Influencer marketing: why, how and what?

The word influencer is not yet in the Dutch word list of Microsoft Word. This indicates that this principle is still relatively new. More and more organizations are choosing influencers to improve their marketing strategy. What is an influencer? In which way influencer marketing contribute to the success of your organization? In this article we tell you more about why influencer marketing. We also give some useful tips for starting the deployment of influencers yourself. This way you can further tighten the marketing strategy of your organization.

The idea behind the deployment of an influencer

An influencer is usually described as a well-known person with a large reach. In the present time, a famous person does not necessarily have to be a famous artist, actor or politician. For example, think of someone with a large reach on social media, someone who creates vlogs for a certain target group YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat or Facebook. These influencers currently focus primarily on a younger audience, since it is precisely this target group that is increasingly active on the internet. They no longer watch television programs, but watch programs on the internet again or follow similar programs in videos online on YouTube, Dumpert or Facebook.

Benefits of influencer marketing

The reason that organizations use an influencer within their marketing strategy is the fact that these influencers usually have a very large reach. Often this range varies from a few thousand to even tens of thousands of Dutch and Belgian followers. It is of course also possible to opt for an influencer with a more international audience. The large network behind an influencer relies on the knowledge and advice that this influencer gives in messages, photos and videos. This is reflected, for example, in the clothing that followers buy, the care products that are purchased, gadgets that are taken over, and so on.

For organizations, influencer marketing offers a unique opportunity to reach a large part of their target group in a subtle way. Without explicitly advertising your products or services, an influencer can drop the name of your organization. The combination of the confidence that followers have in an influencer, the wide reach and the effect of influencers, makes this a very effective form of advertising for companies.

B2C and B2B differences
Influencer marketing is not just for consumers. In business, decisions are also influenced by business blogs and specialists. Sharing knowledge, thought leadership, is a spearhead for more and more companies. The two major differences between B2C and B2B influencer marketing are:

• Longer sales process: the process of a B2B purchase typically takes much longer than with B2C. Such as the purchase of new software or hardware for example. That is why early contact with your target group via influencers is interesting.
• Smaller target group: the amounts at B2B are generally higher and the numbers lower than at B2C. A smaller target group is fishing for larger fish. This means that segmentation is more important at B2C. Quality first, then quantity.

5 tips to start influencer marketing yourself

Now that we have described what influencer marketing can make so interesting for companies, it's time to get started. We are happy to give you five handy tips that can make this easier for you!

1. Decide what you want in advance target audience is. Try to look at the location of your target group, their age group, their gender and their interests.
2. Search for one online network to which several influencers have joined. This way you can directly approach multiple influencers. It is a prominent Dutch influencer marketing platform Juulr.com. Bloeise can also be found here.
3. Try approach influencers themselves if you don't find them in one of these networks. Many influencers have an email address in their public profile.
4. Always check the followers of an influencer are real. Unfortunately, a large proportion of the followers of an influencer are irrelevant or have only one or two followers themselves.
5. Pay attention to the Interaction between the influencer and his / her followers. Look at the number of likes on photos, the number of responses, and so on.