5 minutes 
Influencer marketing has become a key and really profitable strategy. On many occasions inevitable in the growth campaigns of brands and companies.
It is about agreeing collaborations with content creators with a large following on social networks to increase reach, brand recognition and sales. But is influencer marketing really profitable for businesses?
What is influencer marketing?
Influencer marketing is a strategy in which brands and companies establish collaborations with content creators on digital platforms. As an Example: Instagram, YouTube, TikTok or blogs for these creators to promote their products to their audiences.
These influencers establish fees for each publication or can offer packs with rates that depend on the type of publication, format and product to be promoted.
The value of these fees can also depend on the number of followers of the influencer, engagement rate, their previous collaborations and many other factors.
Influencer marketing has become a fixture in brand and company campaigns because it has a number of advantages:
Credibility: when an influencer promotes a product, he is recommending it to his entire audience, providing credibility and good reputation to the brand that produces it.
Reach: One of the main attractions of influencers is their large fan base. When they promote a product or service, they are presenting it to thousands of followers, among whom is a percentage interested in buying from the brand.
Increased sense of scarcity: collaborations are usually short, but this makes them an opportunity to promote launches, flash offers, discounts or special promotions.
Recognition: When the goal of collaboration is not sales, influencers are a means to increase brand recognition among your audience.
Increased conversions: All of the above factors can result in a significant increase in brand conversions, whether in the form of sales, lead generation, downloads or registrations.
The objectives of brands in attracting customers have changed, therefore, the focus on influencer marketing has also evolved.
Some of the disadvantages that have emerged over time between influencer marketing and companies are the following:
Ephemeral collaborations: collaborations between brands and influencers usually do not last long because the company is paying for a publication that is shared on a certain date.
- Limited collaborations: the cost of working with influencers with many followers or high engagement rate, SMEs often collaborate with few influencers.
- Non-existent follow-up: they do not include in their strategies a follow-up model that indicates which and how many conversions come from the influencers who promote the product.
The number of conversions can be tracked through procedures such as UTM codes or detailed analysis of indicators during the campaign.
- Questionable profitability: There are no guarantees that an influencer campaign will produce the expected return on investment for the campaign.
Which brings us to our main question: is influencer marketing really profitable?
Yes, it can be if you find the right influencers, the ideal promotion techniques, really specific and interested audiences, and a large enough budget.
Many factors must align so that influencer marketing can generate not only the return on the investment you have made in the campaign, but also an increase in sales that represents more money for the company.
The different needs of consumers have given new alternatives that you can complement influencer marketing to make your advertising efforts profitable.
Alternatives to influencer marketing
The alternatives to influencer marketing that we will present continue to boast the unique value that content creators bring to businesses.
They present new approaches that allow brands to have key elements such as results tracking, various forms of payment and long-term collaborations.
Boost Marketing
it focuses on creating communities of content creators with audiences of various sizes who promote the product or service.
Through a tracking system, you can identify the publications that had the highest engagement, to turn them into ads that reach a Target.
The main advantages of amplification marketing over influencer marketing are as follows:
- You create a community of creators with smaller but highly engaged audiences who can recommend products and services to their audience and generate interest.
- Results monitoring is an irreplaceable part of its methodology. So you can track the performance of each member of your community and know which creators are really profitable for your strategy.
- Work on agreements that benefit both the brand and the content creator and that include diversity in payment methods.
This offers the opportunity to pay a commission each time the creator makes a sale instead of paying a per post fee.
Affiliate Marketing
Content creators of any kind can sign up to recommend products or services on their digital channels and earn a commission on each sale.
The main advantage of this type of marketing is that you can have tons of content creators recommending your product without paying for them to do so.
Compared to influencer marketing, with affiliate marketing you don’t have much control over the content creators who join. However, it is a great way to complement your strategy with
creators who have blogs, YouTube channels and Instagram profiles where they recommend your brand to their audience.
Content Marketing
It consists of creating and sharing relevant and consistent content to attract and maintain a defined audience with the objective of generating conversions.
This strategy seeks to create a reputation for the brand. Users begin to associate the business with information, data, pieces of content and products that really interest them.
It is a long-term strategy, in which the content created must be constant enough to represent the brand.
Content marketing is a complementary strategy that enhances the promotion strategies that brands can carry out with content creators.
This type of marketing helps to choose the right influencers that best fit with the valuable content that the audience is already receiving.
So these collaborations become part of a content marketing strategy instead of being transactions with the objective of selling.
Influencer marketing as part of a larger strategy
The truth is that content marketing, affiliations and long-term collaborations are positioned as the most effective way to sell.
Influencers is evolving to encompass content creators with small audiences but well-targeted interests.
Keep this in mind when choosing your content creators to get the best results from your potential clients and to gain ambassadors who represent your brand in a more genuine and transparent way.
