Advertising has been around almost as long as the human race itself. In fact, four thousand years ago, Ancient Egyptians invented the practice by carving public notices in steel. Yes, advertising really is that old. Given this long history, it’s not surprising that many shifts have occurred within advertising as consumers needs have shifted alongside technological advances. The modern era of advertising began with print and radio, expanded to include television, and now digital marketing is all the hype. However, just as not all print advertisements were created equal, neither are digital marketing strategies.
Of course, it’s a no-brainer that brands need to be online, but between email marketing, social media ads, and celebrity endorsements it can be difficult to determine where to invest your time and money. Although email marketing continues to be a common component of many digital marketing strategies, the sheer magnitude of emails consumers receive can be overwhelming. Today, nearly 20% of all emails sent are tagged as spam as consumers and email providers aim to decrease irrelevant or unwanted emails.
If that’s not enough for you to pause before sending your next email blast, maybe the fact that email providers have made unsubscribing as simple as clicking a single button, will. Now, we’re not saying that email marketing is dead, it’s not (paid social ads may be another story), but there certainly are better places to spend your time and money — most notably in influencer marketing. Why?
Influencer Marketing is Less Intrusive: Nearly 50% of online consumers between 18–24 use some form of ad blocker. Why? They view sponsored posts as an unwelcome intrusion that has spilled over into literally every online avenue they frequent. Just think about how you react when you see a sponsored post come up in the middle of your feed. Does it captivate you and make you want to purchase the product? Or does it make you feel annoyed and irritated that it even showed up? Chances are that you’d likely feel the latter and consumers overwhelmingly agree. Instead of being blocked from your demographic or getting through and annoying them, influencer marketing allows your brand to reach interested consumers through people they are already engaged with and follow. This means instead of being viewed as intrusive, your brand will be welcomed just as easily as a suggestion from a friend.
Influencers Produce Better Content: There is a reason that social influencers were able to organically grow an engaged following and becomeinfluencers; they produce great content. And whether high-paid marketing and advertising executives like it or not, social influencers have something they simply don’t have — an authentic voice. It’s impossible for brands to be impartial. Let’s be real, at the end of the day we are persuading consumers to buy our products. It makes sense then, that brands will never be as trustworthy as influencers.
The old adage goes ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’ — and that’s exactly what influencer marketing is all about. Once Gatsby helps you identify your ideal influencers you can simply sit back while they produce authentic and engaging content for your brand.
Influencer Marketing Provides a Higher ROI: If you still don’t believe that influencers have the capacity to truly affect your bottom line, take a look at these numbers. While the average pay-per-click advertisement produces $3 of revenue for every $1.60 spent on Adwords, every $1.00 spent on influencer marketing produces over $9.00 in revenue — that’s a whopping 960% ROI.
The numbers don’t lie, influencer marketing works. With Gatsby, you’ll identify which of your customers would make the perfect influencers for your brand and be well on your way to seeing massive results. With numbers like these only one question remains: what are you waiting for?
Originally published on The Gatsby Blog
