Influencer marketing is a widespread marketing strategy. With two thirds of marketers wanting to spike their influencer marketing efforts next year, and more and more budget being allocated to influencers, it is an incontestable fact. Multinationals and corporates all around the world are strongly integrating influencers in their marketing strategy, both on- and offline. Influencer marketing is taking the world by storm.
Some companies, however, still believe influencer marketing is not right for them. Strangely, a large part of that group of companies consists of startups. Perhaps it is an issue of mentality, or budget. Anyhow, it’s a shame. Influencer marketing is just right for startups.
Startups
Luckily, throughout the last years, startups are increasingly using influencer marketing to spread their message. With both big and small budgets, they have proven that influencer marketing is applicable for all businesses. For startups, influencer marketing scores particularly well because of three reasons:
Target audience
Startups often launch new products or services, that are mostly desired and consumed by young people. These people, from generation Z and millennials to the financially strong thirty-somethings, are very closely connected to influencers and social media in general. The youngest audiences out there, influencers are an indispensable part of their life. Startups aiming to get into contact with young people therefore often choose to work with influencers.
Experimenting
Launching a startup is all about trying, failing and eventually succeeding. Instead of marketing techniques that require a lot of (technical) knowledge and preparation, influencer marketing is easy to set up and experiment with. Start with your own ideas, or have a relevant influencer pitch their ideas to you. Ideally, you combine both! If you start your campaign with a wide spectrum of influencers, it’s very easy to determine which influencer and which strategy works best for you. Once you’ve obtained that knowledge, we can optimize campaigns for the future.
Learnings
Which brings us to the last advantage of influencer marketing for startups. Once you’ve obtained knowledge on which type of influencer and strategy works best for your brand, it’s very easy to optimize your strategy. Influencer marketing is personal and dynamic, meaning that you can simply round up the collaborations you’ve done, and look ahead. You may choose to stop working with the influencers that provided the fewest results, to engage in negotiations with influencers to work with them long-term or to experiment with new influencers and techniques. The dynamic nature of influencer marketing makes it very easy to adjust as you go.
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.
