Influencer marketing has gradually emerged as an important strategy and many business owners are using it quite frequently for driving sales. With the advent of social media and the availability of various social media platforms, influencer marketing has found a solid ground. It is not just helping marketers reach a new audience and build brand credibility, but it is helping them in search rankings as well. It has indeed become an integral part of customers’ purchase process.

According to a survey, 92% consumers around the world trust word-of-mouth and recommendations from friends and family over any other type of advertising. As a matter of fact, customers are more likely to make a purchase with a peer recommendation as compared to when they are exposed to conventional marketing tactics. When a customer is in a real dilemma as to which products or services to purchase, a review or recommendation from an influencer can greatly impact their decision. This brings a great opportunity for business owners to leverage influencer marketing as a strategy.

If you are an entrepreneur or a small business owner or for that matter running an established business, influencer marketing can be a potent tool in order to increase sales, create brand awareness and make new customers. “Today, as we are inching closer to cut-throat competition in terms of brand promotion, the audience has become immensely valuable, so are the crisp words of influencers” – Nicholas Chachula, co-founder of iCustomlabel was quoted as saying.

Here are some ways with which you can use influencer marketing to your advantage in order to grow your business:

1. Engage your customers

Consumers now like to discuss products and brands across various social media platforms. This presents an effective case for them to make their voices heard, so you need to start following people on their social media profiles. Then begin engaging their content by liking, commenting and sharing their posts. Leveraging influencers to share content in a creative way keeps your audience engaged, which in turn increases the number of positive comments about your brand. In this way, influencers will help your brand stand out from the rest of the crowd because customers tend to trust them when they say your brand is genuine. This means influencers help drive sales quite comfortably.

 2. Build customer loyalty

62% people accepted that they will buy a particular product if any influencer they follow on social media recommends it. Also, 60% of YouTube subscribers admitted that they would follow the advice of their favorite YouTube creator rather than a usual celebrity. This shows that people deeply trust in influencers and the recommendations they provide. Since a word of praise regarding your brand from an influencer attracts people’s attention. As a result, you are able to establish your credibility in your audience. Although building customer loyalty could be tricky because it requires those influencers whose ideas should resonate with what your brand actually stands for. However, once it is done a trust factor comes in and people start associating with your product or service. 

3. Incorporate an effective content marketing strategy

In order to promote your business and reach out to as many people as possible, you need to give your content marketing efforts a big boost because it is an integral part of social media strategy. So, you need to rope in trusted influencers to drive sales and who could write engaging content with interesting storytelling on your blog. Or you can have them share your content in order to attract more customers and maximize web traffic. It will eventually help you earn high-authority inbound links and build up social shares.

4. Enhance search engine optimization

Influencer marketing greatly benefits your marketing strategy because the influencers bring together all the followers who follow their every product review or recommendations. They help build a strong link profile, which is very crucial for your website’s rank in competitive queries on search engines. Furthermore, an influencer who shares your link also increases chances of having other people to share the link. These well-respected links eventually help generate more organic traffic. This means increased popularity and greater chances of brand promotion.

Influencer marketing is a rising trend and social media has provided a lot of significance to it. So brace yourself to apply influencer marketing strategies to boost your sales.