Marketing Is Going Organic

Before magazines and television, everything that we bought came from word-of-mouth recommendations. As the technology evolved, advertising became increasingly advanced. Mega animated billboards and mobile ads are now everywhere we look. Yet, it seems that marketing is going back to its roots—real people.

The pandemic offered us an opportunity to reassess our values system, role models, and consumption choices. Over the last two years, marketers have noticed a marked shift in the preferences of the modern audience. Consumers now prefer authenticity over advertising and ordinary folk over seemingly perfect models.

Although it is no secret that influencers and bloggers are being paid to promote certain products or services, it somehow seems more acceptable. Consumers on the whole are moving away from the corporation-driven economy. They are rooting for individuals who work outside of the conventional employment system in the ‘hustle economy’.

A large part of this is that influencers and bloggers are relatable. They share snippets of their personal lives, talk about issues that are important to them, and often have the same interests and hobbies as their audience. Because of this, their audience becomes engaged in their discussions and trust in their recommendations.

As the audience turns away from blatant brand advertising, many brands have invested in influencer marketing. The influencer marketing economy skyrocketed from $1.7 billion in 2016 to $9.7 billion in 2020. Amid the pandemic in 2021, it rose further to $13.8 billion. In 2022, this market is expected to swell to an impressive $16.4 billion.

This exponential growth is the result of the global pandemic which drove extreme levels of social media consumption. Short video formats on TikTok grabbed the attention of a blasé audience and allowed content creators to publish engaging content with considerable ease. Other platforms such as Instagram have since scrambled to join the short video revolution.

The influencer ecosystem itself has changed. Where one formally had to be a mega-influencer with millions of followers to get sponsorship deals, nano or micro-influencers with a few thousand followers are now just as important. If your brand prioritizes personal interaction in niche markets, influencers with a tight-knit following may deliver better results.

It is a challenge for a business to jump online and choose a handful of influencers or bloggers to collaborate with your brand. Unless you have an in-house social media expert, finding the right ambassadors for your brand can be not only difficult but also time-consuming. Besides, their audience metrics are almost impossible to measure from the outside.

Not all news is good news. Getting your brand mentioned in disreputable or unprofessional blogs can do more harm than good for your brand image. Therefore, most businesses use a quality blogger outreach service to ensure that they connect with real blog owners who have a trusted track record and an established high-DA (domain authority) website.

Similarly, brands who seek to work with social media influencers often turn to influencer marketing companies to ensure that the social media content creators that they work with are vetted and verified beforehand. Using blogger and influencer outreach services will save you the trouble of having to negotiate with individual content creators as well.

It is all fair and well to say that influencer marketing is more effective than traditional marketing, but numbers tell the story better. Thankfully, technology can help you to determine the ROI of your influencer marketing campaign.

Referral traffic is undoubtedly the most important measure of success. If you are serious about digital marketing, you should already have Google Analytics integrated into your website. Google Analytics offers incredible clarity when it comes to website referral traffic.

When starting a new influencer campaign, create a custom report to monitor the traffic that comes from your influencer partners. If possible, assign unique links to each influencer. Track how long these referrals spend on your landing page and their navigational paths. How does this traffic compare to your other organic traffic?

Conversion rate is another key metric that contributes to ROI. Implement a pixel or tracking code to get better insights on the conversion clicks on your campaign landing pages. Your influencer campaign should significantly increase not only your organic traffic but also your conversion rates.

It is essential to remember that digital marketing is often a long game. Unlike billboards that come down, digital content stays around indefinitely. A customer could decide to commit to your call to action several direct emails or posts later. Therefore, most brands should measure conversion rates for at least one or two months after a blog campaign.

As we trade more in the digital realm, audiences inevitably crave the human touch. Hence, organic online marketing can produce much better results than traditional advertising. Enlisting influencers and bloggers to champion your brand is a clever and natural way to introduce it to the rest of the world.