have a significance and long-lasting impact. Thus, you can find influencers with an audience in your desired region, age group, or gender by using the audience demographic elements offered by influencer marketing platforms.

Focus on building long term collaborations

At the time when your audience eats-sleeps-breathes social media, we can’t expect results with a one and done approach. Genuine, long-lasting partnerships are the need of the hour.  One major reason for this shift is that audiences are increasingly filtering what they consume. They dismiss anything that seems out-right promotional and not genuine. While they are spending more time on social platforms, they are only really paying attention to what breaks the clutter. Imagine the impact you would have if the audience sees their favourite influencer use your products for a span of 6 months. It will drill down how the products really make a difference & show the use case over a long period of time, as opposed to seeing it once. You will receive stronger audience engagement, more inventive content, and a better return on your marketing investment. Also  benefit from the influencer's expanding audience for the time period of your partnership.

Build ambassadors not just sponsored content

To successfully contact your target audience in the most genuine, legitimate, and trusted way possible, you must first build ambassadors. The recommendations and referrals from people we know are significantly more powerful. This is where ambassador marketing shines; by utilising an ambassador's network and established contacts, your business can reach a vastly increased number of people who are part of the appropriate target group. It also enables you to connect with others through a reliable and respectable source. Many businesses are incorporating an ambassador marketing approach into their influencer and peer-to-peer marketing plans. This is due to ambassador marketing's success!

Continually measure results

Tracking and measuring your outcomes is a crucial component of ambassador marketing success. This enables you to determine what functions best for certain ambassador segments and regions. Once you are aware of the ROI/ROMI for each task or activity that has been given, you can adjust your plan accordingly. A cost-effective marketing channel is ambassador marketing since you only pay for definite, measurable actions or results, which lowers your marketing expenses and ensures you're getting what you paid for. Payment is frequently given away as free goods or access to your services, reducing your need to spend money on promotions.

Influencer marketing with a goal is becoming popular

In the modern-day world, instead of just gushing about how beautiful an influencer's life is, our favourite influencers stand for something and offer us helpful information. Brands ought to bear this in mind while developing their influencer marketing approach. The level of involvement and comment quality determines success. Moreover, prospecting needs engagement metrics more than it does followers. In order to see how sponsored content fares on the influencer's feed, we need to look at the comments on the most recent sponsored post. Additionally, marketers frequently place more value on an influencer's size than on their engagement's intensity.

Final Takeaway!

Influencer marketing is a smart strategy for firms to create content and build their brand. As influencers can reach vast audiences they are familiar with, they can produce the best concepts and content that is shot, edited, and promoted. As a result, creating competitive content is easier and quicker. However, you need a strategy before working with an influencer. Thus, knowing your company's objectives and the appropriate metrics to measure performance is essential. For the best results, collaborate with influencers to create outstanding video marketing content. Once the aforementioned has been built, your brand will be ready to expand. It will become simpler to produce the outcomes you need to accomplish your business goals.