We measure all hot marketing trends with a skeptical eye and three measuring sticks, and influencer marketing is no exception. While some cannot imagine the future of brands without influencers (whether live or virtual), we keep our enthusiasm in check. With a dose of healthy skepticism, we summarized in what situations influencers can truly bring business success. But yes, we found a few. Does this apply to you? Read on!

When does it make sense for a brand to collaborate with influencers?

Let’s get straight to it. Here are five situations when you might consider reaching out to Ben Cristovao or Shopaholic Adéla.

1. When you need to increase reach on a small budget

Collaborating with an influencer is an effective way to achieve greater reach within your target audience (and thereby increase brand awareness), even if you are a budding brand with a small advertising budget. The condition, of course, is the attractiveness of your product or service, which allows the influencer to agree even on a barter or lower rate. In this context, the speaker describes influencers as a catapult that can launch emerging brands among early customers.

2. When you want to reach younger generations (Gen Z, Gen Alpha)

These generations tend to trust content that is authentic and non-commercial. Conversely, they exhibit extreme skepticism and aversion towards advertising messages. They hardly open Google and base most of their purchasing decisions on recommendations from influencers and creators on TikTok. If a large part of your target audience consists of these generations, definitely consider involving influencers. 

3. When you need to create instant buzz

Short-term influencer campaigns are ideal for special events in the life of your brand, such as product launches. They create buzz around the brand among the target audience and support the trial of a new product.

4. When you have a niche audience and no research at hand

Influencers sometimes understand their audience better than the brands understand their target customers. They know what content is not only relevant to them but also resonates on a deeper level. If you are not conducting market research, not organizing focus groups, and are not in daily contact with your customers, then an influencer can help you keep your finger on the pulse of time even in a very specific or dynamic segment.  

5. When you operate in a regulated segment

Collaborating with influencers can be one of the few options to promote products in a regulated segment that otherwise disallows paid advertising on social media. It’s a bit of a gray area that can be taken advantage of by brands with CBD products, electronic cigarettes, etc.

Paradoxes of influencer marketing

For the business effect of collaborating with an influencer, two crucial things play a key role, which often exclude each other – the influencer's reach and their authenticity. The importance of reach is probably clear. Brands grow by regularly engaging the largest possible portion of their target audience. And why is authenticity important? Because on social networks, we primarily want to entertain or educate, and if the brand's message is overtly commercial, we automatically skip, scroll, or mute it. This applies even more to younger generations who excel at ignoring advertising messages. 

Thus, brands need to find ways to reach consumers on social networks in a subtle or at least authentic manner – in short, in a way that consumers are willing to pay attention to and from which they feel positive emotions. And ideally, this is what influencers and creators enable brands to do. Ideally, they also have an aura of authority around them that can influence the opinions, behaviors, and decisions of their audience. Especially younger consumers trust them and consider them to be relevant sources of information on which they base their consumption behavior.

Ideally… However, it often ends up being suboptimal – the collaboration with an influencer appears commercial at first glance and lacks authenticity. When it’s evident that the influencer isn’t really aligned with the product or brand, this does not resonate with fans and leads to a loss of trust towards both the influencer and the brand. The same applies to universal influencers who promote everything that comes their way – from collagen to plastic surgery clinics. This often happens with larger influencers or celebrities, who are used by many brands for their extensive reach. Here, reach and communication authenticity do not work together.

Authenticity and credibility, after all, are aspects where influencers often have a weaker reputation than straightforward money-driven businesses, as evidenced by Mark Ritson's juicy experiment. A brand looking for suitable influencers balances primarily broad reach
with authenticity/trust in the influencer. And of course, budget comes first. A solution for broad reach while maintaining authentic communication may be what’s called blitz campaigns – at one moment, you select a larger number of small, specialized influencers or experts in the given topic. 

How to set up your influencer strategy

Creating an effective influencer marketing strategy begins with establishing goals. Do you need to build brand awareness in the long term? Increase sales? Or create buzz around a new product in the short term? The form of collaboration with influencers will depend on that, from brand videos to influencer events to discount codes. 

At the crossroads of goals, target group, brand image, and budget, you will find specific influencers worth reaching out to. It is crucial to choose influencers whose values, content, and style align with your brand image. 

The next step is to integrate influencer marketing with the overall marketing strategy, ideally creating a comprehensive campaign with a broader media mix.

In the creative process, it’s important to give influencers and creators freedom. Trust that they know their followers a bit better than you
and have insights that you have not yet gained from any research. Therefore, give them free rein and only check for alignment with the brand's core values. The authenticity and originality of influencers are the main pillars of campaign success. 

And what about the end result? Of course, measurement. Choose KPIs as close as possible to your established goals – for the goal of building a brand, this will typically be the influencer’s reach within the target group, and for the goal of increasing sales, it will be conversions. The fewer KPIs you track, the better it is for your goals. Learn from the measurement results and reach out to us for collaboration. 🙂