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Influencer marketing, as its name suggests, is a strategy that involves partnering with influencers to promote your products & services. It’s been on the rise as of late, simply because traditional ads have clogged up the e-sphere so much so that people are just tuning them out.
But, if you work with influencers, your audience doesn’t feel like they’re watching an ad – the content they see sounds and looks more like a recommendation from a friend.
In this article, we’ll cover the top 15 benefits of influencer marketing and give you pro tips & examples on how you can get in on it.
Let’s get started!
To put it simply – because businesses get an average ROI of almost $5 for every $1 spent on it!
Another shocking statistic we found is that 71% of people report that they are more likely to buy something they saw an influencer promote. This is because they’re seeing it talked about by someone they already follow and trust rather than seeing what is essentially a sales pitch put out by the brand.
The goal of influencer marketing is to get your product in front of the right audience. It helps broaden your reach, builds social proof, and, as you’ve seen, boosts sales, too.
Still not entirely convinced to give it a shot? Let’s take a look at the 15 most prominent benefits:
There’s a lot you can do for your brand awareness, but there’s still a limit you’ll hit after a while of boosting posts and paying for ads. But, if you work with influencers, you’re no longer putting content in front of just your own audience – you’re tapping into theirs, as well.
A good example of this comes from Athletic Greens, a healthy beverage brand. They recognized that the Gen Z audience is most interested in this lifestyle and chose TikTok as their platform, picking out creators to partner with.
And what happened? The #athleticgreens hashtag sits at over 90 million views!
Here’s an example of what UGC can look like – as you can see, the products are barely mentioned, so it feels more natural and genuine rather than purely promotional.
We already mentioned this – once an influencer promotes your product, their audience becomes your audience.
The key to getting this right is to find influencers whose niche already overlaps with yours. For example, if you’re selling food, you might want to work with creators who have built their platforms on taste tests or cooking videos.
King’s Hawaiian did something similar – they partnered with 16 influencers to create recipes using their sweet bread. This simple and entertaining video garnered over half a million likes:
https://www.tiktok.com/@nick.digiovanni/video/7295420076507843882?q=%23slidersunday&t=1735941304008
Finding the right influencers to work with can be tough. So, UGC Factory helps you find the right creators or even produce all the content for you!
The fact of the matter is that you can’t even promote your products through social media if you don’t have an audience to see them. The solution is simple – get in front of someone else’s audience first!
After a few influencer marketing posts have circulated the web, people will have heard of you and will want to check your page out, too. This means more followers, more engagement, and, in turn – more sales.
You could, for example, start with a giveaway campaign. This way, buyers will be more motivated to give your page a look and a follow, and you’ll get those metrics up.
Here’s how SHEGLAM did it:
https://www.tiktok.com/@chantelleef/video/7455708577408290081?q=%23giveaway&t=1735941608082
One of the most popular UGC formats is a product review. So, if you encourage your partner influencers to produce this kind of content, you’ll see their genuine reactions and know what to work on to improve your product.
From there on, you’ll also be able to read their comments and see what other people are saying.
Another approach here is to host an event. Thinx did that – they hosted a slumber party in LA with 25 influencers. Their goal was to get feedback on an athleisure line, and, with the feedback they got, they launched clothing that was tailored to their target audience’s needs.
The result, other than a very fun party, was an $810,000 revenue boost!
https://www.tiktok.com/@goingzerowaste_/video/6966612488641170693?q=thinx%20review&t=1735942951301
If you, the brand, put out a video saying good things about your products, that’s… Well, expected. But if someone else talks you up, then it can do wonders for your reputation.
We already mentioned product reviews, but UGC comes in many other forms, too. This can be anything from casual name-dropping to unboxing videos, but the point stays the same – to get people talking about your brand.
One example of this strategy working flawlessly is Skin + Me, which shared ads showing the before and after results of people using their products. It’s worked so well that people are now using their comments section to share their own pics!
This completely organic and authentic type of UGC is what works best – it’s not an ad, it’s not sponsored, but it’s a winning strategy!
Let’s be honest – the end goal of any marketing strategy is to boost sales, even when it’s not a primary one.
The most popular way to drive sales via influencer marketing is to use discount codes. The way this works is that you give your influencer a unique code that they can share with their followers to get a percentage off their purchase. Since the codes are unique, you’ll be able to see which influencers are performing the best.
So, not only does this work because customers want the discount, but because they’re seeing their favorite influencer promote the product.
This is how KNIX does it through their partnership with Hilary Henderson:
Your team, no matter how talented or creative they are, will eventually get tired. Marketers usually love the creative parts of their job, but even that can get exhausting, and they might come up short at some point.
But working with various influencers brings you fresh new ideas from different angles. This is especially true if you’re working with someone who already has experience or if they’re known for their bold, out-of-the-box ideas.
Take a look at how fun this La Roche-Posay ad came out when done with the help of Inae Cakes:
https://www.tiktok.com/@inaecakes/video/7127431236804414762?q=sponsored&t=1736011576672
Obviously, this depends on the influencer – you can’t expect to partner with, say, Kylie Jenner and not break the bank. So, if your brand is just starting out and you can’t really afford to work with huge names, micro- and nano-influencers are your go-to.
One famous example is Doe Lashes. Their founder, Jason Wong, realized that sending his lashes out to influencers would cost him less than $10 per product – meaning that he’d break even if he made just one sale. So, for the first 4 months, he stuck to this strategy rather than investing in paid ads.
As a result, one month of influencer marketing earned him over $2.5K a day!
https://www.tiktok.com/@doe.bb/video/7237987002442976554?q=doe%20lashes&t=1736011953180
When you put out a traditional ad, you only have so much space to say what you want to say. But, even if you use that space to its fullest, you’re still risking people just scrolling past the moment they realize they’re watching an ad.
When you work with influencers, people are more inclined to listen to them – we’ve already established this. So, make sure to brief them thoroughly on all the features and benefits, and they can make their content educational rather than salesy.
We also already said that it’s important to find influencers who fit your niche and whose audience already trusts them. A good idea here would be to find an expert in the field.
Like we said – marketing teams get tired. This is especially true for smaller or even one-person teams, and it’s impossible to expect them to have groundbreaking ideas every single day. But if you encourage UGC and work with influencers, you’ll always have content somewhere.
Then, you can repost, repurpose, and reshare across different campaigns and channels. Quick note, though: be mindful of usage rights and communicate to your partner about potential content repurposing even after the initial campaign timeline.
We’re used to seeing UGC and IGC on social media, but that’s not all it can do. For example, Starface uses these posts on their website:
When you first got to work on your marketing strategy, you probably started by creating the buyer persona – what you think the average customer will look like. But, once your products hit the market, you’ll have insight into who your buyers actually are and will be able to adjust future strategies accordingly.
One way to source this data is through influencers. Once they post the content, they’ll be able to see the audience’s age, gender, location, and from which platform they came to your page. Similarly, they’ll be able to tell you about the reach, engagement, and impressions those posts got them.
But that’s not all – there’s also a way to keep an eye out for sales attribution. For that, you’ll need to set up tracking codes which will let you see who clicked on your website and who got through the checkout.
This way, you’ll have a much better feel for who’s at the top of the funnel and who makes it all the way through. But, keep in mind that not all influencers will be willing to share their analytics and this should be something that’s discussed in advance.
A few paragraphs up, we already talked about partnering with experts to broaden your reach. But this strategy helps you build authority, too, since it will let your audience hear about the brand from someone they trust.
To do this, it’s crucial to carefully choose who you partner up with. If you’re a skincare brand, find a dermatologist; if you’re selling supplements, work with a nutritionist – but make sure they’re trustworthy.
For example, Forthglade, a dog food brand, partnered with Dr. James Greenwood, a known vet and social media personality whose content focuses on animal care.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DB1ir82ILBE/
The main difference between an influencer partnership and a brand ambassador is that the latter is a long-term relationship.
This is, understandably, the goal of many influencer campaigns, but it doesn’t come easily. Ideally, it’ll come naturally – the influencer will love your product and have a positive experience working on the initial campaign and will want to work with you again.
The results are undoubtedly beneficial – they’ll be inclined to post content more often, work with you on feedback and brainstorming, and advocate for your brand whenever they get a chance.
An example of this you’ve probably seen somewhere already is Jennifer Aniston and the haircare brand Aveeno:
Most brands are just brands – something you buy for its purpose and not spend too much time thinking about. However, there are those brands that are just more. Think Coca-Cola – you’re not just thinking about the drink; you’re thinking about Santa Claus or a group of happy young people sharing a laugh on the couch.
Now, this didn’t come overnight, so don’t feel discouraged you haven’t reached that point yet. A good first step in achieving this level of community is to start online.
A textbook example of this is the e-learning platform Duolingo. They went from a well-known learning app to basically turning their mascot into a celebrity. Their approach was to be cheeky on TikTok; just look at this silly video:
https://www.tiktok.com/@duolingo/video/7431602813152546091
You might think this is just fun, but it got them over 600K views – and it probably took around two minutes to film.
Last but certainly not least, we need to talk about how all of the benefits we talked about will end up giving you better quality leads.
Working with influencers whose target audience already overlaps with yours means that more people who are already interested will see you. And, since they’re meeting you through someone they know and trust, they’ll be more inclined to check out your products.
So, now that you’ve seen the top 15 reasons to give influencer marketing a try, the only thing that’s left to do is to find your influencers and get started. But if you don’t have the time, our offer still stands: reach out to UGC Factory and let us do the heavy lifting!
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