Influence Marketing is a digital marketing strategy that consists of a partnership between a brand and content producers that exert a strong influence on certain audiences - influencers.

These digital influencers are people who have a strong digital presence in different segments, from fashion, humor, cooking or technology. Influencers have an audience witha high engagement with their content, thus exerting a great power of influence.

Influence marketing has benn gaining more and more space in the digital environment since, most of the time, the consumer places more trust in a real person with whom they feel affinity and place credibility, than in the advertising made by the brands. This means that these followers would be more willing to consume a particular product referenced by these influencers thank just by the mere commercial communication of the product.

In addition, digital influencers through their social networking publications often test the product they are promoting, allowing their followers to see how the product really behaves, being another factor to consider in buying decision making.
This disclousure is often made mixed with content truly relevant to followers (such as tutorials), thus running away from typical advertising for the sole purpose of encouraging purchase.

Advantages of Influence Marketing

Accessibility
The adoption of an influence marketing strategy is something that does not require a large budget, as there are influencers with different amounts of followers and act in different areas, also having different forms of negotiation.

Thus, to find influencers that fit your brand, you just need to realize which digital channels where your consumers are present, what kind of content they look for and which influencers act in the environment.

Quick Results
Influence marketing is considered a faster acquisition method when compared to other methods, namely organic research and email marketing.

Trust
As mentioned earlier, the feeling of proximity that followers feel with influencers, makes the opinion of influencers more credible and confidence when compared to the brand's communication, thus increasing the likelihood of purchase.

Enriches content marketing
By working together with influencers, through the sharing of the content produced, brands acquire another means of increasing the content disclosed, especially with regard to social networks. To this end, it is important that the content procuded by influencers, despite being original and in line with the identity of the influencer, is also aligned with the brand's strategy, so that the message is passed to the target audience more homogeneous.

In addition, the partnership with influencers allows creating content in different formats.
As a way of promoting products, one can resort to creating campaigns with influencers, with a more creative and innovative communication in order to capture the attention and interaction of followers.

Another very recurring practice is the famous 'received', through which brands send 'gifts' to influencers, who later share the content received with their followers on social networks.

How to practice influence marketing?


1 - Define goals
As for any marketing strategy, it is important to start by defining which goals (if possible SMART) you want to achieve through this collaborative work with digital influencers. Want to promote a new product? Increase the number of sales? Increase brand awareness? Generate more leads?

2 - Define target audience
Define well who your persona is, their habits and what type of content they like. Try to understand which digital channels your audience uses and which users are in this environment.

3 - Look for the right influencers
When choosing which influencer to work with, the focus should not be on the number of followers it has, although it is clear that the greater the number of followers, the greater the range.
Look for influencers who have an audience similar to your brand, who is present on the same channels, and has a line of communication that somehow also fits the brand's communication.

For this implementation of a successful influence marketing strategy, it is important to define from the outset the conditions and goals of the partnership.
Try to give creative freedom to the influencer, so that dissemination arises as natural as possible, thus contributing to create a sense of credibility and confidence with consumers. Howerver, as natural as communication is, it is important that all posts resulting from this partnership are identified early on that it is advertising content, thus demonstrating transparency with consumers and avoiding feeling of mistake of frustration.

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