Why Shopper Marketing has Embraced Influencer Marketing

The shopper’s path to purchase has been dramatically rerouted, with most shoppers using digital as their guide. Instead of communications from a brand or retailer, shoppers look to friends, family, peers and strangers for information, advice and opinions before, during and after they shop.

In the new “online all the time” paradigm, 69% of the U.S. population shopped online in 2015, and over half read online reviews before clicking the “buy” button. Over 76% of consumers interact with brands or products before they arrive at the store and 67% of shoppers read product reviews while in the store. Mobile alone influences one-third of in-store sales (that’s up 460% in 2 years). This year, Deloitte is projecting that 80% of retail sales will be influenced by digital and mobile – growing (up from 64% in 2015).

Digitally-Influenced Decisions Are Re-Shaping Retail

Over the last 5 years, the top 25 established retailers have lost 2% of their combined market share ($64 billion), while smaller players that have entered the market with digital at their core have multiplied. Digital has become “the great equalizer.” Deloitte’s study concludes that the impact of digital on the retail industry has been underestimated — there’s no offline anymore, and retailers are losing ground to their nontraditional competitors by not focusing on digitally influenced decisions earlier in the process.

“The digitally-enabled path to purchase is truly not just about the ‘buy’ button anymore…Retailers need to prioritize the creation and curation of more authentic messages that speak directly to the category shopper and evolve from the promotional, traffic-focused approach.”

“Only 30% of consumers are getting their inspiration from a retailer or brand’s advertisement or communication… 70% of shoppers are leading their own shopping journey. They no longer turn to retailers or brand advertisements for inspiration. Instead, they look to independent bloggers, friends and family, or even strangers, for trusted information about products — expressly because these influencers are not tied directly to brands.” — Deloitte: Navigating the New Digital Divide

The New Shopper Journey & Influencer Marketing

80% of marketers plan to use influencer marketing in 2016, and 80% intend to increase their spend this year. Forbes forecasts budgets shifting to earned media through influencer marketing in 2016 to beat barriers like ad blocking, while Huffpost Business forecasts that influencer marketing will be responsible for $100 million in sales this holiday season. Influencer marketing is also expected to reach 50% of digital marketing spend for shopper marketers this year.

Forward thinking marketers have found that influencer marketing is capable of filling all the touch points on the path to purchase: Influencers can create trusted, evergreen content which can be re-purposed and reused, they can promote content, they can demonstrate via social video the “how-tos” of a product or service, make complicated technical or medical jargon understandable to their followers, direct shoppers to in-store placements, promote contests and offers, offer digital coupons, start conversations, offer opinions, reviews, recommendations and more. All of this can be targeted, measured, amplified and scaled.

Influencer Marketing: Proven In-Store Sales + ROI

As of April 2016, influence marketing’s impact on sales and ROI has been directly linked to in-store sales. Nielsen Catalina and Tapinfluence demonstrated a 10% incremental sales lift for CPG brand Silk® from blogs alone. This influencer content also generated 11X the ROI of a traditional marketing campaign.

Marketers are finding influencer marketing as cost-effective as email marketing. It beats ad blocking, bots and “banner blindness,” and can increase SEO by as much as 25–50% — plus the cost of content creation is included! RhythmOne placed the average value of earned media at $11.20 for every $1 spent on influencer marketing (an increase of 63% in two years).

When 92% of consumers are reading online reviews and 88% trust them much as a personal recommendation, when over 70% of shoppers are turning to influencers, friends and family to make decisions about brands and products, and blogs alone can lift in-store sales by +10%, influencer marketing is clearly contributing to business goals. According to Augere’s 2015 study:

• 93% of professionals consider influencer engagement an effective strategy to build brand awareness
• 75% consider influencer engagement effective in lead generation
• 76% consider influencer engagement effective in garnering customer loyalty

Influencer marketing has the extraordinary ability to cut through the noise and clutter and engage with shoppers through all the touch points and stages of their consumer decision journey. From awareness to sales to loyalty: When shopper marketers collaborate with influential shoppers to communicate authentically with consumers, it works.

If you are ready to start, Vibrant Nation can help.

10 Reasons Brands Drive Results with Blogs – Across Generations

 

Whether you call it “influencer marketing,” “word of mouth marketing,” a “brand ambassador program” or simply a “blog,” across generations – Millennials, Gen X and Boomers – all confirm that blogs are their favorite type of content.

Blogs have become a favorite for marketers too. Influencer marketing has been rated as the fastest-growing online customer-acquisition channel, beating organic search and paid search. Over 75% of brands are using influencers, and 84% plan to this year. According to Forrester Research, nearly 60% plan to increase their influencer marketing budget in 2016.

It’s no wonder. Over 80% of marketers have reported positive results from influencer marketing. A 2015 study by Burst Media, proved that advertisers gained an average of $6.85 in earned media value for every $1 they spent on influencer marketing. CPG advertisers earned $11.33, travel $7.04, retail and apparel $10.48 and grocery and supermarkets $4.80.

Just this week, Tapinfluence released the first study to directly link influencer marketing to sales results in a collaboration with Nielsen Catalina and WhiteWave. This groundbreaking, year-long study confirmed that influencer content generates 11X the ROI of a traditional marketing campaign ($23 vs. $2.15 for banner ads) for the CPG brand Silk “Meatless Mondays” campaign. The sales lift was $285 in incremental sales per 1,000 pageviews (vs. a display ad at $16/1,000 impressions).

Marketers are finding influencer marketing as cost-effective as email. They’ve also found that blogs are the most effective platform for influencer marketing  (37%) followed by Facebook (25%), YouTube and Instagram (both at 6%).

An influencer program is a low-cost method that can deftly deliver 10% value or savings to a brand’s overall digital budget. Links to user-generated social posts account for 25% of search results for the world’s top 20 brands – the more mentions a brand has, the more relevancy they will gain in search.

In an over-saturated world, where 2/3rds of banner ads have zero impact, according to the Advertising Research Foundation, and over 30%+ of Americans are predicted to have adblockers already this year (Adobe), consumers are seeking out blogs for content at the right time in the right place. Blogs are immune to adblockers, and customer-contributed content has 12X more trust than brand-created descriptions. Bottom line – people trust people over brands.

     Influencers create authentic, trusted, user-generated content, ideas, insights, credible recommendations and reviews to be consumed, engaged with, and shared. This content is evergreen, and will live on and continue to create value. It’s trackable and measurable.

     Brands benefit from brand awareness, engagement, loyalty, a “halo” effect from the influencer, content virility, brand lift, sales, plus the original content can be repurposed and reused on the brand site, retail sites, in social media, in shopper materials, and more.

Blogs are a trusted source of reviews, which are paramount from consideration to conversion. 90% of consumers read online reviews and 88% of them trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. McKinsey and Nielsen have determined that word-of-mouth recommendations from trusted sources are the primary factor behind 20% to 50% of all purchase decisions. Word of mouth generates more than twice the sales of paid advertising. Studies also show that offers shared by a trusted influencer or brand ambassador convert at a 4X-12X higher rate than offers shared by brands. WOM also results in a 37% higher retention rate. Over half of all marketers say influencer campaigns result in “better” customers.

Positive online recommendations are more important than price and brand in motivating consumer purchasing. A media study by Share This/Paley Center showed that content shared online can motivate people to spend 9.5% more. That translates to adding, on average, $3,700 to the price that a consumer is willing to pay for a vehicle, $27 to the price of a mini-tablet and $0.75 to the price of a typical supermarket item.

It should come as no surprise that the group contributing the most reviews are Boomers. 45% of all product reviews come from adults 50+, and their reviews tend to be a bit more positive (Bazaarvoice).  Makes sense – they represent nearly 50% of the population, spend the most time online, account for 49% of online sales, and buy 51% of all consumer goods, 63% of automobiles, 80% of travel and outspend Millennials 2:1.

Marketers still say one of the main roadblocks to a successful campaign are the difficulties in connecting with influencers at scale. As the leading influencer network to reach women 45+, Vibrant Nation can help with that.

Consumers have put their trust in the opinion of their peers, and the voice of the consumer has become the most powerful tool a brand can have.

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Here is a recap of the 10 reasons brands are driving results with blogs across generations  – both Millennials and their moms:

10 Reasons Brands are Driving Results with Blogs

1. Favorite content for all generations – Millennials, Gen X and Boomers.
2. Fastest growing online acquisition channel.
3. Earned Media Value: Average $6.85 for each $1 spent. CPG at $11.33. Travel at $7.04. Retail & Apparel at $10.48.
4. Proven Sales Results:  11X ROI vs traditional campaign ($23 vs. $2).
5. As cost effective as email marketing.
6. Most effective influencer outlet –48% over Facebook, 600% over Instagram.
7. Delivers a 25% boost in SEO.
8. Beats “banner blindness,” bots and adblocking.
9. Reviews & word of mouth are a must:  90% read online reviews and 80% trust them as much as personal recommendations. WOM generates 2X the sales of paid advertising, affects 20-50% of all purchase decisions, delivers a 37% higher retention rate, 4X-12X higher conversion rate for offers. Positive reviews can increase purchase price by 9.5%
10. Blogs deliver truly engaging, trusted, authentic UGC, which is evergreen – content can be repurposed and reused, and it’s trackable and measurable.

Influencer Marketing: Multitasking Plus 25% Boost in Search

When an influencer writes about Tide Pods it’s not just a powerful word-of-mouth recommendation, it’s also making a significant impact on Procter & Gamble’s SEO.

The Ultimate Multitasker

Influencer marketing has proven to be the ultimate (successful) mutitasker – it expands reach, delivers double the sales of paid advertising, is targetable and traceable, increases credibility (92% of consumers turn to people they know over ads), creates user-generated content across Vlogs, Blogs, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest and much more.

On top of all this, influencer marketing increases SEO by 25%!  User-generated social posts account for 25% of search results for the world’s top 20 brands. (The more people mention your brand on social media, the more popular and relevant you will be on Google).

Digital Advertising & Search Engine Marketing

According to the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), U.S. digital advertising spending grew to $50 Billion in 2014 with 50% of that spent on search. (Brands spend on search engine marketing in order to increase the ranking and visits of their web page through search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo.)

P&G, the maker of Tide, is the largest advertiser in the world and one of the most innovative. They adopted a digital-first approach based on global research that indicates, “up to half of people’s media viewing time is spent on digital technology”. (Mark Pritchard, Chief Brand-Building Officer). As a result, P&G increased their digital spending to 35% of their total budget in 2014, which is significantly above the industry average of 20%.

The “SEO Boost” & ROI

When a bellweather marketer like P&G is able to impact their search results by 25% it’s H-uge.  The cost of an influencer marketing program would barely make a dent in the over $100 million dollars value (or savings) that boost represents – it’s that efficient.  (Influencer marekting is the most cost-effective customer acquisition channel in line with email marketing.)

What does this mean for marketers?  By implementing a successful influencer marketing program, a brand could boost their search engine results by 25% (essentially adding in the neighborhood of 5-10% value tor savings to their digital budget).. It’s no wonder that 59% of marketers are planning to boost their influencer marketing budget this year, and that Google has classified the term “influencer marketing” as “Breakout” in search (that “SEO Boost”).

Influencer marketing has proven to be astonishingly cost effective, with an ROI of $6.85 in earned media value for every dollar spent on paid ($11.33 for food, $10.48 for apparel and $7.04 for travel).

Indispensable Influencer Marketing

In this digitally connected world, consumers expect to be entertained, informed and to be part of the conversation with brands. Influencers have proven to be a wonderful source of ideas, insights, word-of-mouth, authentic content and credible recommendations, and visionary marketers have noticed. They are strategically partnering with influencers to spark and amplify conversations, all while dramatically improving their ROI and SEO.  An influencer marketing program is quickly becoming indispensable for brands.

Search Response

Of the top 6 search responses from my Google search for “Best Pod Detergent” below, two are by Influencers (33%).  40% of the Top 10 are by Influencers.