Influencer marketing is a proven successful strategy for many brands worldwide, including the likes of Gymshark, Boohoo, and Adidas. Influencer marketing involves using celebrities or people who have a strong community following to promote their brand or product and engage with target audiences in the digital world. Influencer marketing can help build trust amongst potential consumers, therefore influencing purchase intention and increasing brand loyalty. This article will outline the importance of influencer marketing and how to build brand loyalty from it.
What is influencer marketing, and how does it work?
Influencer marketing involves identifying individuals with a strong community following online to connect brands with potential consumers. Influencers don't have to be just on social media platforms; they can also be bloggers, YouTubers or regularly host a podcast.
Influencer marketing can be used in many different ways, but the primary purpose is to promote a brand's products or critical messages to a relevant audience. Brands identify influencers they would like to collaborate with based on their resemblance to their ideal target audience. Brands define audiences by segmentation such as age, location, occupation and other demographic information.
An example of a successful influencer is Kayla Itsines, who specialises in motivational fitness content. Kayla's ability to connect with fans through sharing her fitness routines and lifestyle on Instagram has helped her create her own fitness empire, complete with apps, ebooks, and partnerships with Cosmopolitan and Apple.
How does influencer marketing build brand loyalty?
Over the years, brands have moved from promoting products on billboards and television ads to getting their message to the customers in unique and engaging ways. Influencer marketing is one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to reach a target audience.
One of the most common forms of influencer marketing brands use is social media influencer marketing. More than half of the world now uses social media, and with more users active on social media, there are more and more people who have a growing following. Brands identify these people, compare them to their audience and investigate their follower size and engagement rate. If an influencer seems trusted and has loyal and die-hard followers, brands will approach them with a free product or promotion via payment. The idea is that these influencers should have built credibility and trust with their followers. Brands will ask these influencers to showcase their products and services to their followers. Once a consumer has interacted with the brand an influencer promotes, brand loyalty and trust start to build. Therefore, Influencer marketing can be a powerful tool that brands can use to increase brand loyalty amongst consumers.
Why is influencer marketing critical to the future of business?
With influencer marketing, consumers can connect with a broader range of brands, and in return, brands have direct access to target customers.
The rise of 'hyper-personalisation is now mainstream, with consumers looking for products that suit them, rather than companies giving them a wide variety of options to choose from. The influencer's aim is to encourage their followers that the brand being promoted is the product or service they have been seeking. As a result, brand loyalty is boosted, and consumers can be sure that their spending is being channelled into the best products.
Influencer marketing has been found to directly impact customer purchase intention. A study conducted in 2020 found that trustworthiness, information quality, and entertainment value directly affect the credibility of influencers and have significant indirect effects on consumers' purchase intention. Also, the purchase intention of consumers is directly affected by an influencer's trustworthiness and credibility. In other words, consumers who trust an influencer are likely to purchase their recommendations.
The future of influencer marketing
Influencer marketing has exploded over the past few years and will look to remain an important marketing channel for brands. Right now, it is difficult to track the direct impact of an influencer marketing campaign. A brand can give an influencer a unique URL to their website, including a snippet of code connected to the brand's Google Analytics account. The code will show how many visitors land on their site, purchases and other data used to access the campaign's effectiveness.
Data collection and analysis will be imperative for brands looking to boost their awareness and improve customer satisfaction. Data will also become a vital piece of the influencer marketing strategy, with information being fed back into the influencer's followers in product suggestions. This information can help brands and influencers create engaging campaigns likely to drive additional sales.
Conclusion
Influencer marketing is now one of the best strategies for brands to promote their products and services to new customers. It can be a powerful way to engage with potential consumers.
Influencer marketing can help improve brands sales, and it can help build brand loyalty by presenting your products and services in a highly visual and engaging way. This can help consumers feel like they are part of your company's narrative, meaning that they are much more likely to buy from the brand.
Do you think influencer marketing helps build brand loyalty? Share your thoughts in the comments below.