How Influencers Can Leverage Their Platform and Follower Base to Establish Their Own Long-Lasting Brands
We are all familiar with the concept of influencers now. They allow people to discover new places, people, and ideas and often can reach hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people worldwide. Such an unprecedented level of reach to a large user base is the reason why 65% of marketers planned to increase influencer marketing in 2019, compared to 39% in 2018.
The concept of influencer marketing is appealing as it achieves similar outcomes as celebrity endorsement but much more effectively and targetedly. It also tends to be cheaper than paying a celebrity to shoot a commercial, which is how traditional celebrity-based advertisements were done. Celebrity endorsements are often in the millions. Most influencer marketing budgets are between $1,000 and $10,000 per year while some spend up to $500,000. The ROI of influencer marketing is estimated to be 5.78x.
There is no doubt that brands love using the influencers. In recent years, however, influencers have shifted from being the ‘messengers’ to being the brands themselves. Influencers are respected and trusted due to the level of transparency and expertise they possess in certain areas such as travel, food, clothes, etc. Their recommendations are taken seriously because they come from experience, not payouts.
Learn from Marco Calamassi how you as an influencer can become a brand of your own.
Meet Marco Calamassi: The Prominent Online Entrepreneur
Marco Calamassi is a well-known online entrepreneur and marketing guru who has a knack for building long-term customer engagement through cohesive digital campaigns and brand messaging. While social media allows a brand to reach a wide global customer base, it also creates a fierce competition to attain and retain customers’ attention in the world of information overload.
He grew up in Poggibonsi, Italy and moved to Malibu, California to attend Pepperdine University. He eventually moved to Miami and launched 6 online ventures. He’s experienced with all dimensions of digital platforms and verticals. In his early days of entrepreneurship, he used virtual assistants to find and track target customers by manually examining the competitors’ followers and launching direct campaigns to attract them to his site. He built his entire customer base almost for free.
Using the lessons from the successes and failures from his scrappy ways and skills of creating product-market fit, he built his latest venture BrandsBuilder to help influencers create innovative products and services for their current and future followers. There’s already a loyal customer base at their fingertips and BrandsBuilder helps turn that into lucrative, diversified, and stable revenue streams by offering a comprehensive range of services including app development, manufacturing, customer service, etc. Influencers who have used his service earned up to 100x more than when they were getting paid per post for brand sponsorships.
Why Marco’s Way Works Even Better in Post-Pandemic Economy
The world has experienced (and is still experiencing) a devastating economic shutdown. The only industry that proved to thrive despite it was eCommerce. Digital storefront will be the new hot real estate and even brick-and-mortar-dependent industries such as hospitality will now look to establish and expand a digital marketplace as they future-proof their business model against future pandemic-led shutdowns.
While many of these brands struggle to reach and engage with online customers, influences with an existing base of loyal followers have a huge advantage in filling this gap before the big and small brands can build authentic relationships online. As Marco says, people pay for trust. An influencer already has the trust of their customers which will provide a huge leg-up in the competition with many of the existing brands.
How Influencers Can Differentiate Themselves
Now the competition amongst influencers is pretty intense. Many resort to make a quick buck by doing paid sponsorships which could quickly erode the trust of the following base. Even if influencers openly highlight that their posts are paid sponsorships, the transparency doesn’t necessarily help with building the followers’ faith in their recommendations. If you are your own brand, authenticity can be guaranteed. You’re not beholden to anyone and will speak your mind. Your solutions will be based on your passion and true beliefs around what you believe the society can benefit from. Transforming yourself from an influencer to a successful entrepreneur will also strengthen your credibility and provide inspirations for many. Who doesn’t love a from-nothing-to-an-empire story?
