The communications game has changed in recent years. Long are the days where communications and PR professionals pulled ad equivalency rates to measure the success of their earned media campaigns. 

Now we have a much broader toolkit to help our clients hit their goals and at the center of it: influencers. We’re seeing more and more that when brands put influencers at the center of the campaign, we see higher awareness, engagement, and even higher percentage of purchase. Influencer marketing is flipping the entire marketing lifecycle and the biggest impact it’s having is on social commerce. 

Influencer-led campaigns have proven to be more effective. We have run both influencer-led and brand-led campaigns, and the results speak for themselves. Data has proven that brands tend to earn $6.50 for every $1 spent on influencer marketing (Tomoson). Our work in CPG, dental, spirits and home appliances is showing strong efficiency numbers as well.

Organizations and brands are taking note. We’re seeing more and more; brands are shifting focus and reallocating budgets to better support their influencer-led campaigns. Brand managers understand these campaigns are driving stronger engagement and are prioritizing those efforts first, putting additional support behind it, and seeing results. 

To some, the term “influencer” may still seem as a bit of a one-off. Something that is interesting and creates nice looking, but hyper-targeted, content, but not a tool the wields purchase power like traditional campaigns. The clout that micro-influencers have over their audience is surprising at first but shouldn’t be. They understand their specific, perhaps yes hyper-targeted, audience better than anybody else. They know what content works, what falls flat, and what they’re are seeking more of. 

In fact, we see the best success using micro influencers over the more well-known brand name influencers. I’d take 100 influencers over someone like John Legend any day of the week (sorry John). The natural line of thinking is that a well-known name would be enough to drive consumers down the funnel, but I’ve seen micro influencers punch far above their weight in comparison. They produce authentic content that resonates with people and are incredibly cost effective.

The rise of digital and social have flipped the shopping journey on its head. It has put the consumer in control of when they research products, how they become aware of new products, drive market trends and, most importantly, who they trust to give them opinions and recommendations for what to buy.