How to Sell Your Brand By Influencing Consumers?


Source: http://www.shanebarker.com

Have you ever thought what it would be like if you launch a new product or a brand, and you could successfully persuade someone like Shah Rukh Khan or, MS Dhoni or Narendra Modi to promote your brand? Sounds crazy? Well, that’s exactly what “Influencer Marketing” is, and those persons are the influencers who endorse your brand and convey your brand’s message to common people – in short, influences the consumers.
Source: http://www.singlegrain.com




Every business wants to maximise its brand awareness and social visibility. Over 92% of potential customers trust recommendations from people over brands – undoubtedly Influencer Marketing is one of the most used buzzwords of marketing.

Source: http://www.sidebuyblog.com


We, Indian, have always chased after the celebrity persons promoting and endorsing the brand – not the product! That’s inside our brain, exactly this is where most influencing marketers take leverage of – using the psychology. Reaching out to millions of consumers might be hectic and sometimes impossible too – but using a few influencers who can promote those products for them is much easier. As social media platforms are emerging as the most influential place, it has been an integral component of Influencer Marketing.






SHINY OBJECT SYNDROME

But, as it’s said, no good thing is perfect. “With great power, comes great responsibility” – and with great responsibility, comes great expectations and chances of not meeting those. As we started this article with “if you launch a new product or brand…” is it easy to come up with single idea amidst this crowd of ideas or the latest fad? Small business owners often get confused with this and end up going off in multiple directions and never completing anything.
We often get attracted towards anything having a glassy, polished, shiny appearance. Same situation happens with ideas - something as simple as a reflection in your surrounding vision may easily distract your focus. Well, it got a name too, ‘Shiny Object Syndrome’ or SOS – the name itself suggests how urgent it is to deal with.

Not only the SME owners, even for the well-established brand, it has been difficult to avoid falling in the pit of “Shiny Object Syndrome” – around 84% marketers aim to launch a new influencer marketing campaign every year and most of them fall in SOS pitfall – and that’s the reason hardly few campaigns strikes us and we remember those for a long period. Keep aside SMEs, even giants like YouTube and Disney fell victim of this ‘disease’.


 THE PITFALL

 An Influencer Marketing campaign is as good as the relationship between the brand and influencer – such campaign makes the influencer an integral part of the brand – so, as long as the partnership is sustained between them, it’s good for both. As a matter of fact, most of us still relate Sachin with MRF, irrespective of the fact he no more associated with it.

No need to say, getting aligned with the right influencer is as equally important as it is to sustain the relationship for longer tenure. So, it is of utmost importance to invest your time choosing the right influencer. Indeed a difficult job – but there are few key metrics which MUST be looked at –

  • Domain Authority
  • Unique Visitors
  • Engagement per Post
  • Audience Demographics
  • Quality of Content

Though these don’t form an exclusive list, but are absolutely important.

HOW TO PREVENT

Now we can dig deeper into ‘Shiny Object Syndrome’ and classify the major 3 reasons for it being such evil.

    A. AUTHENTICITY

Last-moment-rush or just going by the appearance is not a god idea when you’re going for a long term partnership with an influencer. It’s always important doing a background check of the possible influencers. If you come across questionable content not aligned with your brand, move on.

Market Domination Media founder Jonathan Long said, “When you do identify the right potential influencer, spend some time looking at the person’s previous posts and check out newer posts carefully to see what kind of engagement they experience.”

    B. SCALE

Keeping a balance of quality and quantity is necessary – and that is the part most of the brand fails. Measuring an influencer’s reach, focusing on influencer relevancy and how their audience engages with their content will help you unlocking the true value of a potential influencer.

An appropriate influencer with 50,000 fan base may turn out to be more helpful in running a successful marketing campaign rather than a YouTube channel with millions of followers.

   C. SPEED

Speed, however good it might sound – isn’t always best for you. Creating content at lightning speed is a common problem for brand and marketers. Unpassionate influencers may simply post fast and easy content to get it over with – resulting in inappropriate brand messaging, and you might miss an opportunity to reach your target audience.

Maintaining control of influencer content is important – keeping a slow and steady approach is absolutely necessary for that.

IN THE END

Influencer marketing, when done right, can be incredibly powerful. But, as no good things comes free of cost – the associated potential pitfalls are also equally important to take care of to amplify the effect of the campaign.

References:

  1. https://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2017/03/14/how-to-survive-shiny-object-syndrome-in-influencer-marketing/#17680434499c
  2. https://www.tapinfluence.com/blog-what-is-influencer-marketing/
  3. https://impossiblehq.com/shiny-object-syndrome/
  4. www.passionforbusiness.com/articles/shiny-object-syndrome.htm
  5. https://www.clickz.com/how-to-avoid-shiny-object-syndrome-to-achieve-influencer-marketing-success/110064/

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