Marketing methods changed profoundly after the widespread use of the internet. Companies that quickly embraced digital marketing in the early days increased their chances for survival. Marketers must continue to change with the times. Today, influencer marketing is the most effective way to market your brand. But, you might be confused on whether you should partner up with an agency influence marketer or attempt influencer marketing in-house. Perhaps you want to be a one-person operation. We’ll give you the information you’ll need to help you decide.
What is Influencer Marketing?
Are you wondering what is influencer marketing? Influencer marketing is the new marketing buzzword for a good reason. The Huffington Post recently stated that influencer marketing “can have unparalleled sales, growth and equity results,” resulting in “unmatched ROI.” In other words, influencer marketing lets you earn back the most money possible on the investments you make.
As a basic definition, influencer marketing is the act of promoting or selling products or services using someone who can effectively change another person’s behavior or their perception of something, such as a product or service.
While celebrity endorsements have always sold products and services, today’s consumers respond better to the advice of other ordinary people like themselves because they view them as more credible. While both celebrities and fellow everyday people influence consumer behavior, the term “influencer marketer” generally refers to the latter.
These days absolutely anyone with a platform can persuade others. Product reviews also let consumers know what other everyday people think, and the five-star system provides ongoing polling results.
What Does In-House Influencer Marketing Look Like?
An in-house marketing team does its own marketing, including influencer marketing. As an in-house influencer marketer, you would:
- Be intimately familiar with your brand
- Readily access your marketing team
- Fully control marketing activities
However, you would need to:
- Keep a dependable, talented team of writers and others
- Deal with various employee problems
- Become scalable
- Afford to spend $250,000 annually on employees, software, and so on
Alternatively, you may want to be a one-person show. In that case, you would need:
- An intriguing personality
- Writing, photography, and/or other talents you’ll need for what you’re offering
- A willingness to frequently update your blog post, video channel or whatever
- A cell phone to take photographs or make videos with
- A platform that you’ll enjoy spending lots of time on
Influencer marketing must be done correctly to get the maximum return on investment (ROI). Many young, savvy brands have nailed it and use this type of marketing almost exclusively. If you don’t think you have the talent, money or patience to do this type of marketing on your own, seek out an agency influencer marketer.
What Does Using an Agency Influencer Marketer Look Like?
Many big marketing agencies offer influencer marketing services. So, if you don’t have an intriguing personality or the skills, talent or another crucial element you would need, consider using the services of an agency marketing influencer.
You would have to give up some control over your marketing and acknowledge the agency has multiple clients. However, the pros of using an agency may outweigh these potential cons.
An agency offers:
- Software and tools
- Expertise
- Capabilities
- Diverse specialties
- A potential cost advantage over running a fully-staffed in-house operation
Additionally, a really good agency would:
- Learn about your business and your business challenges
- Apply the concepts and methodologies needed to solve your business’s problems
- Reinvent and tweak things as needed
- Gather needed data
- Seek a wide range of feedback
- Evaluate and prioritize
- Act quickly, never sitting in a holding pattern
- Attract and keep team-oriented people
Conclusion
Digital marketers need to change with the times and use the best marketing methods available. Today that means using influencer marketing. Influencer marketing is the promoting and selling of products and services through the use of an influential individual. The most influential people today are fellow everyday people, not celebrities. In-house influencer marketing and agency influencer marketing each have their advantages and disadvantages. Influencer marketing requires a constant input of effort – it’s not a one-off thing. Additionally, this kind of marketing must be done correctly to optimize the returns on your investments, and that very likely would require using an agency.
