There is no doubt that influencer marketing can be extremely effective if used correctly, and in recent years, more and more ways to use influencers have emerged. However, if you have not worked with influencer marketing before, for example, it can be difficult to assess which types of influencer marketing create the most value for you.
To set the stage, you will first be introduced to the most common and frequently used branches of influencer marketing. We would argue that there are roughly 3 schools of thought within influencer marketing at the moment:
- Gifting: Those who primarily send free products to the influencer so that the influencer showcases the products on their own platforms.
- Affiliate driven influencer marketing: The influencer earns something for every sale he/she generates for the brand. The influencer gets paid for the performance he/she delivers.
- Classic advertising oriented, where you use influencers for both branding and sales - focus on both the long-term and short-term.
Which method should you choose?
There is no doubt that affiliate and performance influencer marketing can be effective in the short term and you will often be able to see results here and now. However, using affiliate marketing exclusively is also a very short-term strategy. Overinvesting in short-term marketing strategies can create a tendency that if you can't see an effect of your investment here and now, then it hasn't worked. We think this is the wrong approach, as you can't always see the effect of your marketing initiatives here and now.
Therefore, I believe that it can be problematic if you exclusively use schools 1 and 2. Both strategies generate a lot of product-specific content where the influencer becomes a sales channel and you distance yourself from what influencers are really good at, namely creating added value through personal relationships and storytelling.
What can school 3 contribute (focus on both branding and sales)?
Influencers are super skilled at creating added value through personal relationships and storytelling. Storytelling and branding can, for example, be achieved through long-term collaborations with influencers. This added value will often help potential customers to be more likely to choose you over others and create higher loyalty towards your product.
Brand loyalty is not something that is built through a single post, it takes time.
It is clear that the added value mentioned is more difficult to measure than direct conversions to sales, as you cannot see an effect here and now. This is perhaps also the reason why many marketing departments are discouraged from using this particular school - they are often asked to show immediate results in, for example, increased sales. We do not believe that this is sustainable in the long term.
So what does this mean for your influencer marketing mix?
It is clear that the choice of your influencer marketing strategy also depends on how big your budget is. For example, if you have a smaller budget for influencer marketing, you will tend to focus on the more short-term strategies, as it will probably generate a greater return here and now. This method is not necessarily bad either, as it is still better than not using influencers at all. However, if you want to get the most out of your influencer marketing, you should combine several strategies.
In more concrete terms, this means that you need to remember the balance between the short-term and the long-term - and that requires a certain degree of patience. Brand-strengthening activities (storytelling) and the more sales-promoting activities (performance marketing and gifting) should both contribute to a stronger position in the market - the only difference is that they do it at different paces, and we should accept that.
