During 2016 a form of marketing exploded. Influencer marketing, the digital word of mouth, took over last year and it doesn’t show any signs of stopping; in fact by the end of 2017 it is predicted that more marketing budgets will be spent on influecner marketing, than tv ads.

 

Influencer marketing is being implemented in nearly every industry. However, we’ve listed the top 5 industries using influencer marketing right now.

 

1. Fashion & Beauty– Influencers in this group can include: makeup artists, models, fashionistas (fashion bloggers/vloggers), editors of fashion magazines, founders of fashion brands, and stylists.
Nearly 60% of fashion/beauty brands have an influencer marketing strategy in place. Whilst 21% aim to invest in it over the next 12 months. Which means in a year at least 81% of fashion & beauty brands will be using influencers to market their products. In fact fashion and beauty marketing professionals polled in US & UK plan to increase their influencer budget in 2016 by 59% (Fashionista).

 

2. Home & Family – Whether it’s home interiors, DIY’s, life as a mother or the home & family lifestyle, this industry makes use of the many influencers who blog about exactly that. Brands reach out to influencers who are interior designers, mummy and lifestyle bloggers.

 

3. Health & Fitness – There has been an increase in health and fitness brands, and as a result, the number of individuals turning to a healthier lifestyle has also increased. Fitness models, lifestyle bloggers who have turned to veganism or just healthy foods, and personal trainers all document their diets and fitness regimes on social media, making it attractive for brands to work with them.

 

4. Travel & Lifestyle – A large percentage of influencers, try to implement travel and lifestyle in their social media. Travel and lifestyle influencers are the most sought after type of influencer to be. This is because being a good travel/ lifestyle influencer theoretically means, that they would get paid by brands to write whilst travelling, with most expanses being covered by the brand.

 

5.  Food & Beverage –Sometimes, food and beverages merges with all the above as it’s something everyone does on a daily basis. However, there are food industry experts who solely focus on food, such as chefs, bakers, cake designers, or food bloggers.

 

Platforms used to Market Products in each Industry

Blogs and Facebook, are found to be the most effective channels for influencer marketing, 37% supporting blogs and 25% supporting that Facebook is the most effective platform in a study by Tomoson. However this hugely depends on the type of industry, influencer and audience.

 

• Platforms Used By TYPE OF INFLUENCERS

Micro-influencers (influencers with a smaller following) post original content on Instagram as 59% of them think Instagram is the most effective social media platform in engaging their audience. Even more so however,  among certain industries, such as fashion (Bloglovin’).

 

Different influencers dominate on different social media platforms. Food bloggers have 4x the number of followers on blogs than any other industry. On twitter, it’s the family influencers that take the lead, mostly mummy and parenting bloggers. On Facebook, food influencers are in the lead; followed by lifestyle and home bloggers whilst Instagram is dominated by fashion and travel influencers (AdWeek).

 

Audiences most Susceptible to Influencer Marketing

92% of us trust recommendations from individuals, even if we don’t personally know them, over brands (Nielsen); whilst 74% of us consumers use social media to make purchase decisions (SproutSocial). This means that most of us are susceptible to influencer marketing, that is buy into something, someone recommends online. However some of us are more susceptible than others.

With social media particularly targeting today’s millennials, it’s not surprising that the most susceptible to influencer marketing are today’s millennials. However one of the benefits of using influencer marketing is that brands target a specific audience. Meaning that anyone on social media, who is exposed to sponsored posts will be influenced and likely turned from a bystander to a buyer (Nielsen).

 

Difficulties of an Influencer Marketing Campaign

According to a report published by Econsultancy, The Rise of Micro-influencers 73% of brands agree that their greatest challenge is identifying the influencers, with 59% finding it time consuming and difficult to engage with the right influencers. That’s why platforms like ZINE streamline the whole process, from identifying the right influencers, connecting and contacting them, negotiating on compensation and keeping on top of campaigns.

 

The only way is up- For Budgets

Brands who have yet to implement any sort of influencer marketing, haven’t done so, as  they fail to reach influencer’s compensation expectations due to budget constraints; primarily, brands which believe that influencers are too expensive.

However most of the brands that do use influencer marketing will be increasing their influencer marketing budgets in the next year. With only 10% and 11% maintaining and decreasing their budgets respectively (Tomoson).

 

Return on Investment (ROI) for Influencer Marketing

Although theoretically Return on Investment (ROI) on influencer marketing would be substantial, it still remains elusive. Exact ROI on influencer marketing is difficult to measure. With most campaigns it remains difficult to pin point the exact source of the accumulated sales. Which is one of the many reasons for the uncertainty surrounding the effectiveness of

However a number of studies have revealed that the ROI is quite impressive and worthwhile. Results reveal that on average, for each $1 invested in influencer marketing, brands generate between $6.50 (tapinfluence) and $9.60 (Rhythm One) revenue. Tapinfluence reported that Influencer marketing generates as much as 11 times more return on investment than an average display ad (tapinfluence).

Other estimates have reported a 2:1 return of every pound invested, whilst 13% of marketing departments for brands surveyed by Tomoson reported a return on investment as high as 20:1. There is a discrepancy on ROI, but it remains substantial in all cases. The exact ROI would and should depend on the nature of the campaign.

 

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Joanna Karamanis

I’m head of Content at ZINE, where I use my expertise in fashion consumer psychology to empower brands and influencers in their marketing campaigns. I love to travel, bake as well as shopping online.