How Content Marketing and Influencer Marketing Go Hand in Hand

Nowadays, influencers are creating a great impact on the public. Therefore, brands have started targeting these influencers who further help them to reach the crowd. According to a study conducted by Tomoson, by carrying influencer marketing, businesses are earning $6.50 for every dollar that is invested.

No doubts that your traditional content marketing strategy has done wonders for building your brand awareness, boosted up sales, trust, credibility but trying influencer marketing can help you tap the new market.

Moreover, influencer marketing also does best when amalgamated with content marketing.

How?

Read on

What do content marketing and influencer marketing mean?

Let us first understand what exactly is content marketing and influencer marketing.

• As defined by the Content Marketing Institute, content marketing is a marketing approach which is strategically planned for creating and distributing valuable and relevant content to entice a targeted audience and mostly to gain a profitable outcome.
• On the other hand, Influencer Marketing is working with people who are the niche in the particular field to distribute the content relevant to their market. They have influence over the potential customers. So, the brand plans marketing activities around these influencers.
• The institute’s further research shows that content marketing is used by many prominent companies in the world like Microsoft, Cisco. It is also highly effective for small and mid-size companies to spread awareness about the company and their various products.
• Whereas, influencer marketing is a more personalized channel for content marketers. It is about featuring industry experts insights and playing the brand’s role as a trusted advisor and resource.
• Both the marketing strategies are widely bent towards empowering the brand reputation and also influence customer about what they are looking for, with decreased marketing cost.

So, should we think influencer marketing and content marketing as two sides of the same coin?

An effective content strategy is needed to pull out the influencer marketing. By dominating the vast network of influencer’s followers, you can bring any content to the forefront of industry observation. According to tap influence research, 49% of people, rely on influencer’s recommendations on purchase decisions and 40% say that they have purchased an item online because they saw their favorite social media influencers using the same products.

Influencer marketing is an integral part of content marketing

If your brand has a highly active social media account with a huge audience, you can totally rely on content marketing on a low-cost budget. To keep the crowd on your account interested, you have to constantly bring quality and engaging content.

Despite good content some brands produce, it doesn’t reach to a required number of the crowd because they have few thousand followers only. In such a case, they need people with higher followers to deliver their content, which sometimes is very cost effective. For instance, if there is a start-up selling customized stationery products, they send some free packages containing their product to the artist, who have a huge following and they in return review it and tell how amazing are the products.

How can you make your influencer marketing game strong?

Whether you are a brand doing social marketing by yourself or a blogger, these approaches if done carefully can do wonders for your brand:

• Spend time on research and put together a strategy of how you will execute your message, keeping in mind the kind of product and audience you have.
• Try to stick with your budget. Don’t fake it or just simply say it. Be creative and convey the message like a human talking to a human.
• Developing a schedule can really help you and your fans. Your followers will know when to expect something from you, thus getting a good active audience. Frequent post of content will be good for engaging with the audience.

If you are outsourcing the content, make sure you keep a good relationship with your influencers. You can send emails or calls to check on their work or arrange face-to-face meetings.

Benefits from content marketing and influencer marketing

As we have come to the conclusion that content marketing and influencer marketing is not fundamentally different from each other. Let’s see what advantages you have by integrating both the strategy.

Influencers and content give a personal touch 

The biggest benefit of working with influencers is that they communicate about their experience with the product or service. It is highly trustable as it doesn’t look like a paid advertisement. According to a report, 78% of people trust the opinion of family and friends while making a purchase decision and 65% trust the experts.

Also, when their reviews are included in the content, it makes a huge difference!

Tapping the new audience

Even if you are an established company and already have a huge audience, doing influencer marketing and content marketing will always help you tap new potential customers. Right influencers and perfect contents bring more authenticity to the table.

Summing up

For many people, influencer marketing has turned from a periodic tactic to a full-fledged strategy. It is huge and growing!

Haven’t you integrated the influencer marketing into your content marketing strategy yet? Remember, the quality of your content is a crucial aspect of the success of an influencer marketing strategy. Taping the right influencer is also crucial to reach the target audience. So, just combine both of them and you will certainly be surprised with the best results.

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Neil Helson is the marketing manager at www.Blurbpointmedia.com, SEO, and digital marketing company. He is passionate about helping small businesses and startups grow online.