Does influencer marketing work? Yes, done well, influencer marketing works to boost sales, increase brand recognition, and win mind and market share.
We have numerous examples of effective, AI-driven influencer marketing working:
- Bloomingdales: Reaching the rising generation of shoppers where they are
- Gruma (Mission and Guerrero): Tracking CPG sales a the supermarket checkout
- Gel Blaster: Blasting to #1 in its category
- Overwolf: Content ambassadorship at scale, driving over 150K Overwolf installs
Successful influencer marketing is all about finding the right audiences and engaging the content creators who are the most influential voices for those audiences. That’s where BENlabs AI comes in.
So influencer marketing works… but how does influencer marketing work?
Read on.
Influencer marketing defined
Influencer marketing allows companies and brands to collaborate with content creators who are well-known in a given niche and who have a meaningful following. These creators use their platform to spread the word about a company or a product to their followers. With the right pairing, the result is quality content that boosts sales and raises brand awareness.
What influencer marketing does
Boiled down, influencer marketing itself is pretty simple. You locate the industry or niche influencers who are compatible with your brand and target market. You get in touch with them and suggest a partnership. That could mean sponsoring content, inviting product reviews, or collaborating on a giveaway, just to name a few examples.
With the partnership in place, the influencer will produce content and share it with their followers to promote your brand or product.
What influencer marketing can do for brands?
Influencer marketing can do a lot. Done well, the brand message becomes part of the content, not an interruption. It can introduce a fresh and engaged audience to the brand or product. Influencers have influence because their followers are fans. When they genuinely endorse a company or product, their audience is more likely to pay attention and take action.
Influencer marketing works to raise brand awareness and convert audiences into customers. It’s like a warm introduction compared to a cold call. Small or niche businesses and new products that are attempting to gain traction will find this warm intro to be especially helpful.
Where to begin with influencer marketing
There’s a temptation to just start reaching out to influencers but that’s typically not the best course of action. A successful influencer marketing campaign begins with finding the ideal audience (and acknowledging that the “ideal audience” and the assumed audience can be very different) then finding the right creators and messaging. In every case, BENlabs AI can help with deep audience cluster analysis, smart creator matching, and predictive analytics tracking progress at every step of your campaign. Let’s talk.
1- Figure out where your target market hangs out
You know your target market (right?!). Find out where they spend their time online. What’s their preferred platform? Who do they follow? What are they into? BENlabs AI-driven audience cluster analysis is the key to understanding and reaching your audience.
2- Find compatible influencers
Look for creators with a following on your target’s preferred platform(s) and who aligns with your brand and your brand values. You’ll know them when you see them. With BENlabs AI smart creator matching, brands and creators are matched on shared values and audience.
3- Make a connection
Get in touch with the influencers you’ve identified. Slide into their DMs, visit their website, linktr.ee or other link aggregator and look for an email or, for more established influencers, partnership details and management.
At BENlabs, with our Creator Community of over 13 million pre-vetted creators, we can facilitate or handle all this outreach.
4- Lock it down
Create an influencer brief. Establish the partnership and confirm the details or the engagement. Remember that creators and influencers know their content and their audience. Collaborate with the influencer on talking points or content ideas but don’t dictate. Share brand guidelines, key messages and anything else that will help the influencer get on message.
5- Get that data
Monitor your campaign and analyze performance at every step. Once the campaign is complete, dig into the data to figure out your influence campaign ROI. Look at what worked and what could be improved for subsequent influencer marketing campaigns.
Getting started in influencer marketing can feel intimidating, but it doesn’t have to. By partnering with amazing content creators who have influence in their communities, you’ll reach a new, engaged audience and raise brand awareness. As an added bonus, you’ll help some amazing creators pay the bills so they can create even more content that connects with their audience.
BENlabs smart creator pairing and predictive analytics help simplify every step of the influence marketing process and promise real results and ROI. This deep learning AI approach unlocks high-performing influencer marketing at scale.
Influencer Marketing Made Simple
The BENlabs team uses proprietary AI tools to help make influencer marketing smart, scalable, and successful. From finding the perfect content creators, automating A/B testing of content, copy and CTAs, and surfacing clear, predictive analytic insights early, when they can make the most difference, BENlabs is here to help.
