Influencer marketing has earned a lot of interest over the last few years. In the last three years, the number of Google searches for “influencer marketing” has increased by 1500%. This shows that the future of influencer marketing is available for future opportunities. As more companies realize the advantages of influencer marketing, they will invest more money into it.

This research revealed that 63% of marketers plan to increase their budget this year and they set the budget of influencer marketing to become a $10 million market by 2020. Obviously influencer marketing is here to stay. But what does the future of influencer marketing hold? 

It’s bound to change with new technologies and trends, like all other marketing strategies. Let’s take a look at a few changes in the industry that we can expect in the future.

Focusing on Micro-Influencers

Influencer marketing grew out of celebrity marketing. To the average person in the street, influencer marketing involves brands working with famous people. Brands have realized that sometimes less is more. The success of any campaign doesn’t completely ride on the number of followers.

We have extensively written about the different types of influencers over the past few years. In particular, we have signposted the increase in the popularity of micro-influencers. One prediction for the future of Influencer Marketing is that micro-influencers will have more influence than celebrities would.

However, definitions for the micro-influencers have remained elastic over the years. The globally accepted definition is that Micro-influencers are someone who has between 1,000 and 100,000 followers. While their following may be small, their authenticity is high. 

Many influencers buy fake followers, so their engagement rate is low. On the contrary, micro-influencers have fewer followers but they work to maintain personal bonds with their audience. Therefore, their posts get higher engagement.

Unlike popular influencers who have a huge following on social media, micro-influencers are more reasonably priced. Micro-influencers will rule the future of influencer marketing.

The rise of Influencer Networks

The future of influencer marketing is all about the networks. Instead of individuals, marketers may start to group influencers based on whom they are associated with. After all, influencer marketing is about connecting with the right people.

If your brand is related to an influencer, its reputation grows based on how much authority they have. Moreover, an influencer’s reputation depends on which brands they promote. 

Each of the influence centers is linked to each other because many niches overlap. Take, for example, a brand that sells sunscreen lotion. For such a brand, the obvious choice would be to reach out to influencers in fashion, beauty, and lifestyle niches. However, they could also reach out to influencers in the travel and sports industry.

The future of influencer marketing emphasizes connecting or “the interconnectedness” of different niches. The influencers who have the power to transfer ideas between different groups will be the most influential ones.

Brands Will Cultivate Long-Terms Relationships with Influencers

As more brands realize the importance of collaborating with influencers, they are seeking new ways to work with them. At the same time, they realize that building long-term associations with influencers is essential for better marketing. It has been common until now for brands to think short term with their influencer campaigns. They have an idea for a campaign. They search for influencers. 

Either the brand or the influencers create the campaign, depending on the amount of control the brand requires. The brand then analyses the results of their campaign and then moves onto the next campaign which repeats the whole influencer identification process.

However, as influencer marketing becomes more popular, there is a danger that influencers will pick the brands with whom they wish to work. Good influencers are likely to “fill up” their calendar with paid promotions. If a brand isn’t careful, they will lose their best influencers because of short-term thinking. There are signs in early 2019, however, that this trend is changing. When brands find suitable influencers, they now focus on building longer-term relationships.

Brands and celebrities have built long-term relationships for years. This is predicted that Influencer Marketing will more closely follow this trend for a few years.  

Computer-Generated Imagery Influencers

These influencers aren’t real or human. As the name “CGI influencers” suggests, they are generated by computers. But they have already started to revolutionize influencer marketing. They’re the next big thing in the world of influencer marketing.

The entry of CGI influencers into the influencer marketing industry has changed the way brands view collaborations. For the uninitiated, CGI influencers are influencers who are created with the help of computer-generated imagery.

Manufactured in the virtual world, programmers and designers work for hours to create each scene from a CGI influencer’s life. On their social media channels, CGI influencers can be seen posing at exotic locations.

Riding in on the curiosity that CGI influencers evoke, many luxury brands have started collaborating with them. Lil Miquela, one of the most popular CGI influencers, has already partnered with Calvin Klein, Diesel, and Prada. 

CGI influencers are becoming increasingly popular for brands because they allow brands to completely control how their products are advertised. The unpredictability that comes with real-life influencers can be avoided.

 

Influencer marketing is steadily replacing traditional advertising that consumers have already lost their faith. Smart marketers and brands choose to work with influencers to persuade the buying decisions of their audience. Depending on the number of followers, we categorize influencers into mega, macro, micro and nano influencers. In our previous blog, we have talked about things you brands should know about micro-influencers and how brands can take advantage of them. Now we will look at another type of social media influencers – the nano-influencers.

Who can be defined as a nano-influencer? 

Having an account with a large number of followers or being widely popular is not necessary to be an influencer. It doesn’t matter how many fan base influencers have, the only thing is needed is the ability to shift their fan’s behavior or thought process. Think about any of your family members, parents or siblings. How many influences do they have over you? Whether you admit or not, some of your decisions are the result of their influence and you are the audience of one. 

There is a predominant idea that the bigger the influencer, the better your results which are not always correct. A word from a nano influencer may have more impact than macro-influencers with thousands of followers.

Nano-influencers are defined as Instagram influencers with at least 1,000 and usually not more than 5,000 followers. Here we can specifically include Generation Z. Instead of traditional advertising and celebrities which have been grown to mistrust, they have more tendency to turn to the opinions of their online peers. Clearly, we are heading towards a trend where consumers, in particular, the younger generation, will increasingly rely on nano-influencers to assist with their purchasing decisions.

Here are some of their notable characteristics of nano-influencers: 

• A small number of followers
• High probability of not working with any brand before
• Appearing as a “friend” persona
• Very specific niche
• A higher engaged community

Reasons to choose nano-influencers

We used to praise social media influencers with hundreds and thousands of followers and give them a big amount of money to endorse our products. But making more unique and relevant advertisements and targeting the right audience is key to every successful marketing strategy. 

Nano-influencers achieve this by creating original and user-generated content. They usually have more niche content. That’s why brands can reach various segments and better position their products with the help of nano-influencers. These new niches are a good opportunity for brands to test the new product, to examine the reactions and to get feedback from the audience. This is also a good opportunity to open up a new market space. 

Just like your family members or friends, nano influencer is “normal” people with a nano-lifestyle. A nano-influencer is almost considered a friend by most of their followers. As they don’t use influencer marketing as their main source of income, they appear more relatable and approachable for a brand. 

Fewer followers = More engagement

State of Influencer Marketing 2019 research states that nano-influencers have twice a higher engagement rate on Instagram than that of any other influencer group. It has already proven that if the influencer has a larger audience their engagement rate decreases. Compared to a celebrity with more than a million followers, nano-influencers can engage about 8.7% of their audience, while this percentage for a celebrity is just 1.7%. 

In comparison with the mega-influencers, they have more category-specific audiences who are closely interested in their publications. Therefore, they can create a stronger relationship and one-on-one communications with their followers. They are more likely to reply to every comment and interact with the audience. They don’t simply reply with a catchphrase but give meaningful answers to their questions. As a result, these relationships lead to higher engagement and trust.  

Cost-effectiveness

In having a considerably large following, mega-influencers provide brands with a notably greater reach, but at a very high cost. However, leveraging multiple nano-influencers will have more influence than working with a mega-influencer with the same audience. Of course, there are more financial benefits of this collaboration. A few percentages of nano’s prefer monetary compensation, which means they are ready to collaborate with you in exchange for products or services which makes them more approachable for small businesses as well. 

Grow your future ambassador

They are enthusiastic and easy to work with. So they are growing faster than any other group of influencers. It is more likely that in the near future they can become micro-influencers or even macro-influencers. So it is a chance for brands to grow their army of ambassadors. 

They are more like “friend figure”

Nowadays, consumers exposed to promotional content every day, so they can easily identify them. However, nano’s feed is not filled with paid content yet, therefore they are able to provide a sense of authenticity.  A recommendation of a brand or product from a friend (or a nano-influencer who provides that level of friendly intimacy) will bring better conversion rates than a paid advertisement. 

Finally, before starting to leverage nano-influencers brands should consider that they don’t have much experience in advertising. So they are going to need more help, advice, and control from brands. Brands can help by giving a detailed brief and not interfering with their way of interaction with followers. It is also necessary for nano’s to have a general understanding of the brands they collaborate with. Not having a thorough understanding may risk the brand’s message being fragmented.

The term “amazon influencer” appeared after The Amazon company run an affiliate program to help people to make money. This affiliate program run by Amazon for two years, allowing social media influencers to get a commission on products that are sold and earn a cut of prices generated from Amazon links within Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and Twitter. 

This is a cost-effective way for sellers to reach potential customers

Amazon’s Affiliate program became so popular that, the company decided to slightly take it several steps further and in 2017, Amazon Influencer Program was created. Unlike Amazon’s affiliate program this new program is more exclusive as it lets anyone link to products for the small number of commissions. The program is open to qualifying consumers who have YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook accounts.

Creators say that revenue from the Amazon Influencer Program can vary from a few dollars to $1,500 a month. Commission rates range from 10% for Amazon’s private-label fashion line to 1% for video games and consoles.

Why Amazon started this program?

Amazon realized that social media influencers with large audiences could broaden its reach by promoting products. They also realized influencers were searching for better ways to partner with brands to monetize their fame.

At first, Amazon took a risk by knowing that influencers would take advantage of the program, giving misleading reviews to products just to make money. But, that’s not how today’s young influencers work. Influencers don’t necessarily promote products because they know followers trust their opinions and crave discovering relevant brands. Influencers are also keenly aware of how Amazon bans fraudulent reviewers. And those young, rising stars don’t want to make it onto that list.

How does the program work?

It’s pretty similar to how Amazon Affiliate works. Users can build links and shopping ads, and then integrate them onto their own websites or blogs. When people click on that link and buy a product, the affiliate gets a commission on the product. The amount of commission depends on what type of product was sold.

The main difference between Affiliate and Influencer programs is that, with Amazon’s Influencer Program, people have to apply to be “using the social media account in which they’ll have the most influence on their followers, while on Affiliate program anyone can sign up and get started. 

There’s no guarantee they’ll get into the program. If you don’t qualify right away, Amazon encourages you to come back in the future as the eligibility requirements may change over time.

Here are some of the eligibility requirements:

• Broad audience. However, there’s no precise number that has been stated by Amazon. 
• How much they engage with fans with posts, and how many/which social media platforms they engage on. Again, there are no exact numbers, but rather that Amazon wants to see you have a noticeable presence.
• Your content is of a high standard. Amazon’s looking for influencers who post quality material, and not just trolling comments to get a reaction out of people.
• Lastly, they also want to see that there’s relevance for themselves. Amazon needs to see that the influencer chosen will also benefit themselves.

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 How successful the program is?

The program is a win-win for both influencer and Amazon. The company gives you countless social sharing tips on all platforms, including podcasts and Snapchat, plus examples of real-life influencer campaigns.

As the program is relatively new, it is a little difficult to quantify the success of the program for brands. There are some gray areas at this point when collaborating with influencers. If a brand decides to work with an influencer, will the influencer feature that brands on his or her storefront? Even with the complexities, studies show that influencers have generated billions of dollars of revenues for brands. Other surveys say that most marketers are trying to assess the ROI of working with influencers.

Azerbaijan`s largest mobile operator, Azercell Telecom LLC was founded in 1996. With a 48 percent share, the company has taken a significant place in Azerbaijan’s mobile market. Azercell’s network covers 80 percent of the country’s territory and 99.8 percent of the population. Presently, 4.5M subscribers use Azercell’s services.

Although Azercell is a leading company of the local mobile telecommunication sector, it has decided to appear before its customers with a renewed logo. As stated by the Azercell, “the new logo will be the symbol of its agility and innovative spirit.” 

The company’s influencer marketing strategy was to let the influencers tell their own stories through social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook. 

 

 

 

 

 

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Bilirdiniz ki, mən @azercell -də uzun müddət işləmişəm?:) Azercell ilə bağlı çox xoş və unudulmaz xatirələrim qalıb! Bugün isə Azercellin yeni başlanğıcın təqdimatındayam? Yeni loqonun təqdimatını birlikdə qeyd etmək üçün bugün Heydər Əliyev Mərkəzində böyük konsert gözlənilir! Hamınız dəvətlisiniz:) Congratulations @azercell ? #azercell #purpleteam #newbeginnings #ad

A post shared by Aysel ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ (@iceselina) on Jun 21, 2019 at 9:00am PDT

With the help of Keepface Influencer Marketing Platform, 32 Influencers were leveraged with a various circle of interest and a good social media presence. Azercell’s partnership with influencers started on the 1st of June and lasted about a month till the 5th of July.

They shared a teaser of social media ads before the event and story posts with an invitation for the event noted the date of the event. Influencers to spread the word about the logo by inviting their audiences to an open-air concert.  Various videos, photos, and story posts created by 32 influencers from the concert received millions of views.

Here are few of influencers with different social media stats and results of their performance: 

@hllyblog – 243752 audience, 7.37 % engagement rate

@iconmekh – 21295 audience, 6 % engagement rate

@nadjiba_ – 24325 audience, 8.52 % engagement rate 

@sabiorudjeva – 12074 audience, 10.18 % engagement rate

@uzel.kerimova – 8387 audience, 3.37 % engagement rate

@aiseelll – 7801 audience, 5.03 % engagement rate

@asadovlife – 6431 audience, 13.58 % engagement rate

@nicatmanaf – 1601 audience, 63.19 % engagement rate

Activity:

• Instagram and Facebook was selected as the main platform

• Teaser shared before the event 

• Event posts and experience

• TVC Video shared after the event

“Under the Digital Sky”

Azercell held an event at the Heydar Aliyev Center on June 21st with the participation of 750 people including influencers. They shared the moments of the event as a form of story posts, live videos, and photos on platforms mainly on Instagram and Facebook. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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@azercell updated ?✌?

A post shared by RAVAN BAGHIROV ? (@ravanbaghirov) on Jun 21, 2019 at 9:29am PDT

The company organized a concert “Under the Digital Sky” with free entrance in the park of the Heydar Aliyev Center, allowing the audience to listen to the songs performed by popular artists, like Nigar Jamal, Emin Aghalarov, Chingiz Mustafayev, Zulfiya Khanbabayeva, Elnara Khalilova, Elshad KHose.

It is worth to note that, for the first time in the country 360 degrees 3D mapping was shown throughout the event. About 300 drones created an image of old and new logos and also national flag and map of Azerbaijan and demonstrated a fascinating show.

Result

Keeping in mind that every business is different and thus the target audience is different. The purpose of this collaboration was to gain the attention of a massive young audience and to maintain warm relations with the older generation. To achieve this goal, the next steps have been followed: identifying key influencers, evaluating engagement, building relationships and discussing initiatives and implement, and finally measuring results. From the graph below you can see the achieved results of the campaign:

It is expected that the global gaming market is going to surpass $180 billion in revenue by 2021 which means a 30.6% increase from $137.9 billion in 2018. In the last few years, gaming has grown more significant on existing platforms like YouTube and Facebook, but it has also spurred the creation of live stream gaming platforms, like Twitch and Caffeine.tv. As these gaming platforms are in competition, most gamers are maximizing their presence across multiple gaming platforms. The gaming industry is diversifying rapidly, so brands interested in collaborating with the leading gaming influencers need to keep up with the changing tides.

This is where the gaming influencers shine. To elaborate we’ve collected a few examples of influencer marketing campaigns on gaming channels in Turkey.  Influencer campaigns entertain, inform and reward applications and strengthen the ability to establish an emotional connection to the brand while providing product experience. 

Influencer ads:

– Have a viral effect

– Strengthens the brand message

– It allows you to be noticed in digital clutter.

– Provides positive product/brand experience.

– Strengthens brand awareness, and engagement.

– Creates loyal customer communities.

How can gaming influencers help brands?

Numerous gamers have started live streaming their game performances and have garnered millions of followers. These gamers have massive reach and engaged audiences who are interested in gaming. Which makes them the ideal target market for gaming companies. And these influencers can help you reach that market.

A lot of gaming brands are now collaborating with influencers to promote their products, but not everyone is doing it right. Not every campaign gets the desired results. Here are some successful influencer marketing campaigns in Turkey that were on point.

Burger King’s campaign with gamers

One of the world’s biggest fast-food hamburger chain Burger King operates in Turkey since 1995 and has more than 650 restaurants. Adopting the strategy of “We should be there where our target audience is”, Burger King embraced the e-sport which is increasingly popular in recent years to target the younger generations and developed a Pro-gamer menu for gamers. 

TrueView for Action and Bumper video formats were used on YouTube with the collaboration with Digital Media Agency SEM. For the campaign, there was created an entertaining commercial in the concept of a challenge with the participation of Batuhan Sergen (Quincy10) who is a well-known gamer in Twitch. 

All communication of the campaign was supported only through digital channels in collaboration with professional e-sports players. YouTube was chosen as the main channel for the promotion of the Pro-Gamer menu. By positioning YouTube in this audience-specific targeting, the campaign achieved a high performance of 616% ROAS.

The brand achieved a 153% increase in website traffic and a 19% growth in online sales after the campaign started. Compared to the previous period, sales revenue increased by 84% in the TrueView For Action campaign in comparison to the same product performance.

Gilette’s collaboration with gamers

Gillette is increasing the support for e-sport, which has been a rising trend in recent years and is becoming increasingly popular, especially among young people. 

In 2018, Gilette has gathered 5 gaming influencers together and formed “the most popular e-sports team of Turkey”. For the campaign with Gilette, one of the biggest sponsors of sport and e-sports categories,  YouTube gamers Tuna Akshen (Pintipanda), Mete Ozbey (Easter Gamers TV), Tolgahan Turkben (Oyunbros), Dora Ozsoy (Stratera), Serdar Mercan (Oyun Konsolu) came together and took part in 25 videos during the 6 month with the hashtag #Gilettegibi. The Campaign achieved 11M impressions, allowing the brand to reach the right target audience. 

Casper Excalibur Series commercial 

Casper has released a new commercial for the Excalibur Series, which promises gaming enthusiasts maximum performance and uninterrupted gaming pleasure.

The company shot a commercial of the G670 model of the Excalibur Series featuring a renowned by the game enthusiasts, Bogac Soydemir (aka EducatedEar) from the Post42 team. By making Bogac Soydemir the face of the commercial was a strategic step to speak to not only the gamers but also huge auditorium of over millions of fans on YouTube. 

Bogac Soydemir gained fame for his editing skills and the YouTube show, “funny videos” which became a famous show through his ideas and creativity. Although he is a gamer and commentator best known for his Twitch live streams, he is also famous for a rock band named “Yok oyle kararli sheyler”. 

In this ever-changing digital marketing landscape, healthcare companies also need to find innovative ways to reach their audiences. One of the most effective tools is Influencer Marketing. 

Association of National Advertisers reported that 75% of advertisers opt to use influencer marketing and, and as it is successful 43% of them expect to increase their spending on it over the next 12 months. Influencer marketing is referred to as the ability of one person or campaign to form customers’ purchase decisions.

Influencer marketing isn’t just for the beauty, food, and fitness industries that usually come to mind. It can work in medical tourism too. Finding individuals who are passionate about your company, organization, or product is vital as people put more trust in user-generated content than content created by a company or brand.

What is Medical Tourism? 

Medical Tourism refers to people who travel the world to get medical treatment rather than for fun. While in the past, people were traveling from less-developed countries to developed countries to get proper treatment, now the opposite is true. Nowadays, people tend to travel to developing countries to obtain cheaper medical treatment. It is mostly for surgeries (e.g., cosmetic), but people may travel to countries where treatment is the most understood.

We can use the health tourism term as a broader term for traveling that focuses on medical treatments and the use of healthcare services. It covers a wide field of health-oriented, tourism ranging from preventive and health-conductive treatment to rehabilitation and curative forms of travel.

If you want to start leveraging influencer marketing but don’t know where to start, keep reading to find out more how it is being used in marketing and promotional campaigns to reach prospective traveling patients, insurers, employers, and referring physicians is changing digital marketing.

Who can be an influencer in Medical Tourism?

Healthcare influencers could be everyone from healthcare professionals who are actively online to celebrities who talk openly and frequently about their health. 

A physician or dentist refers a patient on to a specialist they know or respect or that they’ve read about in a journal article, etc. 

A sports or cinema celebrity or public figure gives a glowing review of your service after being a patient at your facility.

Travel influencers who urgently need healthcare service, and finds your clinic more reliable. 

Choose influencers wisely 

Similar to all other marketing verticals, pick influencers based on their relevance to your brand values, their influence with your target audience and their desire to, in fact, be your influencers.

Consider who they are, what their story is, and why they are in health. If you’re going to work with actual health care providers and professionals, be sure to verify their credentials. The last thing you want to do is a partner with the wrong influencer. One who claims to be a doctor, but actually lost their license years ago, can ruin your reputation. 

Trust is more important 

Last but most importantly, medical tourism marketing involves consumer trust. Trust is imperative in the health care system, as people need to put their faith in the recommendations of their doctors, pharmacists, and other health care providers to feel their best. Trust is also imperative in influencer marketing. Consumers need to be able to rely on the words and advice from the people they follow online.

How much will it cost?

What brands pay those influencers can range from a few hundred dollars to a couple of million dollars, depending on the influencer, the platform, and the product. 

Not all influencers charge a fee. But you can pay an influencer for their time and effort to create original content about your brand or that mentions your brand, but you cannot instead pay them a percentage commission based on closed sales as a result of what they wrote. 

Some influencers promote exclusively on one social media platform. The platform chosen will impact the price charged by the influencer. More platforms are equal to higher costs. For one reason, the same content doesn’t work on all platforms interchangeably. The best influencers know this and create original content specifically for use on each platform, tailored to each platform following. If you are a small medical clinic, going with micro-influencers will cost less and have a closer relationship with their audience, so their brand recommendations will resonate with more of their followers.

How could Influencer Marketing be beneficial for Healthcare outlets?

This helps our clients to increase trust and credibility in the market in their segments such as hospital, clinic, or a diagnostic. Influencer marketing can enable and empower hospital in providing utmost care to patients, thereby creating the brand identity.

It creates long-lasting growth and provides a competitive edge in the market. 

An influencer who you want to work with doesn’t have to be a single person or a person at all – Take Genentech’s #NotOneType campaign as an example.

The biotech company teamed up with Giuliana Rancic, Living Beyond Breast Cancer and ThirdLove to take a closer look at breast cancer because “breast cancer is not a one-size-fits-all disease.” A website was launched to serve as the center for educational information like breast cancer types, quick stats, and questions to ask. A pop-up experience was also launched in SoHo, NYC to provide an opportunity for further engagement and education.

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Hey #NYC friends! Join us today in #soho. We are teaming up with @thirdlove and @giulianarancic to launch #NotOneType and encourage others to learn about the different types of #breastcancer.

A post shared by Living Beyond Breast Cancer (@livingbeyondbc) on Apr 17, 2018 at 8:56am PDT

Conclusion

Hospitals, Clinics, and Diagnostic centers can easily use and implement influencer marketing to increase the popularity among the people to drive more patients through influence. Healthcare companies who can engage patient communities and start a transparent dialogue are the ones who will rise above the rest. 

The number of people who go online is still increasing steadily. Along with it, the way that people do shopping has also changed. It means that traditional marketing is not as effective as it used to be. Marketing is about connecting with prospective customers at the right time and in the right place. Now, it means that marketers need to meet people where they spend a lot of time: on the internet. We can benefit from digital marketing techniques, which is a form of marketing that exists online. Here include all digital marketing techniques that use electronic devices and the internet.

As stated by Philip Kotler, marketing author, Consultant, and Profesor, “Marketing is not the art of finding clever ways to dispose of what you make. It is the art of creating genuine customer value.”

Many businesses use digital techniques and channels like social media, search engines, emails and other sites to connect their audiences. Businesses’ online branding assets encompass a spectrum of techniques such as email and digital advertising, online brochure and so on. All of them fall under the umbrella of digital marketing. 

There are top 5 digital marketing techniques which are: content marketing, search engine optimization, social media marketing, email marketing, and digital advertising. Besides these, businesses can find different alternatives in this digital ocean to focus on to grow in 2019. Let’s dive deeper into five more digital marketing techniques. 

Live Video Marketing

In recent years live video marketing phenomenon has been propelled by social media. Social channels like YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook support live video streaming and some of them has already become a vital platform for gamers, journalists and various types of audiences.

Livestream videos can be a great equalizer for small businesses as it helps to tell the brand’s story and gives access to the brand in a whole new way that has much more contribution.  Live video streaming marketing allows brands to try something new. You can do live stream videos to create conversations, provide the necessary information, highlight partners, employees, and fans. 

• Live videos are effectively used in the following cases: 

• Q&A and conversation with the audience 

• Q&A and customer support

• Product introductions or special annoncements

• Live events 

• Backstage and behind-the-scenes streaming  

Data-driven Marketing

Data-driven marketing is the strategy of using customer information for optimal and targeted media buying and creative messaging.

Modern data-driven marketing began with the invention of the customer relationship management (CRM) software. CRMs allow marketers to track who individual customers are including the name and contact information.

It is one of the most transformational changes in digital advertising that has ever occurred. Usage and activation of data, often in an automated or semi-automated manner, allows for a significantly more optimized media and creative strategy. This people-first marketing strategy is more personalized. It has also been responsible for driving considerable ROIs for marketers.

Today, marketers are spending over $6 billion a year on data-driven targeting solutions like data management platforms (DMPs) and demand-side platforms (DSPs).

Benefits of data-driven marketing are: 

• Messaging audiences with relevant messages
• Targeting the right consumers 
• More efficient media buying 

Affiliate Marketing 

Affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission by promoting other people’s (or company’s) products. You find a product you like, promote it to others and earn a piece of the profit for each sale that you make. Affiliate marketing is one of the most effective digital marketing techniques and tactics especially for businesses that don’t have a tonne of capital. Because they only pay money for sales. 

There are a few things that marketers should know about affiliate marketing. 

1. It is challenging to recruit affiliates. 

2. You need to continuously optimize your website. If people are driving traffic but the visitors are not converting into customers, that means they are either driving irrelevant traffic, but most affiliate marketers are good at what they do. So usually the traffic sources typically qualify or it means that your website isn’t converting. And it is usually the issue. 

Despite those challenges, affiliate marketing is a popular tactic to drive sales and generate significant online revenue. Extremely beneficial to both brands and affiliate marketers, the new push towards less traditional marketing tactics has paid off. 

In fact:

• 81% of brands and 84% of publishers leverage the power of affiliate marketing, a statistic that will continue to increase as affiliate marketing spending increases every year in the United States.
• There is a 10.1% increase in affiliate marketing spending in the United States each year, meaning that by 2020, that number will reach $6.8 billion.

Targeting “Generation Z”

For many marketers, “Generation Z” is a mystery. They’ve been so focused on targeting millennials in the past ten years that they’ve forgotten about a whole new generation of young’ uns who are now able to buy from brands. From an e-commerce perspective – Generation Z should be easy to target as they’re online already. They know how the technology works and they’re very active on social.

Ways you can target “Gen Z”

1. Create engaging content – not advertisements
2. Make your content interactive
3. Use media that appeal to “Generation Z”
4. Focus on social channels

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are an increasingly integral part of digital marketing. AI has moved beyond a buzzword to a foundational layer in any successful marketer’s toolkit. 

From Google’s use of AI in search results through to chatbots, predictive analytics, content creation, and personalization, we are seeing AI entering our daily lives as both marketers and consumers. So, we highly recommend the usage of Artificial Intelligence in the new digital marketing strategy. As the personalization is really vital than before, and clients are expecting an incredible shopping experience from brands. 

It’s fascinating that 73% of users want to give up information for an increasingly customized advertisement experience. That’s why experts suppose Artificial Intelligence as a connection between the client and the product. Furthermore, regarding investigations, Artificial Intelligence will increase to more than seven billion dollars per year by 2022.

Here are the essential benefits of AI for Digital marketing: 

• AI can hyper-personalize customer experience by analyzing their profiles.
• AI increases the speed of the production of certain types and formats of content.
• AI-powered software can decide what content to create and when to distribute it.
• AI can process large quantities of data and make accurate predictions based on patterns that emerge from it.
• AI can predict customer behavior and identify and nurture valuable leads.

Influencer Marketing 

The last digital marketing technique on our list is influencer marketing. Influencer marketing is the process of identifying, researching, engaging and supporting the people who create high-impact conversations with customers about your brand, products or services.

It offers brands the potential to unite their marketing, PR, sales, product, digital marketing, and social media through powerful and relevant relationship-based communication with influencers. Both the ROI and marketing potential of influencer marketing is tremendous.

Recent studies have found that 75% of B2B buyers are influenced by information found on social media. As online customer conversations continue to evolve so drastically, social media influencers are playing a critical role in breaking online clutter, creating relevant customer dialogue and bringing trust to the table for brands and marketers alike.  

In an era where consumers have never been hungrier for reviews, ratings, and word-of-mouth recommendations, influencers are the key to unlocking their trust and dollars. Remember trust pays!

5 things for a successful influencer marketing strategy: 

1. Knowing your target customers and understanding who impacts how they evaluate, discover and buy your product.
2. Finding the right influencers who produce and share content that can impact your business or your buyer’s decision-making process.
3. Monitoring influencers for opportunities.
4. Following, sharing, and linking to your influencers will be the first step in a fruitful relationship.
5. Measuring your results and keep track of your effectiveness. 

Influencer marketing is rapidly gaining popularity. No doubt marketers are catching on to the ROI and relationship-building potential. In 2015, Schlesinger Associates released a study in which 84% of marketers said they would launch at least one influencer campaign in the following year. Others have claimed that the industry of influencer marketing could soon expand to $5-10 billion dollars in spending.

Here at Keepface.com, we facilitate straightforward communications and collaborations for both brands and influencers. Through an automated platform, brands can reach the most relevant and matching influencers, negotiate and collaborate with them. At the same time, influencers can create their channels, negotiate with brands and choose their favorite brands for further partnerships. Keep up with the latest developments in influencer marketing by visiting our influencer marketing blog.

For a good few years now, Millennial has been the word on the lips of many marketers but brands may soon have to shift their focus to a younger, more diverse audience that is growing at a rapid pace, Generation Z and Alpha. Born with smartphones, tablets, and technology at their fingertips, these young consumers are the ones to watch. Generation Z, a group of consumers that were born from 1996 onwards and Generation Alpha, born from 2010 onwards. So this blog covers how big brands use influencer marketing to target kids?

“They are adult consumers of the future.”

Here are some interesting statistics about Gen Z.

Technology has always been front and center for these two generations. With 73% of Generation Z having access to subscription video on demand services and over 90% of them owning a smartphone, this younger generation is unlike any other. 

According to a recent study, children between the ages of 5 and 15 now spend at least 15 hours online every week, which is 1 hour and 18 minutes more than they used to but how are they spending their time online exactly?

Surprisingly, social media is not at the top of that list. 73% of children between 5 and 15 use YouTube more than any other online platform. Some even indicated that they would rather watch videos and shows on YouTube than watch TV.

It is predicted members of these generations will make up 40% of all consumers, which means that brands really need to start paying attention to what makes them tick.

So what do marketers need to know about them?

• They do not respond to traditional marketing

This generation does not respond to advertising in the same way that older generations do. The use of ad blockers is almost a given, which means that marketers need to think of more creative, impactful ways to not only reach this audience but grab their attention too.

• They are all for the community.

Their peers are important to them and they care about what others have to say. All of their most important conversations happen online and they’re much more likely to respond to brands that are more humanized.

• Optimized contents are their thing. 

These young online users are used to having to sift through mountains of online content all the time, so while it might seem that this generation has a really short attention span, they’ve really just learned how to assess and recognize the content they really want to consume in a short amount of time.

Brands already collaborate with Kid Bloggers to Sell Toys and Clothes

“Toys R” – Toy Box reality show campaign

Brands and marketers are stepping into a partnership with these kid influencers and their parents, and even the more as the holiday shopping season picks up. The big brands in particular – Walmart, Amazon, Target, and eBay – are competing for a greater share of the toy market recently vacated by “Toys R”, which closed down more than 800 stores in June of 2018.

It’s worth noting that while “Toys R” was responsible for a hefty 12 percent of all toy sales in the US before its demise, the toy sales industry has been slowing in recent years. Toy manufacturers are losing market share to mobile games – which now account for 20 percent of the $187 global toy and games market.

Even if you didn’t necessarily buy all your toys there, making the trip to “Toys R” stores with the kids was a holiday tradition in the US.
However, for small toy companies, it can be difficult to get on the shelves of megastores. Influencer marketing provides a way for small toy companies to insert their brand in front of potential customers just as the year’s shopping season gets underway.

To actualize its goal, “Toys R” first partnered with ABC and Mattel to support reality television show called The Toy Box. In this TV series, passionate toy inventors presented their unique ideas to a panel of judges made up of kids. They leveraged young social media star @katieryan430 with 1.9MM followers who was the perfect social media influencer to deliver the brand’s message. They created a humorous series of posts and video contents covering kids having fun and playing with toys.

View this post on Instagram

Watching Ava play barbies has always been entertaining. Ava calls this video “the horrible sad story of coffee man.”

A post shared by Katie Ryan (@katieryan430) on Jun 29, 2019 at 11:30am PDT

At the end of the competition, the winning toy was produced by Mattel and sold exclusively at “Toys R”. To promote this partnership, they tasked WHOSAY to design a social campaign that resonated with the “kids know best” creative of TheToy Box.

As a result, her native posts generated over 22.5M impressions and 2.2M engagements (including paid). Viewer sentiment was surprisingly positive with 85% of the comments reflecting enthusiasm for the content. Her original content boosted media metrics with nearly 3.8M impressions and almost 1M engagements.

“Target” – Kid clothes campaign

Back in 2017, Target launched a children’s clothing line designed, modeled, and promoted by a class of kids. The 10 kids worked together to design a collection for children aged 4-16 years old, all displaying their own individual styles.

View this post on Instagram

#ad had a lot of fun creating this shirt for @target Art Class Fall Semester 2017. LOOVE the lips + i added a little bit of glitter to spice it up (; swipe for behind the scenes ❤️ this shirt and other #ArtClass items will be available online and in stores on August 27th!

A post shared by loren gray (@loren) on Aug 23, 2017 at 1:59pm PDT

The kid influencers ranged from 7-year-old photographer Hawkeye Huey to Dance Moms star Kendall Vertes, each with their own unique styles and designs is woven into the 100 piece collection.

“Target” used this same tactic again in later seasons of their “Art Class” line as well as inviting kids to come in and assess their other clothing lines each season. Each campaign features a new batch of kidfluence

“Walmart” – New website

Walmart introduced a completely new website so that it looks more like a traditional lifestyle blog than an e-commerce site. 

Smartly, Walmart is using well-known kid influencers as a way to better position itself to grab a greater share of the toy market, and equally as important, grab a greater share of consumer attention.

Top-Rated by Kids features filmed experiences and unscripted (though not unedited) reviews from Walmart’s cast of kid influencers about the toys currently lining the shelves of Walmart stores and those trending – the ones you can only get on Walmart.com. Products featured on the left and the kid influencer reviews accessible on the right. The review is filtered by kids and age level. 

But, of course, Walmart and Target aren’t the only brands partnering with kid influencers. eBay has recently begun to launch a new advertising offensive featuring a range of influences across a wide range of niches and backgrounds. One of the more surprising choices they made was working with British Dad Blogger and his son –LadBaby. The two of them have appeared in a number of TV commercials, promoting the family-oriented side to eBay.