Influencer marketing is currently one of the most popular strategies used to open doors for effective sales of products or services. However, influencer marketing actually has big challenges.
Determining which influencers are most suited to raise awareness of a company’s product or service is essential to the success of an influencer marketing plan.
Because this tactic is not widely used, company owners often place the blame onto influencers when it doesn’t work.
Curious? In this article, we’ll explain what it is and tell you how to solve it.
What is Influencer marketing?
Influencer marketing, which was introduced by BigCommerce, is a tactic to promote brand items with the help or endorsements of influencers and content producers.
So, based on this, we can see that influencers, or people who make content, have a big effect on your audience or target market.
Although the influencer marketing idea gained some traction in the 20th century, the name “influencer marketing” really dates back to the 17th century and has a little-known origin.
Curious to learn more? This blog will explain the challenges of influencer marketing and the right solutions to overcome them.
Besides that, we will also explain the right type of influencer marketing for you and the most important facts about influencer marketing that you should not miss.
Read also : How Marketing Supports Sales Success in the Digital Era
History of Influencer Marketing
Josiah Wedgwood was the first to use the term influencer marketing. This was in 1765, when he was living in the English Hills and making bread and butter out of pottery, and ever since Queen Charlotte took a liking to one of Josiah’s cream-colored works of art, her life changed a lot.
Queen Charlotte, also called Sophia Charlotte, was from the royal family of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, which was well-known at the time. So, Wedgwood used this as a chance to boost its reputation by calling its pottery “queen’s ware.”
People began going to purchase his pottery when he gained a lot of notoriety, which led to his sales increasing. As a result of this event, Wedgwood was able to make progress in resolving their problems with marketing.
Until 2010, when influencer marketing started to try out social media along with Facebook, which was already very popular. So Amazon uses Facebook to show people how they can find out what their friends or family members buy from Amazon.
Even while influencer marketing was effective at that time, it still has its challenges, especially in the digital age. Then what are the difficulties?
Influencer marketing challenges and the right solutions
Influencer marketing has transformed the marketing sector, offering firms of all sizes substantial returns on investment. But as time went on, concerns started to emerge about influencer marketing.
So what’s the worry? Let’s take a look at some of the common challenges that influencer marketing has faced in recent years.
1. Finding the right influencers
The most important thing to do to improve your influencer marketing strategy is to find influencers who match your ad.
Obviously, this is not an easy thing to do. In fact, many brands or companies say that their biggest challenge with influencer marketing is finding the right influencer.
Jason Wise says that there are between 3.2 million and 37.8 million influencers in the world. These figures are based on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.
This is just from three platforms, but there are many more in the actual world where influencers can grow. Then what is the solution to finding the right influencers for our brand?
As we know, there are millions of influencers circulating in this world. However, not all of the millions of influencers are suitable for your brand, so you should be able to identify the right influencer by:
Find relevant influencers.
When choosing influencers like celebrities, evaluate the quality of their content. so you can find out how influencers relate to your company’s target market.
If you sell musical instruments, for example, you should look for influential people who like to sing, like famous singers.
So that the influencers you work with will find it easier to promote your business.
know the target audience.
Find out who the influencer’s target audience is to make sure that their audience is similar to yours.
For example, if you’re trying to sell a fashion product, you might decide to work with a fashion influencer.
First, you need to realize that not all fashion influencers have the same audience in mind. Some may be for adults, while others may be for teens or kids.
Using an influencer platform.
Having an influencer platform can make it easier for you to choose the type of influencer that suits your business. Today, there are many sites for influencers, such as SocizBuzz, Heepsy, Aspirel, Upfluence, and many more.
2. Measure ROI (the return on investment) from influencers
The landscape of marketing has undergone a sea of change as a direct result of the growth of influencer marketing. This marketing miracle has offered brands and enterprises with a high return on investment (ROI).
But because there are so many things to think about when measuring ROI, it can be hard to make sure that influencer marketing works.
The following is the right solution when considering ROI:
Tracking pixels.
In an offline store, you may only be able to tell how many customers turn out to be buyers by counting how many people walk in. But you’ll be too busy to count your audience manually. So, having pixels can make it easier to keep track of everything that happens on your website.
Provide a promo code.
Even though this is an old method, it still works well today. Give out discount codes and figure out how many clicks and sales each influencer gets through the codes.
Affiliate Link.
One easy way to do this is to use both celebrity marketing and partner marketing. By giving a program a cut of every sale made through your affiliate link, you can easily keep track of how much you’re earning online.
3. Influencers scam
With the rise of platforms that offer fake followers and paid reviews for social media, many influencers are lying about their services when they market them.
The result of these lies makes it a challenge for business owners to be careful when choosing the right influencers.
Influencer Marketing Hub found that 25% of American marketers lost money due to false followers in 2017.
However, how do you know the authenticity of influencer followers? What’s the best way to know that the influencer’s account is not a scam?
Check engagement quality
An influencer with hundreds of thousands of followers may seem alluring. Beware of these big figures. Who knows—his followers are fake accounts. It can be analyzed by measuring engagement.
You can check the likes and repeated comments on each of those influencers’ posts to see if engagement is too high for the influencer’s followers.
Have a significant number of followers suddenly.
Most of the time, influencers who have fake followers have a sudden rise in the number of people who follow them.
Sprout Social says that this rise might be because fake accounts started following the celebrity after he bought followers. Well, the rise in popularity caused by viral content won’t end soon.
The sudden increase in followers, which only lasted for a short time, could have been caused by bot accounts.
The comments area is full of spam.
Most of the time, fake leaders buy fans who aren’t real people.
So, those fans’ comments could be things like emoticons, scam comments, text that has nothing to do with the topic, and more. Always check the comments section and the quality of interaction as a whole.
Facts and data about influencer marketing
Based on the study “The State of Influencer Marketing 2023: Benchmark Report,” there are a number of interesting facts about marketing with influencers:
1. The influencer marketing industry will grow to around $21.1 billion in 2023.
Even though people were worried about the COVID-19 virus in 2020, influencer marketing has been on the rise since then.
The growth has always increased to $16.4 billion in 2022 and is forecast to rise 29% to $21.1 billion in 2023.
2. 63% of the industry plans to use AI in running their influencer campaigns.
5.6% of respondents said they’d utilise Al to find influencers and feign participation.
3. Over 83% of companies still believe in influencer marketing as an effective form of marketing.
It’s evident that brands are happy with the results of influencer marketing and are ready to keep using it.
4. 23% of businesses plan to spend more than 40% of their entire marketing budget on campaigns involving influencers.
23% of companies like influencer marketing a lot and plan to spend more than 40% of their marketing budget on campaigns that use influencers.
This is defined as an increase of 9% in 2020, 11% in 2021, and then 5% in 2022.
A successful brand thanks to influencer marketing
Many great brands have used influencer marketing to get the word out about their goods and reach more people.
Here are a few examples:
1. Fashion Nova
This fashion brand has become known for its use of influencers to promote its affordable and trendy clothing.
Fashion Nova has been able to reach a younger and more diverse crowd by working with social media stars who have a lot of followers.
2. Glossier
Glossier is a beauty brand that uses influencer marketing to push its makeup and skin care products that look simple and natural.
By working with beauty stars who have a lot of fans, Glossier has been able to build a loyal customer base who trusts their advice.
3. Gymshark
Gymshark is a brand of exercise clothes that uses social media stars to reach a younger, more fitness-minded crowd.
By partnering with fitness influencers who have a dedicated following on social media, Gymshark has been able to create a sense of community around its brand and products.
4. Airbnb
Airbnb has used influencer marketing to promote its unique travel experiences to a wider audience.
By working with travel stars who have a lot of fans, Airbnb has been able to show off its homes and experiences in a way that is visually appealing and easy to understand.
These are just a few businesses that have used famous influencers to overcome influencer marketing challenges.
Businesses can use the power of social media to reach a bigger audience and build trust and authority with potential customers by working with the right leaders and making content that is both interesting and real.