IS INFLUENCER MARKETING ALL IT'S CRACKED UP TO BE?

In 2020, the influencer marketing industry is set to reach a whopping 10 billion dollars. A startling 99.3% of businesses who use influencer marketing use Instagram to build and launch their campaigns. But with the rise of major and micro-influencers proliferating on Instagram and elsewhere, is influencer marketing all it’s cracked up to be? For brand awareness, maybe. But when it comes to sales, we don’t think so.

Why has influencer marketing become so popular?

There isn’t a company or marketer alive who hasn’t struggled with creating awareness and driving sales. Often, marketers don’t have enough unique and original content to support all their channels and entertain and inform their audience members. It’s also challenging to foster trustworthiness and brand identity. And with so many brands using online and offline marketing and advertising, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for marketers to break through the noise and capture their ideal customer’s attention. Because of these marketing difficulties, influencer marketing quickly became the go-to solution for these problems. But the solutions influencer marketing brings to the table - trustworthiness and attention-grabbing - aren’t necessarily going to result in direct sales.

So, what’s the problem with influencer marketing?

When they first came on the scene, influencers may have been able to build the type of trust that brand’s want to foster with their target audience. But in today’s world where fake bots and large follower counts are often an illusion, influencers are more akin to reality stars than trusted authorities for most consumers. Having thousands, and hundreds of thousands, of followers might be what marketers want to see, but this doesn’t always translate into a sign of trustworthiness for consumers.

Studies and surveys on influencer marketing bear this out. Only 23% of surveyed consumers believe that content and recommendations from celebrities and micro-influencers are in fact, influential. Conversely, 60% of consumers are more apt to trust recommendations and content from their friends and family members. A social influencer, to most consumers, is just another marketer. They are inherently untrustworthy. Consumers are savvy and understand that content from influencers is simply the digital, modern equivalent of paid advertising.

The impact of social influencers is similar to the effects found with native advertising forms. It’s useful for steadily improving soft metrics like awareness and engagement. But when it comes to metrics like sales and conversions, influencer marketing falls short. Companies must understand that influencer marketing does have a place - to build awareness. But when it comes to direct sales? Not so much, and your efforts are more likely to pay off if you focus your marketing efforts elsewhere.

Who are your greatest influencers?

The effectiveness of influencer marketing will vary somewhat depending on your industry and your specific marketing goals. But the prevalence of bots and fake followers has seriously sullied the reputation and effectiveness of influencer marketing when it comes to sales. Your best bet? Get your real customers to recommend your products and services to their family and friends.

TOP 3 WAYS TO MAKE THE FREEMIUM MODEL WORK FOR YOU

Modern shoppers are bombarded with advertisements. In our highly connected, digital age, there is no end in sight to the range of products, services, and brands that a consumer can purchase from and support. But with so many ads and brands competing for consumer’s limited attention and discretionary income, how can a company find new consumers, and get them hooked on their products or services? Finding qualified leads isn’t enough. You need to find a way to compel those leads to make a purchase. What’s one of the quickest ways to do that? The freemium model, and we’ll cover the top three ways the freemium model can work for your business.

With profit margins getting tighter in many industries, the freemium model does have a few downsides. But for subscription-based service models, going freemium can be an excellent way to build your brand awareness, convert leads to sales, and increase your profits.

1. The freemium model cuts through the noise.

The average consumer sees 5,000 product ads a day. Offering a compelling freemium service for a trial period is a quick and easy way to cut through the noise and the competition online. But to make this work for your business, you need to offer an obvious value to the customer with your freemium versus paid subscription model.  

Spotify does a great job here. They offer a freemium, but users have to listen to commercials for one thing, and they can’t download songs to a multitude of devices with Spotify freemium. Upgrading to the paid option though gives them the ability to skip songs, skip commercials, and download their playlists to any mobile device.

What you need to do is offer the customer an obvious value when they upgrade to make freemium work for you. When the customer sees how valuable your service is with freemium, but how much better it can be with the upgrade, the chances of them converting to a paid customer are much higher.

2. Nurture the freemium leads.

In most cases, it takes consumers a while to decide to make a purchase, and most leads are not ready to buy straight away. That’s why nurturing your freemium leads is crucial to getting this model to work for your business. Think about your sales funnel, and creating lead nurturing email campaigns to expose the leads to your brand and compel them to make a purchase.

3. Hold back on core functions.

You don’t want to give away too much, too soon with the freemium model if you want it to lead to future sales. While the freemium model can work if you’re strategic about it, not every freemium subscriber is going to convert. Your freemium people still have value as potential brand advocates. The trick here is not to give away for free too many of your company’s core functions. Doing so will cause the freemium model to eat into your profit margins, and it won’t work.

The freemium model isn’t dead, and subscription-based companies can make it work for them if they keep these three tips in mind when creating a freemium model as part of their marketing campaigns.

DO MODERN CONSUMERS CARE MORE ABOUT BRAND OR CONVENIENCE?

Marketing products and services to consumers have never been easy. For modern businesses, marketers, and entrepreneurs, it’s impossible to say if marketing to consumers in the 21st century is more difficult than in the past. But one thing is for sure - it’s more complicated.
 
Modern consumers care about a lot of things when it comes to choosing a product or service - efficacy, price, perceived value, brand story, and more. But what has really changed the rules of the marketing game is what’s known as The Amazon Factor. With the rise of the on-demand, store-for-everything, do modern consumers care more about brand or convenience?

The Amazon store model gives consumers convenience on steroids.
In the not-so-distant past, convenience for consumers meant the grocery store was within a reasonable walking distance. Or, they could have their items shipped and delivered to them within a couple of weeks. As far as selection went, a convenient selection for our grandparents meant there were three types of coffee to choose from instead of a single brand. One of which was merely, “decaf.”
 
Amazon and similar stores have completely turned the concept of consumer convenience on its head, and have pumped it full of steroids. The genie is out of the bottle, and there is no going back to the good old days of the “convenient” small town grocer.

Consumers are driven by a different set of expectations for the businesses they choose to support. Because of retail giants like Amazon, consumers want access to a variety of products, and they want to purchase it right now. But that’s not all. They want those products delivered to their door within two days. In some cases, even two days is not fast enough, and it’s one of the reasons why billion dollar businesses are experimenting with drone delivery.
 
On top of fast, convenient delivery, younger consumers who came of age with the rise in online shopping prefer to have a product delivered if cost and availability are comparable to getting in a car and driving to their shopping destination.
 
Having a reputable brand with a humanizing story isn’t enough for modern consumers. Consumers want online, quick access to a brands catalog of products and services.

Younger consumers are less likely to purchase from rigid verticals. Consumer reports from 2017 and 2018 have found that:

• Consumers prefer fast, simple, and efficient retail processes.

• Consumers who shop both online and offline visit a store to purchase something specific.

• Casual browsing, both offline and online, is less likely to happen in the digital era.

• 73% of shoppers say they visit both online and offline stores with a specific item for purchase in mind.

• 58% of surveyed customers cite having the ability to find what they want quickly and efficiently as the most critical factor in determining where they shop.

• 44% of consumers say that the second most important factor for shopping is a company’s customer service.

What’s the bottom line?
Consumers, especially Millennial and Gen Z consumers, care more about convenience than brand. Businesses will have to give consumers convenient, flexible shopping experiences to remain competitive. This doesn't mean forget about your brand, it just means there's a shift in priority and you need to recognize it... NOW!