No matter what industry you’re in, you can’t deny the explosive popularity of influencers and their impact on marketing. While traditional marketing mediums struggle in a digital world, influencer marketing is a hit. In fact, 92% of marketers believe influencer marketing to be an effective medium. The industry is valued at $16.4 bn in the US, currently. In this article, let’s explore the 3Rs of influencer marketing and how to use them to grow your online footprint.
Why care about the 3Rs of influencer marketing?
Influencer marketing is not a fad — it’s an acceptable marketing practice, with around 25% of marketers using influencer marketing for brand growth. According to Hubspot, influencer marketing is a growing phenomenon attributed to the following facts:
- 72% of Gen Z & Millennials follow influencers on social media platforms;
- 89% of marketers plan to increase their influencer marketing budgets in 2023 and beyond;
- 50% of millennials trust influencers for product recommendations. Only 38% trust celebs for brand endorsements and product recommendations.
- Businesses generate $6.50 in revenue for every $1 invested in influencer marketing.
After seeing these numbers, anyone would take influencer marketing and its 3Rs, seriously. These pillars, namely, relevance, reach, and resonance are why brands invest in influencer marketing. Let’s look at each of these one by one.
Relevance – Does the influencer (and its content) matter to your audience?
The first “R” of influencer marketing, the most critical pillar, is relevance. It simply signifies the alignment between an influencer’s content and your brand identity, niche, or product.
A relevant influencer shares interesting content with followers and aligns with your brand’s image. Relevance is crucial because if an influencer’s followers aren’t interested in your brand or business, they won’t convert, regardless of their reach.
Thus, picking a relevant influencer is a challenge but highly rewarding practice for a modern business. Take the example of Morphe Brushes.
They partnered with James Charles, a popular beauty influencer, to create an eyeshadow palette & range — Morphe x Charles, which the influencer promoted on YouTube.
The audience was quite engaged, and the product was highly relevant to the influencer’s content (and vice versa). As a result, the brand products gained significant exposure, resulting in growth in the brand’s popularity and sales revenues. Their partnership ended because of a controversy, but before that, they became highly popular among online beauty enthusiasts.
Reach – How popular are they on social media?
The second “R” in influencer marketing stands for reach. This goes without saying that the more the reach, the more important the influencer.
Reach is the number of people who will see your brand message through the influencer. An influencer with a high reach can expose your brand to a larger audience. However, reach is not just about the number of followers an influencer has. It’s more about the influence, popularity, and general perception of the influencer (or the community).
Take the example of Daniel Wellington. It’s a luxury watch brand that heavily uses influencer marketing powered by the ‘reach’ mindset. Instead of collaborating with a single influencer, they’ve partnered with multiple relevant influencers to maximize their reach.
They pick relevant influencers and give them a personalized discount code with followers, improving resonance (more on it in a bit) and leading to an increase in sales. Within three years, they could sell 1 million watches using the 3Rs of influencer marketing.
Reach is a critical element of influencer marketing, with more brands collaborating with multiple influencers (including micro and nano influencers) to reach diverse audiences.
Resonance – Does the audience feel connected with an influencer?
The final R of the influencer marketing puzzle is resonance. It is generally denoted by the level of engagement an influencer can generate or simply the engagement rate.
An influencer who engages well with their audience can be more effective at encouraging them to take action by liking a post, visiting your website, or making a purchase.
In the Daniel Wellington example, the personalized discount code was the reason for resonance — followers felt connected with the influencer. They used the coupon code as a direct benefit, enhancing resonance between follower & influencer. Many brands use resonance or engagement rates to define how much they will pay an influencer.
According to a survey, micro-influencers (10k-50k followers) enjoy higher resonance (association) with their audience. The engagement rates in such cases go up to 60% more than macro influencers.
Resonance is also increased with many people on a platform posting about the brand, for example, in the case of user-generated content. GoPro has leveraged resonance by encouraging its real users to share content created using GoPro. Such a campaign instantly leads to higher resonance (among other users and potential buyers), increasing engagement.
Utilizing the 3Rs: tips to remember.
The 3Rs — relevance, reach, and engagement should be on your mind whenever you plan to kickstart influencer marketing for your business. Here’s a quick action plan outlined as some basic tips:
- Find Relevance in Your Niche: Choose influencers closely aligned with your brand’s niche. Their content and followers should reflect your target audience.
- Balance Reach and Engagement: Don’t just focus on follower count; consider the influencer’s engagement rate. An influencer with fewer followers but high engagement can be more valuable.
- Opt for Resonance Over Popularity: Prioritize influencers who strongly connect with their audience. Authenticity and trust can lead to higher conversion rates.
- Diversify Your Influencer Portfolio: Combine micro and macro influencers for a broad yet targeted reach. This can help you reach diverse subgroups within your target audience.
- Evaluate Regularly: Continually monitor and evaluate the 3Rs throughout your campaign. Adapt and modify your strategy based on the results to maximize the effectiveness of your campaign.
Keep refreshing your influencer pool and market understanding.
Influencer marketing is a fast-moving tactic where you must watch the latest trends and the audience’s expectations. The more relevant your product offer is, the higher engagement you’ll enjoy.
That’s why getting inside the heads of your audience is a good idea. Automate your market research powered by online reviews to understand your audience’s needs, likes, or dislikes and power your influencer marketing campaigns with real-time audience insights.
Discover the power of real-time audience insights with GapScout’s automated market research platform today.
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