In fact, the influencer marketing industry is set to grow to approximately $9.7B in 2020. CMOs are hopeful for the new year to breathe new life into businesses to increase sales with engaged audiences through their IM investments. Influencer Marketing is in the money for 2021.

Thankfully, the influencer marketing industry has been a savior of sorts to many businesses since the world was exposed to Covid-19 in early 2020. During this pandemic, there has been a significant shift to online-only business; companies who pivoted quickly reaped great rewards and have helped solidify IM as an integral part of the new marketing mix.

Shama Hader, CEO of Zen Media, said it best in a recent podcast interview, “I think that the pandemic in so many ways has given people and brands the opportunity to pause and say, why are we doing this great opportunity for brands by the way, because we’ve never seen people switch brands as we have now. I mean, if there was ever a chance to steal market share from a competitor, it’s hands down now because people are reassessing things they’ve never reassessed.”

Minterdial.com

Leading influencer marketing trend watchers expect this market to cross $22 billion in revenues by the end of 2022 — a more competitive figure than branded social media marketing.

Still not convinced working with influencers is a lucrative marketing strategy for your business? Top influencer marketing trends see companies are making $5.20 for every $1 spent on influencer marketing. Now that’s an ROI that will show you the money.

If you are wondering how to apply influencer marketing to your brand, it pays to understand how to measure it. Brands are set to spend up to $15 billion on influencer marketing by 2022, per Insider Intelligence estimates, based on Mediakix data.

The top seven most frequently asked questions are answered below on utilizing influencer marketing in your B2B marketing mix, and the answers will enable you to make sure your IM strategy pays off for 2021.

What Is Influencer Marketing?

Influencer marketing is Word-of-Mouth marketing for 2021 and beyond. Social media has born leaders on their platforms in all industries. These individuals that millions of people follow and listen to are viewed as experts in their niche.

Through IM, brands are exposed to millions of people by companies aligning with vetted influencers’ authentic voices and banking on the trust that these influencers have created with their dedicated followers. 

Fundamentally, this partnership will influence purchase decisions for millions of followers. It’s how to develop credibility and social proof that your product or services are liked, works, and delivers on its promises, much like word-of-mouth used to do before the digital age.

How Does Influencer Marketing Work?

I believe Francesca Cruz, VP of Sales for TapInfluence, said, “Great content is expensive to create, and yet it rarely gets seen because most companies publish it on their channels. Brands end up paying for distribution and content creation.

Influencer Marketing, however, delivers both content creation and distribution for a much lower price is more authentic, more engaging, and drives ROI at an order of magnitude greater than all other forms of digital media.”

How Does Influencer Marketing Work for B2B and How Is It Different From B2C?

Surely as a business owner, you have noticed the creeping-up costs of paid advertising and decreasing effectiveness as of late. Walk-in, influencer marketing. It has begun to fill a void of the corporate-speak customers are tired of, and block in their social media feeds. IM offers the ability to speak on your product’s behalf authentically, and simultaneously you will see sales go up and costs go down.

Jay Bear said in his article, “There are some critical challenges with this type of marketing, including scalability, disclosure, and the tendency of companies to confuse influence with the audience when selecting persons with whom to align. But the genie is not going back in the bottle. With hundreds of influencer marketing software firms in play, powered by venture capital, this is a marketing sub-genre that’s going to be around a while.”

Admittedly, there are some pitfalls to consider using IM for B2B as with any adventure into new and uncharted territory. Specifically listed below are the top three tenants you will need to consider before creating your B2B IM strategy:

B2B IM strategies need longer timelines than B2C.

To put it another way, you can post a skincare item online with an influencer and see sales spike within the first 30 days of creating the campaign. B2B purchases can typically take longer and include more decision-makers; therefore, the timeline could be at least six months or more before results are seen.

Know who your customers are listening to, following, watching, and reading.

Once you determine who these people are, you may find that they are the best voice for your business despite their limited social strength.  This tip is a far cry from the B2C practice of finding influencers solely based on their social media prowess.

Attract influencers to your brand.

Of course, this a dream come true for most businesses. But in all reality, you will initially have to go out and find your influencer muse. In fact, some of the most successful influencer programs in history turn this relationship on its head. In these cases, the company creates enough great content and community that influencers show up and participate without being asked to do so.

Southwest Airlines discovered that their frequent fliers posted their flights online, and one person emerged as one of their first influencers.

In 2016 that’s precisely what happened to Southwest Airlines. Branden first showed up in their feed a lot due to his traveling, and that partnership paved the way for their current 2019 Storyteller campaign. See Southwest’s caption from the original Facebook post of their unique initiative.

“Meet Branden. Branden’s love affair with Southwest began years ago when he started dating a lovely girl named Sammi long distance. He was in Portland; she was in Nashville. Countless flights later, he’s now married to that lovely girl.
Make sure to stay tuned here on Facebook as Branden shares stories of the fascinating people he meets on Southwest flights for the rest of the year. You can also follow along with Branden’s travels on Instagram and Snapchat.”

How to Measure the ROI of Influencer Marketing?

Undoubtedly setting goals is one of the most critical pieces to any marketing campaign; understand what you want to accomplish and set goals to get there. Influencer marketing is no different.

Shane Barker, who is a digital marketing consultant for 15 years with an emphasis on influencer marketing, states the first step in IM is to set goals; here are some common goals to consider for influencer campaigns:

1. Increase brand awareness
2. Reach new target audiences
3. Increase sales
4. Manage brand reputation

These are comprehensive goals, so some granular, more tangible metrics are

1. Impressions
2. Clicks
3. Conversions
4. Sales

Notably, a best practice to apply when working with an influencer is to choose someone who aligns with your marketing and brand ideals so that if you planned to reach a certain sales level during a particular time, the influencer is also working toward that goal as well in their business.

How to Track and Find Influencers?

Ultimately, tracking is the next big concern for marketers who use influencers. Believe it or not, there is an app for that. Positively take advantage of the plethora of influencer marketing platforms available to streamline the manual work involved in managing the influencers in your campaigns.

Many of these platforms can help you set up and manage your campaigns with branded content.  You should ensure that your platform can help you find genuine influencers with ease.

Here are a few platforms to choose from:

1. Heepsy- Best for a database of over 7 million influencers
2. The Room- Best for enterprises, agencies, charities, and startups
3. Fourstarzz Media- Best for small businesses

The vital questions influencer marketing platforms should be able to answer are:

1. Does the platform help with native advertising campaigns?
2. Can it help you track the campaign results?
3. Does it help you manage the influencer’s content?

A whopping 92% of consumers trust a personal recommendation from a friend. And that is a number that hardly any advertisement can beat. IM is the word-of-mouth for product launches in 2021, delivering outstanding results.

Shane also wrote, “Once you determine the best platform for your marketing needs, to help measure the success, utilize unique URLs for each influencer to track the traffic from their blogs and social media posts. Create a unique discount code to see which influencer brings in the most sales. With the data from all the influencers, you can begin to pare down those that speak to your audience best and bring in the most sales.”

Content Marketing Institute

Finally, add a few new brand influencers from your initial list and run the next short duration influencer program using this unique mix of influencers.

Through this process, you can improve your next campaign’s effectiveness and run a successful influencer program for your brand.

How Does Influencer Marketing ROI Compare to Other Marketing Channels?

Instagram is most famously known for its influencers; in fact, an estimated 71% of US businesses today use Instagram. It’s the highest-growth network out there. Others are catching up like Snapchat, YouTube, and TikTok with their own set of influencers’ different demographics.

Regardless of the vehicle, crucial decisions need to be made for your IM campaign, and your budget may determine how you start.

First, is it going to be a Micro or Mega influencer? It would be best if you decided which fits best for your brand. Second, are you going for celebrities with massive followings? If so, be sure to have a big budget in mind.

Third, micro-influencers with less than 2000 followers? Perhaps something in between in the 5–10k follower range is more your preference.

Whatever you decide to focus on will determine your budget.

The compensation varies wildly, too, so be sure to look at standard rates for those influencer types. Micro-influencers tend to be focused on a few topics and accept products.

Some micro-influencers work independently, while an agency or network may represent others. In comparison, larger accounts and celebrities will need compensation and might even go through a talent agency.

After you decide on your brand-appropriate micro or mega influencer, your budget, timing, one final crucial piece to be determined is what content this influencer will be a part of on behalf of your brand.

How to use Influencer Marketing – Trends in 2021

Here are eight types of content, sure to be hot for 2021 and your IM strategy.

Video Content Will Remain King

“The rise of Instagram Reels and the domination of TikTok the influencer smarting place with being more collaborative than ever.”

A Focus on Diversity and Inclusion

“The goal for 2021 should be to build diversity and inclusion into all aspects of your business — including influencer marketing — to create effective change and illustrate your brand’s values.”

The “No-Edit Edit” Will Evolve

“In 2021, we predict an increase in bloggers and influencers using the #nofilter trend. With a focus on authenticity, they’ll apply subtle edits to their photos to create an “in-the-moment” and unedited look into their lives.”

@rohinielyse

Value-Driven Content

“Now more than ever, people want to see your authentic self! I think providing some content that shows your real-life personality is key to growing online these days,” shared Rohini.

shared Rohini

More Ongoing Partnerships

Manu Muraro, the founder of Your Social Team, says one-off influencer posts or stories aren’t enough to bring results to most brands — “it takes 6 to 8 touches to make a sale.”

A Focus on Micro and Nano Influencers 

According to our 2019 report with Fohr, micro-influencers have the highest engagement rates (averaging at 7%) on their feed posts!

In fact, influencers with less than 25K followers had higher engagement rates regardless of their genre, target audience, or topics.

New Social Platforms and Creator Tools

Nichole Ciotti predicts TikTok will be the platform to talk about in 2021. She also believes brands will be investing more money with popular creators on the platform:

“The natural virality their interface affords is going to enable brands to multiply their marketing efforts for the same dollars, especially with micro-influencers who produce amazing content, which has a high potential to get picked up by TikTok’s algorithm and go viral.”

Nichole Ciotti

New Forms of Influencer Media

This year, we’ve already begun to see CGI-influencers pop up on our feeds, partnering with brands for the perfect #sponsored posts. The most notable digital influencer — Lil Miquela, has over 2.8M followers on Instagram.

These days it appears that the little darling of marketing is proving to be influencer marketing. Users claim it is delivering an astounding 11x ROI over all other forms of digital media. This is money to content creators and social media influencers who have, for years, known that authentic promotion of brands is substantially more impactful than, say, a banner ad.

Until today, however, they couldn’t prove it. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 -19 crisis is still in full swing worldwide; how better to continue improving your company’s sales by applying these tips to your 2021 influencer marketing strategy. Now you can establish the IM ROI. Based on these findings, influencer marketing will pay off in 2021.

GVC Marketing can help you with your influencer marketing.