Smart Influencer Strategy For Brands!
Many people might ask what is an influencer strategy? Brands use high profile people to market their products. According to Hootsuite, “94% said influencer marketing was an effective campaign strategy.” Influencer marketing strategy is more affordable than paying for a Super Bowl commercial which this year was 5 million dollars for a 30 second slot on CBS. One of the most profitable & popular channels is Instagram. For example, Fashion Nova became one of the most popular apparel brands on the planet because they used influencer marketing. You might ask how was this exactly accomplished when Fashion Nova was nonexistent just a few years ago?
The founder and CEO Richard Saghian has a network of over 3000 influencers. In 2017, the company grew by 600 percent. Saghian started working for his father who owned women apparel retail stores. He always wanted to own his own company and then started Fashion Nova in a mall. Sometime later he focused his attention to ecommerce because of its ease of access and growing popularity of online shopping by Millennials. Furthermore, Saghian was very familiar with Instagram and had a large following which he used to his advantage. He gave models his best selling clothes for free to wear in exchange for promotion with tagging of the brand on Instagram.
Moreover, WWD.com reports that the brand offers Cardi B $20,000 and Kylie Jenner $50,000 to wear their clothes. Another reason why Fashion Nova is popular is because they manufacture a lot of their clothes in Los Angeles where their headquarters are located. As a result, they get their clothes made faster than their competition. In addition, many of the styles of Fashion Nova are $50 or less. The founder is focused on speaking to the urban demographic. Some brands try to have expensive apparel in most of their inventory. These posh brands deter a large segment of buyers based on high prices. Based on a growing urban demographic there is a need to provide affordable luxurious clothes without wasting a ton of money.
Another brand example of influencer marketing is the company Sperry. Sperry is a shoe company that specializes in boat shoes. According to Hubspot, in 2016 the company started to work with 100 micro-influencers. They looked for people who were already following the company and had high quality images. Essentially, they partnered with these fans of the brand to produce content for their social accounts. Consequently, they saw high returns on social media because it made the brand more relatable because of these influencers posted photos not in a studio, but in everyday use outside and in their home. Just imagine you are in grade school and you see the most popular kid wearing cool jeans. Then after some time you start seeing a lot of people including your classmates wearing those same type of jeans. People do this because they want to have certain status among their peers and want to be noticed.
For brands to be successful they must have a smart influencer marketing strategy. When you have a startup ecommerce brand you must look for a specific niche related to your product. Once you do identify influencers in your niche with a few thousand followers then direct message them. State that you are part of so and so company and would like to offer free clothes of your brand in exchange for a shout out on Instagram. Subsequently, when you secure several influencers make sure you post frequently on your business page of those influencers wearing your company logo. You must have relevant hashtags in your posts to reach the right people. Create a branded hashtag and encourage followers to use it. In some instances companies have implemented contests where people have to tag several of their friends, and include the brand hashtag in order to be considered for the prize. On the other hand, if you are a larger company with a significant budget then you should target larger influencers that have hundreds of thousands to millions of followers. Kylie Jenner used her popularity to start her own beauty brand. Now that company is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Thus, popular people matter for business and in order for a company to be successful in today’s market they must invest in influencers.
Quote to ponder:
“The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.”
- Bill Gates
https://wwd.com/fashion-news/fashion-features/inside-fashion-nova-cardi-b-1202595964/
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/examples-of-influencer-marketing-campaigns
