In this digest, we have four influencer marketing-related articles to share with you. We cover why influencers are as important as ever, we’ve got a case study to show how influencers helped shift brand perception for EDF and have some tips on how to keep it simple.
Three reasons why influencers are as important as ever
The way people shop and make decisions about purchases has changed. People will trust a recommendation from a peer over your company’s website any day. And this is where the power of influence comes in.
Here’s three reasons why influencers aren’t going anywhere:
- Customer experience. Influencers can provide important touchpoints with your brand that have more weight than the content you produce directly. People would rather learn from their peers than from a seemingly faceless company. If you choose the right influencer, you will have an authentic and real connection to their audience. This is rare. And precious.
- Social media advertising is growing. According to Adobe Digital Insights, 50% of Generation Z and 42% of Millennials report saying ads on social media are most relevant to them.
- Standardisation. Transparency has always been essential to maintaining trust as well as good practise. Better standardisation guidelines from advertising governing bodies like the ASA and CAP is great news because it means there’s less opportunity for fake followers, fraud and general bad practise. Standardisation means the consumer knows what they’re getting and won’t feel duped, which is essential for trust.
Influencers: three reasons why they’re as important as ever 3 min read
How influencers helped bring EDF into a whole new marketplace
To support EDF’s brand new electric vehicle (EV) offering, we created a film series celebrating the Great British road trip.
Electric Adventures is an influencer-led five-part series featuring influencers like Jim Chapman, Mother Pukka, Wes Nelson and Dr Alex George. We gave each influencer an electric car and filmed their electric adventure – busting myths along the way about what it’s like to drive and run an electric car.
Because of this campaign, EDF launched EVs to a mass audience, with support from the nine influencers. They went beyond energy and into the automotive space with huge success.
Ever bought a car from an energy company? 4 min read
What you should really be trying to achieve with influencer marketing
Because of the distrust in advertising, influencer marketing has exploding as a way of gaining trust with increasingly discerning audiences. But a lot of brands are set up for failure because they’re measuring the wrong metrics or using the wrong model.
Here are our tips for keeping it simple:
Pinpoint your metrics for success
The main thing most brands want to see is cold hard cash, so conversion is a major expectation. This is an easy metric to affect if you’re a commerce brand – especially fashion. You can advertise a product through a person that will influence your audience and watch the sales roll in.
But that doesn’t deliver long-term value. And it isn’t a one-size-fits-all theory. Sectors like financial services, utilities and entertainment need to use different methods to reach audiences and consider different metrics to measure success.
Relevancy is the backbone of effective influencer marketing
Staying relevant is life or death in a crowded market so choosing the right influencer is integral to gaining and maintaining relevance. The right influencer or influencers can increase your relevance with a target audience, a new demographic or reach new niche audiences that are difficult to reach through traditional advertising.
Maintaining relevance in your target audience can provide longer-term value like an improvement in brand sentiment, repeat custom and brand advocacy, which are arguably more important for the longevity of your brand but undoubtedly harder to measure.
What you should really be trying to achieve with influencer marketing 3 min read
Advocacy not endorsement
The idea that your brand is not what you say it is, but what other people say it is, is nothing new. And this has never been more true than in the digital age. As we become more and more immune to traditional advertising, we listen more to our peers when it comes to understanding a brand or a product’s value. This is where the power of the influencer comes in.
While influencer marketing can bring incredible results, it can be a confusing space. This article outlines the difference between endorsement and effective influencer marketing, and has some tips for how to approach it.
Advocacy not endorsement – the key to effective influencer marketing 2 min read
Get in touch here if you’d like to speak to us about how we can help you build an effective influencer marketing strategy.
