Brands are in constant battles with each other to reach the top ranks in their industries. Unfortunately, each industry now has a particular brand that clearly stands out from the rest, and there is often little room for other brands to take over the top spot in that particular industry. A few years ago, brands only had television, radio and, of course, physical media sources to promote their products and services, and to expand their reach. Today, however, the internet has given brands an endless number of possibilities when it comes to promoting their offerings to their target audience. From blogging and social media marketing to paid advertisements and PPC campaigns, the internet has grown tremendously and have now opened up new possibilities for brands to overtake the competition and win over audiences that will help to increase their lead and customer count.
In recent years, more people have started to utilize ad-blocking technology to hide advertisements displayed on websites and search results. According to PageFair, over 615 million devices are now equipped with some kind of ad-blocking technology, and the usage of these tools is growing by approximately 30% per annum. This is causing a problem for brands that are relying on traditional advertising strategies, as the banners, the pay to have displayed on websites are now being blocked by most visitors. Instead, brands are now turning towards influencers to help them gain a competitive advantage in the online advertising game. Influencer marketing has now been proven over-and-over to be a more effective strategy for promoting a brand’s offerings to an online audience, and can also be more cost-effective in many cases.
How Influencers Can Be Used To Increase Brand Awareness
The primary goal of utilizing an influencer for your online marketing campaign is essentially to increase your brand awareness amongst your target audience, but knowing the ultimate goal of such a campaign certainly, does not make executing an influencer marketing campaign any easier. There is still a lot to be done when a brand decides to launch such a campaign, such as finding the right influencer to use and then deciding what type of content they would like to promote through their campaign. While there are many ways to utilize influencer marketing to increase brand awareness, we find that certain types of strategies are more effective than others. Let’s take a look at the three most effective was you can utilize influencer marketing to increase brand awareness, and drive more customers to your store in the process.
1. Contests And Giveaways
One of the most effective ways to utilize an influencer marketing campaign to increase both engagement and awareness for your brand is to host a contest or a giveaway, and to use an influencer in your niche to promote the particular giveaway or contest that you are hosting. BSquared Media reports that a contest can help you generate more leads, which can be converted into customers. It can also help you to increase your brand awareness and it is an effective way of promoting your products and services to the perfect target audience.
The first step is to choose a type of contest you wish to run, or decide on something that you can give away for free without running into a loss. This could include a contest to win three or four products that you manufacture, or you could decide to give away some free samples of your product (or service, of course). Then, compile the details of the contest, decide the rules for entry and get an influencer involved so they can promote the contest to their followers.
2. Influencer Reviews
Another excellent strategy for increasing brand awareness through influencer marketing is to get an influencer in your niche to review your products and services. This is an exceptionally effective way to expose a particular product or service your brand offers to the perfect target audience. To achieve the best results with this strategy, it is vital to choose the right influencer – the influencer should be experienced in creating this type of content, and should be active on a social media channel where your target audience hangs out most.
Start by contacting a few influencers in your niche that matches your criteria. Discuss the product or service you would like to promote, and offer them a copy of whatever you want to have them promote on your behalf. This could be a face cream, lipstick or even a month’s worth of SEO services. Once the influencer has received our product or service, they would be able to do a more personalized review and tell their followers why they should turn towards your brand for that particular product or service. This particular strategy can also be effective when combined with a bloggers outreach campaign.
3. Give An Influencer Control Over Your Account
The final strategy we would like to discuss is often called “account takeover influencer marketing”. This is a particularly effective strategy that has brought quite a large number of brands successful results. The idea behind this strategy is to create add more personality to your channels – this should ideally be a social media channel where you already have a relatively large following. This strategy has been seen countless times on a lot of accounts – with Instagram being one of the most powerful platforms for account takeover influencer marketing.
According to SEEN Moment, brands that have been able to gain a lot of exposure and better brand awareness with this particular strategy includes Hubspot, Whole30Recipes and Sephora, amongst others. First, you will have to do some planning to determine the purpose of your campaign. Then you can start to contact influencers in your niche and discuss potential opportunities with them to help you decide what would work best. The final step is to give the influencer of your choice control over your social media account for a specified period of time.
Conclusion
Brand awareness is one of the most vital parts of a marketing campaign and allows for a brand to expand their reach, capture more leads and drive more sales to their business. Influencer marketing is one particular strategy that brands have started to utilize excessively on the internet in the past few years, and poses as a more effective marketing tactic than traditional advertising methods due to the many advantages that a business can gain. If you would like to increase the awareness of your brand’s products and services amongst your target audience through the use of an influencer, simply follow the three strategies we’ve discussed in this post to help make your campaign more successful and efficient.
Vivian, I have seen this “influencer” method used more and more. In fact, I have begun to look to see if there is an infuencer behind the scenes or on the platform before I read an article or click through. Like anything that appears with the words ‘sponsored’ anywhere in proximity to the post, I stay away from it. And if there is an influencer promoting something I bypass them as well. I have always supported the underdog and I guess that is just one of my built in features. I don’t at all fault an up and comer for using someone who has already risen to the top and is ‘up there’ but I will keep my cheerleading in the lower echelon where it’s most needed.
Hey, Jane, I don’t know what’s the point you are trying to make, still, it feels good to know that people like will keep supporting us.
I’m just saying it’s great when someone can get the support and endorsement from an influencer. That’s awesome. But for those who can’t, I look for opportunities to promote and encourage them like an endorser would.