Is Influencer Marketing Worth It? The Pros and Cons

Digital marketing has always been about a lot of things, including content marketing, SEO, and email marketing. One of the recent additions to digital marketing is influencer marketing. Although it is not literally new, only younger than other domains like email and content.

So, considering the newbie status of influencer marketing, many dropshipping businesses and online retailers wonder, should I try influencer marketing?

In a single word, yes!

There’s only this that we will explore throughout this article.

The reason why influencer marketing is popular in this digital era is that we need to trust businesses to buy something. In influencer marketing, this trust comes directly from the people (influencers) who promote businesses.

Here’s some insight into what is influencer marketing, its drawbacks and its advantages.

Influencer Marketing Is…

Before we know what is influencer marketing, let’s know who is an influencer:

On social media, you may come across people who have a huge following and they promote products and services from a brand. Isn’t it?

These people are influencers.

For example, a beauty influencer who reviews beauty products from different brands and brings the best product to customers.

Influencer marketing is when you use these people to reach out to a dedicated audience. So, you ask these influencers to promote and review your product or service, which is then made public to the following that can connect with you directly.

There’s no doubt in the fact that influencer marketing brings in more revenue, sales, and better brand awareness.

Did you know that 78% of women and 65% of men use the social network for purchasing a product?

Now, it all seems worth your time, isn’t it?

Why Choose Influencer Marketing

What are the pros of using influencer marketing?

In this section, we have discussed real reasons for using influencer marketing for your dropshipping business.

Brand Outreach

The reason why influencer marketing helps with brand outreach is that it is stronger than traditional marketing, where you have to get eyeballs on posts. Here, you connect with an influencer that people trust and immediately start building a brand.

For example, many new brands start marketing via influencers to help the audience recognize their brand value. In the long-term, 4-5 years down the lane, these brands end up creating their name in the market.

Customers’ Trust

So, if there’s good on the internet, there’s also bad. And the story where a customer was duped is not uncommon, we have all heard it.

Therefore, people are skeptical when they are buying from new brands. How does this affect dropshipping businesses? People may not be able to trust your brand.

When you use influencer marketing for the same, you are able to instantly build credibility with the audience. This is because if the influencer, who is connected to many people, is getting the right product, then so can you.

If you look at it, then every customer just needs to understand the brand and reliability before making the purchase. Influencers help rate and review products, which is how you are able to build customers’ trust in your business.

Rapid Growth

Business growth and influencer marketing are directly interlinked to an extent that the better you are at influencer marketing, the more revenue you generate.

If in the starting, you end up picking the right people, you can observe rapid growth, which is quite hard to find today in this exhaustive digital world.

With this, we would like to add that this market may not exhaust itself in a few years similar to other marketing efforts. The reason is people trust other people and their judgment, and they will continue to do so. Therefore, even if many more influencers may join digital media, you will always have many more options to explore.

Dedicated User Targeting

One of the pros of influencer marketing that you may have noticed throughout is dedicated user targeting.

When you are reaching out to people on social media, you are marketing to everyone. When you are using ads, then you are dedicatedly connecting with users but it has its limitations.

In the case of influencer marketing, you are actually connecting with people who would love to buy in your niche.

So, if you connect with a fashion influencer, his or her followers love fashion and new clothing products. This level of dedicated user targeting always works in your favor.

Cons of Influencer Marketing

Since we are discussing the pros and cons of influencer marketing, here are some reasons why dropshipping businesses should avoid using influencer marketing.

Reaching Wrong People

The most obvious mistake is reaching out to people not from your niche or domain. If you connect with the wrong influencers, you may end up destroying your reputation.

Hence, in this case, all you can do is research and then make a decision.

It is possible that the influencer is not holding up their bargain and not fulfilling what they have been hired to do. In this case, you come up with a contract that secures you as well as the influencer.

Other than this, find out people from your niche or domain. Check their profiles and see their work. This should include the type of comments on their profile, other brands they are promoting, etc.

Getting Your Money Stuck

Many popular influencers charge thousands of dollars for every post. Ideally, not every brand can pay these prices to get noticed. So, what do we do?

We find influencers with little less following, or mid-tier influencers, and then connect with them on a reasonable payment. In this case, your payment can be stuck. Worst still, you may send products and they may never put up a post related to it. In both cases, your campaign will be stuck, money will be lost, and you will fall behind on your target.

To avoid this, you can release payment in parts. Understand the profile of the influencer, check what other brands are talking about them, and find reliable and valuable influencers.

How to Overcome Influencer Marketing Drawbacks

There are two major drawbacks to using influencer marketing: reaching the wrong audience and losing money.

It is obvious that you can resolve the first one by just researching properly. Knowing your influencers, their work, etc. can help. You can visit brands they are promoting and check what they are saying about this influencer.

Basically, you have to become sherlock homes and find out everything about these influencers to trust them.

For the second case, again you can find out the details before signing the contract. You need to understand that many things can resolve the issue:

• Pay in parts
• Create a written contract
• Talk to the brands they are promoting
• Check their following to know if that’s authentic
• Cross-check for plagiarised posts

Conclusion

Influencer marketing is a powerful tool today. If you are not using it, then you are losing out on so many customers and growth opportunities. Explore the benefits of using influencer marketing, find out how to start and dive in. Remember that this is not a decision that should be implemented in a day or a week. Give it time, strategize, and then move forward.