3 Secrets to Successful Influencer Marketing: It’s Personal
By Rita Gorenberg, Associate Director – Brand Engagement
Influencer marketing is a buzzword in just about every marketing and PR department right now. But unlike some other buzzwords, it’s not a trend that’s going to fade away any time soon.
People turn to online influencers they follow and trust for advice and product recommendations. In turn, some of these influencers have amassed real marketing power and even more real fortunes.
But even with all the data and micro-targeting available to large brands, how do they find the right influencer to reach the right consumer?
David Kargas, director of marketing communications at Clorox, recently participated in a panel at the Dad 2.0 Summit in New Orleans to share with dad bloggers how Clorox maintains the human touch in influencer marketing.
Here are his key takeaways.
The Clorox brand recently partnered with LaGuardia Cross for some influencer marketing.
It’s not about number of followers
As data-based metrics become more sophisticated, it’s natural to want to choose the influencer with the biggest reach and the most followers. But we’ve found that influencer marketing isn’t a numbers game. Influencers with the best content, the ones telling authentic and personal stories, drive more engagement and trust with their readers. That’s why we at Clorox value an influencer’s intangible qualities as a writer and business partner over the size of his or her platform – because the best influencers know what will resonate with their audience.
Authenticity leads to audience trust and engagement
Interruptive marketing like advertisements will always be important in facilitating brand awareness. But more and more, we’re seeing storytelling as a way to create brand affinity in the digital age. An influencer who can authentically weave a product or brand message into his own life is going to reach consumers on a personal level and in so doing, show them how a given product could become part of their lives, too.
There’s more to ROI than impressions
At the end of the day, influencer marketing is still a business strategy so it’s critical to showcase how the program performs. That can be complicated when you’re influencing a consumer’s opinion in the hope they’ll purchase your product down the line. Impressions can’t be your only indicator of success because they only show how many people had the potential to see your content, not how many really saw the message. Since the value for a business is in creating connections with consumers who trust the influencer’s content, we look at engagement with the post and on social as the most important metric in influencer marketing.
Meet some of the other Dad Bloggers and influencers now working with the Clorox brand:
