Influencer marketing as new frontier in IMC
By Khairat Asokomhe
Influencer marketing is a strategy being adopted by most brands in the Integrated Marketing Communication sector by partnering with individuals whose audience aligns with their target demography to create and share content relating to their products and brand.
Currently and across board, brands utilize influencer marketing to promote and influence their products and services. They collaborate with individuals who have a strong social media presence as well as ensuring their views align with the brand’s message.
According to Google, the influencer marketing industry is a massive $250 billion ecosystem, with over $10 billion expected to be spent in 2025.
Brands are increasingly investing in influencer marketing with social media platforms like Instagram, Tiktok, YouTube being dominated.
Brand visibility is gained through this marketing strategy, by increasing brand’s awareness and the opportunity creating the to connect with specific demographics as its audience. Several brands like Glo, Coca-Cola, Jumia, Flutterwave, Pepsi, MTN, Paystack, amongst others, leverage it to promote their products and brands.
According to University of Portsmouth research, it projected that influencer marketing is estimated to reach $480 billion by 2027, and that companies are increasingly relying on it to promote products and foster consumer trust.
“Influencers have the ability to understand the market needs and create engaging content to the target audience. Creators are recognised for their skills that extend being influencers alone”, said Lakshmi Balasubramanian, CEO of Greenroom Network, an influencer marketing agency.
There is no doubt that this segment of marketing has grown as brands recognise its natural strength in content creation.
With the trust and credibility built by them for their followers, it has helped to boost engagement, wider audience reach as well as increases sales for brands. Today, it is the way brands promote their products in the Integrated Marketing Communication sector.
In a research by World Federation Advertisers, it indicated that 60% of marketers say influencer marketing is becoming more important,adding that the use of dedicated influencer agencies to identify partners have risen by 20% since 2019.
“While many brands are striving to set best practice, there is still work to do to raise the bar in terms of where the industry needs to be. This new guidance highlights where and why brands can improve and provide checklists they can follow to ensure a better, more sustainable and trustworthy approach to influencer marketing, which should ultimately benefit both brands and consumers,” said Stephan Loerke, World Federation Advertisers, CEO.
Through New WFA research, 61% of brand marketers have agreed that this type of marketing will become more important in the future while 54% plans to boost its budgets in 2025.
With these new commitments, marketers are working increasingly closely with influencer agencies to identify and manage relationships as the use of influencer agencies has help to accelerate growth overtime.
“Brands are also looking to agencies to help manage influencers much more, with nearly 79% using influencer agencies as part of a suite of partners, nearly 54% looking to their social media agency and PR agencies taking a role in almost 51% of cases, with different solutions being applied in different parts of the world by some brands” WFA research reports
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