Last Updated on June 8, 2020

Influencer outreach is an essential strategy for modern marketing. Customers are increasingly wary of brands and the messages they send. Instead, they want to turn to people they trust who will provide open, honest answers about products and services.

In many ways, influencer marketing has been around since celebrities first started promoting products. Even queens or kings in centuries past could drive business to items or trends just by using them.

If you’re not developing an influencer marketing strategy in 2018, then you’re missing out. Check out these four reasons that influencer engagement is the top tool of a modern marketer.

Customers Often Don’t Trust Brands

Marketers today face an uphill battle in reaching their audiences. Today’s customers are growing increasingly suspicious of companies that are trying to sell products to them. A recent study by McCann found that 42 percent of consumers think brands are less truthful today than they were 20 years ago. Additionally, 84 percent of Americans think brands have the power to make the world a better place.

Your customers want to trust your brand, but they have been burned by other companies in the past and approach your products and services with caution. This is often why they turn to influencers. Your customers might have heard about your business but want to see what others are saying about it.

Through clear, honest marketing — and the endorsement of strategic influencers — you can sell new customers on your business and turn them into loyal buyers.

Customers Do Trust Word-of-Mouth Marketing

If customers don’t feel that they’re getting trustworthy information from companies, where do they turn for product and service recommendations? More audiences than ever rely on word-of-mouth recommendations — including online reviews and influencer promotions — to learn about their options.

It is estimated that people are 90 percent more likely to trust and buy from a brand recommended by a friend. Furthermore, 28 percent of customers say word of mouth is the most important factor in strengthening (or eroding) brand affinity. Essentially, this means you can grow your business with strong recommendations and endorsements, or you can drive it into the ground with negative reviews or a non-existent presence.

Influencer outreach is one of the modern marketing techniques businesses can use to connect with buyers through word-of-mouth recommendations. The business has control over the message and who delivers it, but customers still place trust in the influencers promoting the products.

Older Customers Also Follow Social Media Influencers

Marketing managers tend to think of younger customers when they develop influencer marketing plans. While word-of-mouth marketing is popular for B2C brands and particularly powerful when targeting younger audiences, it’s not only a tool for reaching Millennials. Twitter reports that adults 45 and older also prefer to follow people on social media and prefer to engage with household names they can trust.

There are multiple insights from Twitter’s research that businesses can find valuable. For example, nearly 40 percent of Twitter users say they have made a purchase as a direct result of a Tweet by a top influencer. While many companies turn to Instagram and Facebook for their influencer marketing efforts, Twitter can be just as powerful.

Even if your customers don’t immediately make a purchase based on a Tweet, they are still influenced by the content. Customers who see product promotions by influencers increase their purchase intent by over five times, making them significantly more likely to buy the product in the future.

It’s clear that influencer marketing has a significant impact on your promotion and sales efforts, even if you’re just raising awareness about your products.

Influencer Marketing Isn’t Restricted to Big Brands

One of the main reasons this type of outreach is a top modern marketing strategy is that it’s not expensive. Your business doesn’t need to invest tens of thousands of dollars for a single endorsement. While big brands can afford to pay A-list celebrities, most companies focus on micro-influencers — small influencers with only a few thousand followers.

Roughly 84 percent of micro-influencers charge less than $250 for a branded Instagram post, and 97 percent of them charge less than $500 for that type. This is significantly more affordable than the $300,000-$400,000 price tag you would pay for a post by one of the Kardashian sisters. Even if you only have a few hundred dollars to spend on promotions each month, you can still make an impact with your marketing campaigns.

Not only are micro-influencer posts more affordable, they’re also usually more effective. You can reach niche audiences that really connect to your brand and want to learn about your products — rather than mass-blasting millions of internet users.

Social media marketing through this type of effective outreach is one of the top modern marketing techniques of the future. Businesses that embrace this strategy can watch their reach and engagement grow, while those that don’t struggle to connect with customers.