Role of influencers in customer’s decision-making process

The recent past has been eventful. The global crisis has put everything together; we once took for granted at risk and has drastically altered how we live, work, and play as individuals. It has also been challenging for businesses to stay afloat. Although few may argue the pandemic’s mass retail doomsday, the new environment has offered numerous opportunities to revitalize the brands by focusing on innovations and current trends. One of the major marketing strategies the pandemic led to was a revolution in Digital Marketing. While traditional channels’ influence is waning, digital media is growing. Due to digitalization, consumers have become more educated as media users and more critical of commercial messages. As we all know it is becoming increasingly difficult for brands to stand out among the crowd of advertisers, so many have turned to influencers. Thanks to digitalization, we are constantly exposed to influencer marketing, whether we are aware of it. Influencer marketing is an intriguing phenomenon and plays a crucial part of the Go-to-Market strategies.

Tapping the influencers online has its advantages—directly penetrating the highly targeted audience and engaging the content consumers and ultimately generating leads, increasing sales, and building brand awareness—in other words, it’s quick and effective.

In this part, we look at the role of influencers in customers’ decision-making process. Influencer marketing is a vital spoke of the marketing domain that focuses on utilizing the already built goodwill of the influential people to spread a brand’s message to a broader audience in a much convenient and inexpensive way. Instead of directly marketing to a vast group of consumers via TV commercials, offline advertisement and more, the brands collaborate with influencers to spread the word for them.

Influencer marketing comprises social media marketing and content marketing. Most influencer campaigns include a social media component, where influencers create the brand buzz via their personal social media channels. Numerous influencer marketing campaigns have a content component, in which the brands either offer the influencers with content or have them create it themselves—however, social media and content marketing strategies are used frequently. However, both are distinguished strategies.

Social media influencers align with psychological principles and motivate their audiences to take action.

Increase Brand Awareness

A key advantage of social media influencers is that they have a thorough understanding of their platforms and create impactful and engaging content that can garner more engagement and increase brand awareness with their followers and subscribers. These influencers have frequently spent years building their audiences and maximizing their groups’ sense of belonging and inclusion. They know how to forge effective relationships with their audiences and seamlessly tell your brand story to them, thanks to their refined presentation and storytelling skills.

One of the most critical stages of this trip is laying the groundwork for your brand’s positioning among customers. The positioning of your brand in the market is an essential process because it helps establish your identity, captures the attention of your target audience, and gives you a competitive upper hand over other industry players.

Improve Buying Decision with Unbiased Opinions

Influencers have a knack for telling stories and sharing their experience with their followers on a daily basis. These individuals have mastered communicating effectively with their audiences, and they can do so without being too “salesy.” Consumers trust influencers for various reasons, one of which is that they can relate to them on a personal level. They are familiar with them and like their company. It all comes down to ‘making friends’ and ‘achieving status.’

Influencers don’t just post an ad on their feeds; they go into great depth about the product/s, including how to use them, whether they’re good value for money, and what buyers should expect, among other things. Influencers, in general, answer the most frequently asked questions that consumers have about any business or product. A powerful strategy is to use trust among these communities to increase your brand’s reputation and produce significant outcomes.

Strengthen Customer Relationships

The necessity of forming better connections with your target market is the target of every marketer. Still, to do so, you must first get your brand in front of your target consumers and cultivate that affiliation within their tribe, which plays into the ‘attaining status’ part.

Consumers are more likely to trust peer recommendations because they are perceived to be more trustworthy than claims in brand advertisements, and social media influencers can be extremely powerful in this regard. Suppose a product is accepted within their circle. In that case, it immediately boosts its reputation and affiliated connection, implying that the most influential voices within any group have enormous sway over that initial relationship.

Conclusion:

Influencers on social media appeal to basic human interaction needs, evoking a response motivating consumers to purchase or convert. As a result, using influencers to reach out to potential customers might be an effective marketing strategy. By aligning with psychological principles, understanding how influencers fit within that scope, and allocating budgetary resources to Influencer Marketing, brands can better target the right influencers for their digital outreach initiatives. Brand loyalty and equity are increased through cultivating beneficial relationships with customers. As a result, it appears to be more reliable when a blogger or other influencer recommends a product.

About the author:

Abhishek Singh, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Hirect India