There’s no way around it: influencer marketing is an essential part of your marketing mix. Budgets for influencer marketing are growing, and over two thirds of marketers is planning to use more influencers this year. Becoming a popular means of marketing, we see multinationals and corporates using influencers left and right. For a lot of companies, there are still many possibilities.
Some companies, however, still believe influencer marketing is not right for them. Strangely, a large part of that group of companies consists of startups. A common misunderstanding is that influencer marketing is only available for companies with a large marketing budget. Successful startups, however, manage to tap into the power of influencer marketing – with any budget. In this post we’ll explore how you can make room for influencer marketing in your existing marketing budget.
Content Creation Budget
Influencer create content from scratch – because they’re used to it. Whether it’s in the forms of videos, Instagram pictures or blog posts, they have built their entire career on creativity. A content brief is more than they’re used to working with. This means you can give them the broad strokes, and they can colour the rest in. Opposed to traditional content creators, say photographers or video-editors, influencers are cost-efficient. They provide creative input and high quality content, catered for your target audience. They are definitely worth more than they cost.
Online Advertising Budget
One of the top reasons adblockers have been growing in popularity is that customers have grown tired of ads. Popups continue to receive the most complaints, followed by videos and audio that auto-play as a site loads. As consumers have learned to scroll past ads, marketers are forced to become more creative. Instead of burning budget on online advertising, it is much better spent on influencer marketing. This way, you can enhance your marketing efforts without spending more money.
Search Engine Advertising Budget
The reality these days is that it’s almost impossible for a business to survive without Google. Yes, there are other search engines, and yes advertising and social media helps. This is why there is such a large market of link farms and black hat link-building.
But for inbound marketing, organic searches and links are your best bet. Which is exactly why influencers can be such a help. They use their own reputation to push your links. These links create authority towards your website. All of it contributes to positioning you higher in Google’s search results. And of course, this means more traffic, clicks and conversions for your business, brand or service. Instead of spending your budget on SEA, try focussing on organic content from influencers. They will truly help you forward.
Conclusion
Influencer marketing is a lean, dynamic and agile marketing strategy. Logically, it fits very well with similar characteristics of startups. Influencer marketing can help startups improve their marketing efforts, and learn on the project.
