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1. What industries does Influencer Marketing work best for?
Over the last 5 years we have truly seen a trend in the uptake and popularity of
Influencer Marketing. It now stands its ground alongside Partnerships and Affiliate
Marketing. But that trend is not something we see across every industry. There are
some that have embraced its advantages and others that steer very clear. We’re
going to explore in this article why that is and which industries are taking advantage
of its techniques.
What does it offer?
Firstly we need to dissect what Influencer Marketing actually offers a company. With
an abundant of marketing channels out there, from performance related to above the
line, a brand can choose between PPC or TV advertising. They have their budgets,
their targets and need to achieve them with which ever channels perform best for
them. So what is appealing about Influencers that make it a popular option as a
channel to invest in:
Higher Click Through Rate – one of the biggest differences between say Display
advertising and Influencer marketing is the click through rate. If your brand has £10k
to spend through one marketing channel are they going to place it one that follows
your audience around the web, offering high branding but low click through rate. Or
one that focuses on your niche audience and encourages them to click through from
Instagram and purchase. According to a poll from Infolinks, half of Internet users
never click on online ads and 35% click on less than five ads per month. But
influencers are different. They have cultivated audiences of like-minded people, who
are engaged with their influencer and far more likely to click through and purchase.
Engagement – as touched upon above, another huge advantage of an influencer
over other marketing channels, is the human element. The fact that another human
is giving their honest (although how honest is up to debate due to the commissions
offered) opinion on a product, as well as showing it in their setting or their light,
breaks down so many barriers. It provides that trust element that other channels just
cant do. Seeing your influencer wearing a brand of clothing in their home or by the
beach (although posed and most likely one of a thousand photos taken to upload the
best one) is far more powerful than a preordained ad ever could. Secondly, is
reaction. Seeing what other followers think of the video or post, the comments, and
the replies from the influencer themselves all add to the engagement element. It
brings the sense of community to the marketing. It feels less contrived and somehow
more real. This is a very powerful connotation to the trust required to sell a product,
which marketing aims to do.

2. Audience – one of the main reasons to work with influencers has to be their
following. As described above, click through is far superior with Influencer marketing,
which comes down to their highly engaged audience. But what makes their audience
one of the most important aspects, is that brands wont find their exact target
audience via PPC, Display, Facebook advertising. Through these mediums you are
on the most part relying on Google or Facebook’s technology to serve you ads to the
right audience based on your criteria. With influencers you can manually check their
entire 100,000 base if you like, clicking on their profiles and seeing who is actually
following them. Yes, there is a big problem with fake followers, but there are audit
tools out there to help you research that. With Influencer’s brands have a much
clearer idea of who they are actually targeting. They can see their audience for
themselves. They can see the individual responses and comments to their own
products as influencers promote them. All of this makes it a powerful option for
marketers.
Why some brands avoid it?
Considering these, you may ask, why would brands not get involved in Influencer
Marketing? Well, lets look at some of the constraints that some brands find with it.
Branding vs Sales – the main consideration brands have when it comes to deciding
whether to invest in Influencer marketing is normally a question of brand vs sales.
Every product proposition stands as one or both of the above. Lets take car brands
for example. BMW, Audi, Ford, all advertise but the way they do their branding differs
vastly to clothing brands like M&S and ASOS. The reason for this comes down to
what they’re selling. A car is not a quick purchase, it takes huge consideration. Let
alone purchasing online, this is barely a consideration for these brands. Their aim is
remind the public of their brand, and from a performance marketing aspect, collect
leads to target them with a test drive. These aims are very different to ASOS who
yes require branding as a core element of their marketing, but the priority is sales.
And quick sales at that. The consumer consideration period for a dress probably
ranges from 2 to 24hrs. A car, a pension, new laptop, is more in the region of 15–30
days or more. These brands also have very different marketing funnels. Clothing
brands might only see one or two marketing touch points per consumer before they
purchase. Perhaps it starts with a PPC ad, then an influencer post, before they
purchase via Instagram. BMW on the other hand probably has 12–15 touch points,
from Display ads, TV, Email etc, before a customer even books in a test drive. This
marketing goal, of Branding vs Sales, is one reason industries ignore Influencer
marketing. Or on the most part, test it and decide it isn’t for them. That’s because
branding is very difficult to measure in general. Influencers can tell you their
followers and in turn you can measure the impressions and received, but it’s not as
impactful as direct sales via this medium.

3. PR Risks – as we touched upon above, there’s growing frustration in the media at
fake news. Tie this in with a growing number of professionals questioning the
number of followers, and the quality of these followers, per influencer. Tie this in
again with the cultural shift of mental health, body image and carbon footprints, it
starts to question whether the risk of having influencers rather a free reign of how
they promote your products is truly worth it. Seeing your clothing brand on beautiful
models may help sales, but what is this doing for millennials and body image. Does
your brand agree with the role Love Island stars play in society and what their views
were on TV? All of these elements matter and if it goes wrong can truly hurt a brand.
The number of YouTube stars that have been shamed for comments and videos
recently, implies you need to be very careful who you work with.
Number of Influencers – not only the number and quality of followers that raises a
question mark, but the number of influencers in an industry can be a reason many
brands don’t get involved. Taking the finance industry for example. Influencers have
yet to truly take off, mainly due to the complexity of the products. Influencers really
need to be experts in their field in order to understand and promote a product,
otherwise followers wont really believe what they’re taking about. A good example is
PensionCraft on YouTube, who’s amassed thousands of followers reviewing financial
products. He is clearly an expert in the field, probably an financial advisor in his own
right. But these are certainly few and far between. On the opposing side is the retail
industry, in which it doesn’t require an expert to promote a clothing range. All
customers are looking for is, does it look good. The number of influencers and
quality of these therefore limits the marketing channel in some industries. It depends
on the industry proposition and what you’re trying to sell. Yes there are experts out
there, but the numbers depend on what you’re trying to sell – and obviously the more
niche and complicated the less there will be.
Which industries does it work best for?
All of the above points, the advantages and disadvantages of influencer marketing,
help explain why some brands do and don’t partake in Influencer marketing. But this
brings us on to which industries work best for Influencer Marketing to flourish?
Healthcare & Beauty - the healthcare market is a multi-billion dollar industry, not
exclusive to countries or contents, or gender. Traditionally healthcare and beauty has
been loyal to TV advertising and offline marketing. The emergence of Influencer
Marketing has caused a sudden shift in where those marketing budgets are spent. If
we think about the proposition of the products, they are all about making you more
attractive, healing a health issue, or improving your wellbeing. Therefore what better
way to market these than on actual human beings and in a medium where you can
watch them do so. This has bought on the rise of utilising Influencers to promote

4. such products. They have far greater impact than any TV advert ever can. TV can
feel contrived, forced and fake. Influencers exert trust, reality and honesty.
Clothing – Boohoo and ASOS, to name a few, are proof that Influencer Marketing
works for them. In 2018 Boohoo revealed booming full-year sales and profits as
customers flocked to buy its low-cost, high-fashion offerings. And the secret to their
success was Influencer Marketing. They lead the way with sourcing and working with
some of the top models across platforms such as Instagram. It works so well for
clothing brands, for a similar reason to beauty. Potential customers want to see how
the product looks on an actual human being, one that wears this in locations they
recognise. The likes and comments add to the reinforcement and psychology of
purchasing power to influence individuals to buy off the back of the post.
Travel & Lifestyle – lastly we have travel and lifestyle. The travel industry has taken
some interesting turns over the last 25 years. The rise of price comparison sites,
particularly for flights, caused a consumer shift from visiting travel agents to booking
their entire holiday’s online. We are now seeing another shift for the industry, where
traditional advertising techniques of offline and in part through Display advertising, is
now moving to social platforms. Social advertising, Facebook and Instagram mainly,
is now the most prominent channel. And in-conjunction to that is Influencer
Marketing. Travel is extremely visual, and it’s that which sells in marketing. Combine
this with seeing your favourite influencer in such a location or doing such an activity,
is very powerful. Again, it combines envy with admiration. This concoction means
influencers are extremely powerful for lifestyle brands.