In recent years, the explosion of social media platforms has given rise to the development of influencer marketing. It’s a channel that owner-managed businesses should seriously consider, a crossover into PR that offers much in terms of reach.
Social media personalities like health & fitness influencer Sommer Ray have a reach of tens of millions, but marketing through people like this can be expensive!
More accessible to small businesses are what’s known as ‘Nano (100 to 10,000)’ or ‘Micro (10,000-100,000 followers)’ influencers.
What we’re talking about here are regular people with small audiences, so it could easily be someone’s niece talking about products in her bedroom!
Even so, everyone who follows that person listens to what they have to say.
While leveraging this channel is still essentially paying someone to promote your stuff – it’s the authentic, ‘grass roots’ nature that is key.
Nano influencers represent a voice of reason that their followers often trust implicitly, meaning that the money invested can come with an impressive ROI.
When done correctly, platforms like these can be very effective as part of your content marketing strategy – hence its increasing popularity with brand managers.
The omnipresence of electronic communication has led some to believe erroneously that print marketing has had its day. That’s just not the case – David Ogilvy’s zig-zag effect really applies to print these days and Mark Ritson is a fan!
Used as part of your marketing mix, it can do things that email and social can’t, in that it feeds into the experiential marketing sphere.
What do we mean by that? Well, a big part of the ‘unboxing’ features that nano, micro and even luxury influencers often have on their channel involves opening impressive, colourful packaging – that reveals a premium product customers aspire to own.
When your products have well-designed printed packaging that reflects your value and reputation, it says something about the quality of what’s contained inside. Also, sending great packaging and accompanying print literature further beefs up your branding.
That same impression is given if you’re sending packaged samples to a potential client.
It’s all about standing out from the crowd and if a client or influencer is impressed, they’re much more likely to go on social media and shout about it.
Ok, so mega influencers might be out of budget for most smaller businesses, but in the nano/micro influencer marketing level, there’s potential for reaching audiences who are truly interested in what you’re offering – largely due to the influencer’s loyal following.
If you create high quality printed packaging along with great-looking print marketing, there’s a good chance that thousands of interested people are going to see it in its full glory.
This kind of exposure is priceless, and it can lead to a brand new loyal following of your own.
It’s easily trackable too, so you can see exactly how much interest and revenue your paid influencer marketing efforts are generating. Often, it dwarfs the initial outlay, illustrating just what a rich source of income this can be for small businesses.
So, we believe that there’s a lot to be said for small business owners considering nano or micro-influencer marketing and you can add serious value by including print marketing. This tangible marketing method, and an experiential one at that, supports so many forms of online engagement.
At NEXUScpp, we have the print marketing experience and expertise to achieve the best possible return from your budget – that’s part of our Print Wisdom! So, if you’re looking for help to ensure you get the most out of your integrated marketing strategies, you know who to call.
Thanks for joining us. We’ll see you again soon.
Gill Robinson
25th May 2022
by PAGE