‘Influencer Marketing’ is exploding!
Businesses of all types are looking for ‘Influencers’ they can spend money with to advertise their products and services.
In fact, this has become a multi-billion dollar industry, and is now considered the #1 way for many brands to acquire new customers.
Influencer Marketing Is The Fastest-Growing Way To Get New Customers Online
According to recent studies published by eMarketer, 86% of marketers used Influencer Marketing in the last year, and most marketers are looking to double their investments in 2017.
22% of marketers say it is their fastest growing customer-acquisition method.
Why Is Influencer Marketing So Hot?
Why is Influencer Marketing experiencing such growth with marketers?
There are a number of factors that point to why this opportunity is seeing explosive growth, and has no signs of slowing down.
According to a report from PageFair, 615 million devices are now using ad blockers, and usage of ad blocker grew 30% in 2016!
Ad Blocker Usage Is Growing!
People are tuning out ads more and more, making it harder for businesses to reach customers effectively with traditional approaches.
Consumers Are Making Purchase Decisions Based On What They See On Social Media
At the same time, more and more consumers report that they make purchase decisions based on what they see others doing and recommending in their social media feeds.
Social media ‘Influencers’ have become a new generation of celebrities, providing entertainment, information and recommendations to a very receptive audience.
This makes Influencer Marketing highly effective.
Combine These Factors & It’s Easy To See Why Influencer Marketing Is The Most Effective Marketing Brands Are Doing
Businesses doing Influencer Marketing report that the customer quality and ROI is higher than any other marketing they are doing.
In fact, according to a recent study found on ConvinceandConvert.com, on average, businesses generate $6.50 for every $1 invested in Influencer Marketing.
What Does This Mean For You?
Building your own social media ‘Influencer’ accounts has become a necessity for today’s online entrepreneur.
Smart marketers are realizing that this massive surge in interest and spending on ‘Influencer Marketer’ creates huge opportunities for them.
“Get A Customer Even Before A Product Or Service.”
The development of online publishing and advertising technologies has made today the easiest time in history to acquire a targeted audience of people.
Smart entrepreneurs, such as investor, entrepreneur and best-selling author James Altucher, are using this reality to rapidly acquire audiences.
In fact, James Altucher advises that this is the very first thing an entrepreneur should do today when looking to start a new business – even before they have developed a product or service.
Why?
Because he knows that if you have an audience that you can influence through your media, you will certainly be able to find something to sell to them.
When you build influence in a market, you have the power to influence purchasing decisions.
And when you have that power, generating revenue is pretty darn simple!
Social Influence Is The New ‘Email List’ That Smart Marketers Are Investing In Building
Every smart marketer knows that email is very high ROI when used effectively; it’s a necessity for serious online marketers.
But every smart marketer ALSO knows that email is getting harder and harder to get delivered and read, and most customers under the age of 25 don’t even use an email account on a daily basis.
It will still be around and effective for years to come…but it is on its way out.
What’s taking its place?
Social influence.
Social influence is the new ’email list’.
Social accounts are where people are spending their time, getting introduced to new products and services, and making buying decisions.
That’s why Influencer Marketing is now TIED with email as being the most cost-effective online customer acquisition method.
In other words, if you aren’t proactively and strategically building your social influence, then you are giving up the easy win to your competition!
“But Don’t I Have To Be A Model/Celebrity/Expert/15 Year Old To Be Successful As An Influencer?!”
That’s what I thought at first, too – but the answer is NO, absolutely not!
By looking at Instagram, you think that you have to be a Kardashian or a professional photographer to have any chance of success as an ‘influencer’.
At first, I was completely intimidated to post anything on Instagram for fear that I wouldn’t fit into the ‘cool kids club’!
In fact, I had originally written off any opportunities in Influencer Marketing as being a fad for brands targeting young kids…not serious marketing.
Then I Realized…Influencer Marketing Does Not Have To Be Based On An Individual
After studying the market, and seeing what successful Influencer Marketers are doing, I soon realized that there was much more to this than I originally thought.
I realized that I was thinking about it all wrong.
I didn’t need to make it all about me, my life, and my personality…in fact, I realized that doing so would really limit my opportunities.
I discovered that there were all kinds of successful ‘influencers’ that weren’t personality-based at all.
They are about places, products, and events that people are interested in.
It hit me over the head that to be an ‘influencer’ doesn’t mean that I have to try to be cool and take selfies of me in my new favorite clothes every day.
In fact, your influencer presence doesn’t have to be about YOU at all!
This was the breakthrough that changed everything…and made me realized that building social influence was the fastest and easiest way to generate revenue online, while simultaneously building a viable, long-term asset that would have equity value.
Influencer Marketing Is Much Bigger Than Just Celebrities And Teenagers…
Once I had this realization, my brain started finding more and more examples of successful influencer accounts that weren’t based on personalities – celebrities, models, etc – but were instead based on places, products, interests, and lifestyles.
And these accounts were generating revenue in Local Marketing, eCommerce, Affiliate Marketing, and from large corporate brand advertisers.
We started testing, and we soon developed a very simple system for building social influencer accounts and using them to generate sales.
Using Influencer Marketing For Local Marketing
If you are in Local Marketing, this approach is a gold mine.
The hardest thing about selling your services is that you are selling something intangible – customers having nothing to see or touch like normal products.
That means they are relying on your good word when they are making a purchasing decision.
But when you have social influence in your local market, you make it easy to demonstrate PROOF that you can get results.
This has made ALL THE DIFFERENCE in our Local sales approach.
Whether you are selling services to a specific niche – like restaurants, realtors, or fitness pros – or selling to the general business community, building social influence accounts is the simplest way we’ve found to get it done!
Here’s just one example of a national media company using this exact strategy in local to build a media company that does north of $100 million in sales:
Ecommerce Affiliates Are Using This Approach To Generate Huge Audiences And Sales
Companies like Frank Body, which grew to nearly $20 million in sales using almost nothing but their organic reach on Instagram, have made big news.
But for every Frank Body, there are 100 eCommerce affiliates that are using social influencer accounts to build buyer audiences and market other people’s products.
And Of Course…Experts, Information Marketers and Affiliates Are All Succeeding With Influencer Marketing
In any market where there are information products or affiliate offers being made, you will find social influencers selling them successfully.
Cooking, traveling, internet marketing, business opportunity, scrapbooking, cars, and DIY…you name it, it’s being sold!
This System Is So Simple That It Can Be Done In Only 30 Minutes Per Day…You Don’t Even Have To Create Your Own Content!
Corporate Advertisers Would Like To Pay Your For Your Influence, Too.
Regardless of what market you build your influencer media property in, you will inevitably be able to attract larger brand advertisers, giving you an additional potential revenue stream.
In fact, there are now ‘Influencer Marketing Ad Networks’ popping up like wildfire, where everyone from local businesses to Fortune 500 brands are actively reaching out to influencers and paying them good money just to mention their brands on social media.
These networks are going out and selling deals with companies of all types…
…all you have to do is build your influence and then pick and choose the companies and projects you want to work with!
They are doing all of the selling for you.
Amazon has even recently decided to build their own Influencer Network. Amazon doesn’t do anything small, so you know this is a big movement!
Building ‘Influencer Marketing’ Media Properties Is A Must For Today’s Entrepreneur
Media has always meant one thing…money.
Throughout history, those that control the media control the message, and also benefit richly from the businesses that want to advertise through that media.
Whether you are in Local Marketing or selling products online…
Whether you’ve been in business for years or you are just getting started…
Have experience with social media or don’t…
Building your influence is a must.
You Don’t Need Millions Of Followers To Generate Sales…Even Just A Few Thousand Followers Will Do!
Yes, it’s sexy when people show you their Instagram accounts with hundreds of thousands – or even millions – of fans.
But those numbers are not easy to achieve, and they are completely unnecessary to start generating good revenue from your social influence, if you know how.
Using our approach, we started generating revenue with our most recent account when we had just 1,500 followers.
You can get that many followers in a couple of weeks or less!
Build Your Influence Now!
This is a topic that’s near and dear to our hearts, and a focus of every business we are working on.
You need to make it a priority, too!
Start building your influence in your key markets today. And if you’ve already started…double down!
All the best,
Mike Cooch
DigitalMarketingLab.io