3 tips to unlock the potential of influencer marketing

15/07/2016 Fri / Jenny Li

Influencer marketing is rapidly becoming a mainstream advertising strategy, taking brands beyond traditional advertising to reach an extended and more engaged target audience. The result? A higher ROI.

Industry research indicates that over 80% of netizens conduct consumer research before making a purchase decision and that 88% of these netizens trust online reviews. Only 1% of millennials would trust an advertisement while 33% trust blogs when making a purchase decision. Many brands in Hong Kong have begun to leverage on influencer marketing to improve their overall advertising results.

Market data indicates that over 3.6 million users subscribed to Hong Kong’s top ten influencers’ YouTube channels with total video views of nearly 19 million as of May this year.

One top 10 influencer, Smiling Boris, achieved the largest increase in the number of subscribers, having almost doubled his subscriber base in only one year. As you can see, top influencers’ videos are extremely popular and have accumulated a huge base of loyal fans with distinctive demographic characteristics. Partnering with appropriate influencers can help brands incorporate their advertising messages into original content, reaching the right segment of a target audience, for a more effective advertising campaign.

Unlocking the enormous potential of influencer marketing is key to its adoption by brands in Hong Kong. The following should be noted by marketers in planning and deploying this new medium:

1. Close-to-audience and original content with creativity

Original content is the cornerstone to influencers gaining fame and popularity. An online advertising platform allows greater flexibility in terms of the video length, theme and format, and making the video more dynamic and closer to the heart of the audience. This can help brands feature their messages in a more in-depth way.

Creativity is the basis of diversified and original content. Good content needs to seek a balance between brand attributes and engaging stories, and seamlessly combine these two elements. Naturally conveyed brand messages intrigue viewers more than you might think and achieve the beauty of soft-selling with a strong brand presence.

2. Integrated content and media buying platform

An Influencer’s original content shared on his or her own channels can usually guarantee a certain level of organic views by connecting directly with the target audience without the need to put in paid advertising.  This integrated approach of creating content for its very own audience can work seamlessly and allow for a more effective interaction with the audience.

Choosing the “right” influencer thus becomes the most important stage in the whole process. When selecting influencers to work with, consider their content, interests, background, personality and, especially importantly, the demographics of their fans, to ensure the communities that they put effort into growing are the target audience that brands are seeking.

3. Sustainable and long-lasting brand exposure 

Influencer marketing tends to have no constraint on “advertisement lifespan”, which can stay as long as the contents are posted on the creator’s own social media platforms.

Take the most popular video of Fiveson5 launched two years ago as an example, half of the 1.85 million video views were generated in the first year and the other half in the second year. Apart from the “prolonged exposure” opportunities, the brand can also take advantage of studying the audience’s behavioral change over a period of time to fine-tune its future marketing programme.

As an example of this approach, a globally renowned beauty label recently launched a campaign through influencer marketing, which recorded more than 350,000 viewership of its YouTube videos and resulted in nearly 30,000 engagement activities across social media platforms in just one month, not to mention the viral effect. And it’s still going on!

Clearly, influencer marketing can be one of the shrewdest marketing approaches for a brand to cost-effectively reach its target audience. So the time is now, in order for brands to leverage on influencer marketing to achieve better marketing effectiveness and boost their brand awareness.

(Source: http://www.marketing-interactive.com/3-tips-unlock-potential-influencer-marketing/)