According to Statista, influencer marketing is projected to grow at a compound annual of 25% over the next five years.
Because of its sudden rise in popularity, many people are skeptical about influencer marketing and are hesitant to try it for their brand. But these reservations can result in missed opportunities to engage with the audience and drive sales.
In this article, we will break down the most popular influencer marketing myths one by one so you can confidently incorporate them into your marketing mix.
#1 Influencer marketing is reserved for big brands and large enterprises
Sure, many big brands leverage influencer marketing to achieve their marketing goals, but it doesn’t mean it is solely reserved for them.
In fact, many new D2C brands like Country Delight and Bliss Club have successfully used influencer marketing to compete with established companies.
Influencer marketing helps new brands in these significant ways:
- Influencers build brand credibility: Influencer marketing helps make a pragmatic view of your brand by adding a human element. For example, we are much more likely to believe a person using a product and giving reviews about it than seeing an ad explaining its feature.
- Influencers help build brand perception: Influencer marketing is very effective in communicating brand perception among the target audience through relatability and thier own image and aesthetic. For example, packaged food brands collaborate with young food influencers whose audience is young adults who are much more likely to buy thier products.
- Influencers help drive sales : influencers act as the last nudge customers need before buying a product they have on their radar. For example, we are much more likely to buy something according to a recommendation than an ad.
#2 Influencer marketing is too expensive
This myth comes from the perception that mega or celebrity influencers can only do influencer marketing, but this is far from the truth.
First of all, mega and celebrity influencers are too expensive, and second, they might do nothing for your brand growth as they do not have a niche or engaged audience.
Nowadays, even big brands like Neutrogena and Swiggy are collaborating with nano and micro-influencers to market their products/services.
The reasoning behind it is nano, and micro influencers have much more engaged audiences than mega or celebrity influencers, which is why they are in high demand.
- Nano/micro-influencers act the brand ambassador among their community and their followers.
- They help popularize brands among hyperlocal audiences, which is otherwise very difficult to do.
- They help gain trust and authenticity around your brand by associating their names with it.
It is a good approach for your brand to start influencer marketing with nano and micro-influencers and then move to macro and mid-tier influencers as they help build brand awareness in front of a large group of people.
#3 Influencer marketing does not deliver ROI
The data shows that influencer marketing is one of the highest ROI-delivering marketing efforts in the world today.
So why is the ROI of influencer marketing in question?
The reason behind this is measuring the ROI of influencer marketing manually is a tedious and time-consuming process, but there is a simple solution to this problem– Qoruz.
- ROI through Metrics: Qoruz is an influencer marketing platform that measures the ROI of the campaign based on metrics like CPV (cost per view) and CPE (cost per engagement) and many more.
- Live reporting: Qoruz’s live reporting gives you the command of your campaign and lets you take necessary measures to enhance the results further.
- Enhanced results: In case a reel of an influencer from your campaign is doing very well on their handle. It can attract even more engagement if the same reel is promoted using Instagram’s promotion feature.
#4 Influencer marketing will lose its charm
Since Twitter gained popularity in 2009, it has been clear that normal people who are not celebrities can change perceptions about anything, let alone brands.
The same logic applies to influencers; they are not popular, to begin with, but gain popularity and trust among their audience through their content over time.
As per popular belief, influencers are not replacing celebrities but have created a category of their own and are more trusted among people because of their origins.
So, until the world uses social media, there will be influencers, as influencers themselves are social media users who have built their communities.
#5 Influencer marketing is not authentic
“Influencers endorse products without even using them” This is a common misconception about influencers, but it is not entirely true.
- Many brands collaborate with influencers who are already a fan of their products and have endorsed them in the past.
- Many influencers only collaborate with brands they trust and use personally.
From these instances, it is clear that the authenticity of influencer endorsement entirely depends on the particular influencers and brands. Ideally, both should maintain authenticity, but as we know, there will always be exceptions.
#6 Influencer marketing works only for a young audience
This is not only far from the truth, but believing this can lead to missed opportunities to showcase your brand in front of the target group. Influencer marketing might not work because of the following factors:
- Targeting: The statement “influencer marketing will work for some people and not for some” entirely depends on targeting. In the case of influencer marketing, the targeting is done through influencers, so choosing the right influencer for your brand is half the job done.
- Platform: Choosing the platform wisely is also great advice for targeting your ICPs better. Some brands will benefit from collaborating with Youtubers and others from Instagram or Facebook influencers. It all depends on finding where your ICPs spend most of their time.
If you can understand and solve these two problems for your influencer campaign, you will never face the problem of targeting through influencer marketing again.
But it will need data and analytics that are not readily available, and extracting it manually will require a lot of time and effort but still be prone to human error.
So to solve this problem, it is necessary to use an influencer marketing platform like Qoruz.
Qoruz solves these two problems effortlessly through detailed influencer and audience analytics, which helps you choose the right influencer on the right platform every time.
We hope this list bursts influencer marketing myths and helps you collaborate with influencers confidently.
Which influencer marketing myths do you think need bursting? Let us know in the comment section below.
