Tag Archive: Brands

Why the future of advertising is influencer?

August 18, 2020 12:26 pm Published by

What was one of the first lessons your parents taught you?

“Never talk to Strangers”.

Yet, what do we as brands try to do every day? 

It’s not our fault though. It is behavior engrained by decades of mass production, media consumption habits, and the lag of translating real value from (digital) advertising to real results for brands.

Adtech has evolved over the last 25 years, bringing about tension between ad personalization and data privacy. The next 10 years of adtech evolution has suddenly been compressed as a result of COVID, and what this translates into, is a mass migration of ad spend from traditional mediums like outdoor, print, and even TV to new mediums like influencer. 

Let’s understand what has changed, and why? And how you can navigate the noise to find real return on ad spend.

To sell a product, you need to reach a target audience with a message (content) and you need a “shelf” where your audience can purchase the product.

In the early days of mass production when mediums such as TV and Radio were used for reaching a mass audience, the objective was to produce a product and distribute it to a shelf near you for as little as possible. The “Brand” controlled the narrative and became the vehicle of trust. There were many ways to optimize the cost of reaching consumers and optimize the chances of success through shopper marketing, neuroscience, and distinctiveness on shelf, etc. 

However, the problem here was that it was difficult for the brand to know who their customers actually were. In response, along came industries such as CRM, Loyalty, and post-purchase upsell and cross-sell mechanisms that add value and return by extracting more revenue from existing and incremental spend. 

Over time, digital advertising and with it social media-enabled much better targeting of audiences and ad optimization. Add eCommerce, and for the first time brands actually got to meet their customers at scale, and perhaps more importantly understand which 50% of their ad budget was actually working.

But, there was still one major hurdle to overcome. The narrative that the brand once controlled had moved from a “one-to-many” model to a “many-to-many” model. The brand was no longer the host of the party, the party was now at the consumer’s house and no matter how hard the brand knocked, it was up to the consumer to unlock the door and allow the brand into the party and become part of the conversation. The power was now in the hands of the consumer. 

Enter Influencer Marketing…..

The rise and rise of influencer as an advertising channel is best illustrated by the search trends in the Google trends data below:

Celebrities such as Kylie Jenner have been quick to leverage their celebrity founded on traditional channels within social media helping them to build billion-dollar brands. Others have leveraged this trend to amass huge passionate followers and launch their own businesses founded on social media alone – Chiara Ferragni  – @chiaraferragni. What follows are big and small brands alike trying to unlock the consumer’s front door and join in on the conversation by leveraging consumer trust from within the party – AKA influencers.

Given the rise of the nano, and micro-influencer and that engagement is directly proportional to reach, what has evolved is:

  1. The cost of producing authentic content by working with influencers has come down.
  2. You can now reach highly engaged audiences by using more nano & micro-influencers at once through the right tech.
  3. Resulting in being able to leverage the trust that niche audiences have in influencers at scale.

Check Out.

Now that we understand how advertising has evolved, let’s unpack the evolution of the shelf. While COVID has added fuel to the burning of retail and migration to the online checkout, the next step in evolution moves the shelf from the brand owned eCommerce website and marketplace (read Amazon) to the point of purchase itself through a “distributed link” – meaning the checkout can now happen on any platform anywhere – on Instagram; on the influencer’s profile; on a live video or on any URL, and still, get fulfilled by “Amazon” – hence fulfillment becomes a commodity. 

Lastly, you have social proof built-in, which means the content, the purchase, and the referral all happen at the same time, fuelling an increase in your Return On Ad Spend (ROAS).

What this means is that if done correctly, a big or small brand can quite literally go from zero to hero overnight. 

Do you believe that the future of advertising is influencer?

Here are my top 5 tips for working with influencers to cut through the noise and improve your Return On Ad Spend.

  1. Work with micro & nano Influencers at scale instead of celebrities, this will be much more cost-effective.
  2. Allow the influencer to create the content and try not to dictate too much. Influencers know their audience needs much better than we do, if the audience smells a lack of authenticity your campaign will not work and that door will remain locked.
  3. Bring the Point of Purchase as close as you can to the content.
  4. Use Branded Content Ads to reach new audiences with the sophisticated targeting capabilities of Facebook (& Instagram).
  5. Ensure you are tracking your ROI and ROAS which should outperform traditional and digital ad channels. 

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to reach out to [email protected]

Ryan Silberman.

Share this article

3 brands moving tonnes of product using influencer marketing on Instagram

September 2, 2016 10:30 am Published by

Blog_Blog small copy

You know those products that only live on the pages of really famous instagrammers? The ones you wish you could find in your local store and keep asking “Why don’t they stock them?” Truth is: they don’t need brick-and-mortar, because influencers are helping these brands ship millions of the products worldwide with every post they promote. Take a look at some of the most popular brands that are killing it with the power of influencer marketing on Instagram.

Smile Sciences

Smile Sciences specialises in those UV home teeth-whitening kits you’ve probably spotted in your Instagram feed. While more established teeth-whitening brands are using reality TV stars to promote their kits, Smile Sciences’ strategy is to partner with influential beauty bloggers, like: fashion and beauty blogger Doniya Malik. The kits sell for $299, if you’re tempted by their pearly whites.

 

influencer

 

beauty ss

 

Smile science

 

Boo Tea

Boo Tea is just one of the many weight loss teas being sold on the internet. The brand offers everything from slimming and detox teas to shakes and tablets. It owes its success largely to its influencer strategy, and is being promoted by an army of fitness influencers on Instagram. Boo Tea products retail from $19,99 to $49,99 in case you were curious. Another reason it’s so popular: worldwide shipping.

 

Laura ammy

 

Boo Tea

 

conrad

 

Artis Brushes

This makeup brush set has been featured by many a famous beauty blogger. Not only are the brushes starring in their Instagram posts, but you’ll also spot them in YouTube tutorials where vloggers use Artis brushes to contour and create flawless looks. It costs around $450 to get your hands on the entire set, which can be ordered off the Artis brush website and delivered anywhere in the world.

 

ARTIS

 

nicole

 

Which other brands have you spotted using influencers on Instagram to promote their products? Do you think a similar strategy would work for you? Sign up as a marketer on Webfluential today, and find influencers that are the perfect fit for your brand.

 

Share this article

3 ways brands can match up with the perfect influencer

August 25, 2016 10:15 am Published by

Instagram post

As more and more brands turn to digital creators, social influencers and rising internet stars as a trusted source of advertising we’re starting to see some great lessons flooding the internet. As with any new(ish) trend, the brave brands venture out and help the rest of the industry define the rules and best practices for the future. Over the last year I’ve watched hundreds of brands be brave, and reap the great rewards as a result.

One lesson stands out: influencer marketing campaigns get the best results when the brand and the influencer are a good match.

Take a look at the Australian launch of Netflix in 2015, where influencer Troye Sivan live-tweeted his way through a couple of episodes of The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt – it was a sublime pairing of brand and influencer, and his tweets reached over 90 million people in one hour.

How does a brand find its influencer soul mate? It´s a bit like dating, actually. There is more than one way to find your perfect match – over the last year i’ve managed narrow down three ways to deliver that perfect match.

Option one:

You go out and find The One! Back in the day this meant standing at the bar, spotting someone you think you´ll get along with and offering to buy them a drink. These days, it´s a lot simpler. I´m talking apps like Tinder. Matchmaking made easy in the technological age. Likewise with finding the right influencer for your campaign. Where once you had interns scouring the web, cataloging blogs, stats and contact details, platforms like Webfluential have made finding influencers a snap, you just register as a marketer and use the Search function to filter through our 10,000-strong database of accredited influencers.

Option two:

You could also find your perfect match The Bachelor style. Let the influencers pitch their best ideas to you based on a brief, and pick the one that really gets you. This option works best for marketers who know they need to get some traction in the market, but maybe don’t have the perfect picture on how to do that. Smart marketers are simply asking the most influential people in their target market for help!

Option three:

But what if you´re not looking for a ´swipe right´ kind of relationship? You want something deeper, you want to know that you are both into Star Wars and cat memes? In the past, a safe bet would be to ask your mates to introduce you to someone they know you have something in common with. Brands, now you can do this too: approach influencers you know are already talking and tweeting about your brand because they are fans. Or, they are talking to an audience you have your eye on. Tools like Discovered by Webfluential allow you to listen in to the conversations, and then invite these influencers to work with you.

Example: Justin Bieber and Calvin Klein. Whether Justin is on stage, or on social, or on a sponsored photoshoot he has an affinity for the brand. I would bet on the fact that he’d outsell any online store in no time if he Tweeted a link to purchase product – it would be poetry in motion.

Connecting with the right influencers

As an industry, let’s make a stand to be better. However you find your perfect match, remember, you can’t fake a relationship between a brand and an influencer – their audience can always tell. Long-term brand-influencer partnerships work the best, so if you like it, put a ring on it and be exclusive.

Share this article