Is Influencer Marketing Still a Worthwhile Investment?

 The more widespread a marketing tactic becomes, the lower its subsequent influence on its target market. Consumers these days are savvy to the attempts of businesses to convince them to act on the basis of marketing messages and associated materials.

When any given approach to marketing is more or less done to death, it becomes ineffective and loses its appeal.


In which case, is influencer marketing still a worthwhile investment in 2021? With approximately 80% of companies now investing in influencer marketing, does it still have the same impact and appeal it had in previous years?

The Mechanics of Influencer Marketing

In terms of logistics, the basics of influencer marketing have not changed over the years. It is a simple yet effective strategy that involves hiring (or convincing) an influential individual to speak to a targeted audience on your behalf.

Rather than attempting to sell your products and services directly to customers, you do so via a proxy. One that has significantly more influence over your target audience than you do, and is therefore more likely to be heard.

Increasingly, consumers are expressing near-total distrust for the brands and businesses they come into contact with online. Guilty until proven innocent, you can expect everything you say to be scrutinised or ignored entirely - unless your claims are verified by someone your audience trusts.

This is where the power of influencer marketing lies - more than 90% of all consumers act upon the suggestions and recommendations of those they consider trustworthy.

The Influencer Marketing Landscape in 2021

On one hand, you could argue that yes - consumers are not oblivious to the fact that businesses are using influencers to target them. Nevertheless, this is having no bearing whatsoever on the potential value and impact of an effective influencer marketing strategy.

In fact, the influencer marketing landscape is only set to continue growing and diversifying indefinitely.

For one thing, influencer marketing almost always leverages the reach and popularity of social media. During 2020, estimates suggest that the total number of social network users worldwide once again increased by more than 10%.

This equates to another 375 million people becoming active on social media, on top of the 4 billion already hooked.

As a result, nine out of 10 marketers said that influencers were brought into their marketing strategies and will continue to play an important role in their activities going forwards. More importantly, around two thirds of businesses (65%) have indicated their intention to spend even more on influencer marketing throughout the course of this year.

All of which suggests that not only is influencer marketing still a worthwhile investment in 2021, but that its relevance and appeal are both at an all-time high.


With popularity and appeal at an all-time high, more businesses than ever before are planning to increase their influencer marketing spend in 2021.

But what are the major influencer marketing trends set to dominate the landscape over the next months? If planning a new influencer marketing venture or intending to diversify your existing strategy, where should you be allocating more of your money for the best possible ROI?

Trend 1. Micro Influencers

Increasingly, major influencers with enormous audiences are losing their impact and influence over their followers. The most obvious example of which being a major celebrity, who can most likely be persuaded to say anything and promote anything - if paid the right price.

This is why celebrity endorsements are heavily scrutinised and often interpreted as unrealistic, inauthentic and impossible to take seriously. By contrast, micro influencers with much smaller audiences are far more likely to curate trust among their followers.

The bigger the audience, the lower the overall engagement rate - influencers with fewer than 5,000 often achieve the highest engagement rates of all. As an obvious added bonus, working with micro influencers typically tends to be exponentially less expensive than bringing major influencers or celebrities on board.

Trend 2. Forging and Maintaining Long-Term Partnerships

Joining forces with an influencer for a one-time-only promotional campaign can certainly have the desired effect. However, these one-off promos are nowhere near as effective or lucrative as long-term partnerships.

To develop and maintain long-term relationships with influencers is to effectively boost the appeal of your business with an influential brand ambassador. The longer and deeper the relationship, the less it looks like you are simply paying an influencer to say what you want them to say.

Particularly with smaller-scale influencers, building and maintaining long-term relationships is more about earning their interest and respect than paying them for their services. You’ll undoubtedly still be expected to pay a fair price, but they are only likely to support and represent a brand long-term if they genuinely believe in it.

Trend 3. Short Video Clips

The third biggest trend set to dominate the landscape in 2021 is the use of short video clips to send powerful marketing messages. Video content has been growing in popularity and influence for some time, though has really come into its own in the age of TikTok.

Instant gratification culture has taken over the world, resulting in a new generation of consumers that expect to be entertained and engaged in seconds. Whereas a five-minute product review video would once have done the trick, you now need to pack the same message into a 30-second clip to have the desired effect.

Short, punchy and impactful video clips from relevant influencers can be more appealing and effective than anything you could create and publish in-house. They can also be comparatively cost-effective, given the relative simplicity of producing them.

Some eCommerce Promotion Ideas to Boost Your Online Sales

 For reasons we don’t need to go into, it’s a pretty mixed bag right now for ecommerce businesses worldwide. Online retail in general is booming, but we’re slap-bang in the middle of a period where people are hesitant to spend their money.

Hence, anything you can do to boost and market online sales during this difficult time is something you probably should be doing.

For those willing to do what it takes to weather the storm, here’s a brief rundown of just a few ecommerce promotion ideas that are guaranteed to boost your online sales:

1. Contests and giveaways

We’re all powerless against a freebie - especially in times of financial turbulence. Organising a contest can be a great way of nurturing engagement, boosting interest in your products and attracting new customers. Even if the prize isn’t particularly lucrative, contests and giveaways never fail.

2. Flash sales

This is where you host a strictly time-limited sale with the kinds of major deals and discounts you wouldn’t normally offer. Perhaps for one day or even just a couple of hours, you make limited quantities of certain items available at seriously low prices. Again, a great way of pulling in the punters and attracting new customers to your store.

3. Free samples

If anything you sell is perishable and is at risk of expiring in the near future, it’s far better to give it away than to allow it to go to waste. This can be made an ongoing element of your sales and marketing strategy, offering free samples on a first-come, first-served basis to the customers in your mailing list.

4. Introduce multi-purchase deals

One of the most effective ways of maximising the size and value of every sale is to incentivise heavier spending. More specifically, through the introduction of multi-purchase deals - ideally on a long-term basis. You buy three products, you get a fourth item for free - a tried, tested and trusted approach to boosting sales.

5. Stop charging for shipping

With more online retailers than ever before offering free shipping as standard, you cannot afford to continue charging for shipping in the current climate. Feel free to impose a modest minimum spend to qualify for free shipping, but make sure free delivery is one of your online store’s key selling points.

6. Assemble product packs or bundles

This is more or less the same as a multi-purchase deal, only in this instance you decide what goes in the package. You group a bunch of similar or relevant items together, you package them in an attractive bundle and you sell them at a lower price than the combined individual product costs.

7. Improve your loyalty scheme

More importantly, think about introducing a loyalty scheme if you don’t already have one up and running. And don’t make the mistake of offering lame or low-value incentives in return for loyalty - make sure repeat business is rewarded fairly and generously.

8. Leverage user-generated-content (UGC)

Last up, now could also be the perfect time to begin leveraging the value and appeal of user-generated-content. Along with being more impactful, influential and memorable than any brand-created content, it’s also 100% free of charge! Ask your customers to submit content you can publish (perhaps on the basis of a modest incentive) and they’ll usually be more than happy to do so.

Key Video Marketing Trends to Watch For in 2021

In terms of popularity, impact and appeal, video continues to go from strength to strength. It’s been the most influential marketing and promotional medium for some time, and is expected to continue its meteoric rise throughout 2021 and beyond.

 

According to a recent poll, content creators who concentrate on YouTube are seeing up to 30% more views right now than a year ago. More broadly, research suggests that around 56% more people are watching video on social media today than during the same period in 2019.

Live streaming in particular has seen a stellar spike in popularity last year – up as much as 70% on platforms like Instagram.

It’s therefore clear at a glance that video marketing is set for another incredible year in 2021. As for the most notable trends to watch for, the following are widely predicted to rule the roost over the coming 12 months:

1. More Interest in Webinars

It’s taken a while, but Webinars are finally beginning to hit their stride in terms of popularity and influence. Simple yet effective, these ‘web seminars’ are essentially enhanced and extended tutorials, which can be published for a variety of purposes. Education, industry insights, basic entertainment – a webinar can be anything you want it to be. It can also be a seriously powerful and impactful marketing tool, when engineered and distributed strategically.

2. Greater Emphasis from Google

Roughly translated – Google is showing preference to websites and publishers that include high-quality video in their content strategies. Traditionally, video hasn’t had a huge impact on SEO as its content cannot be crawled and assessed by search engines like Google. Today, increasingly sophisticated algorithms are giving video content the respect and consideration it deserves. Of course, the fact that Google owns YouTube also plays a major role in its preference for quality video content on web pages and sites.

3. Live Mobile Video Streaming Growth

Sophisticated mobile technology combined with 4G and 5G networks is making live HD mobile streaming more popular and accessible than ever before. Some of the world’s most popular social platforms now make live streaming literally as easy as touching a button. All of which has spurred meteoric growth in the popularity of live mobile streaming – both with publishers and consumers alike. Live streaming is often considered to have more appeal than conventional and video content, in that it’s unfiltered, unedited and ultimately more ‘real’ by design.

4. Multichannel Video Content Distribution

 Last up, it’s becoming increasingly rare for publishers to dedicate themselves exclusively to just a couple of channels. These days, you’ll usually find out when a video has performed well on Facebook, it’s also been published on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit and elsewhere. The fact that so many social platforms have such massive global audiences makes the whole omnichannel distribution thing something of a no brainer. Even if your audience is primarily on Twitter, there’s no harm in promoting your content to audiences elsewhere

How to Survive (and Win) the Post-Christmas Lull

 There’s always a sting in the tail with the annual Christmas ecommerce frenzy. Things are just about as peachy and positive as it gets for a couple of months, after which comes the inevitable lull. 

One of the biggest (and most common mistakes) made by smaller businesses is focusing too heavily on leveraging shoppers’ appetite to spend over the festive period. And in doing so, losing sight of the importance of compensating for what happens next.

Consumer spending always dips massively in January and February – a fact and a reality there’s nothing you can do about. Nevertheless, this doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty you can do to survive and even thrive during this post-Christmas lull.

A few suggestions on how to make January and February slightly less painful for your online business:

1. Launch a Sale

It’s a pretty old-fashioned concept in this day and age, but consumers still cannot resist the prospect of the classic ‘January Sale’. They’ve already overspent during November and December, yet are attracted to January discounts like moths to flames. Don’t forget that your closest competitors are probably planning major January sales of their own, so it’s worth doing likewise.

2. Leverage the New Year Attitude

New year, new start, new opportunities etc. – the New Year attitude that temporarily motivates the masses. At the very beginning of the year, people become determined to improve their personal productivity, clean and sanitise their homes, improve their health, do something charitable and generally become ‘better’ people. All of which can and should be leveraged in your sales and marketing strategy for the New Year.

3. Launch Something New

Most businesses time their new product and service debuts for the spring and summer. They instinctively avoid times of diminished spending, for reasons rooted in logic. However, this also means there’s a glaring gap in anything new and interesting hitting the market at the start of the New Year. If you’ve been sitting on something you think your audience will get a kick out of, why not take advantage while your competitors are hibernating?

4. Get Serious with Email Marketing

Ideally, every single sale you made over Christmas will have resulted in another email address making it onto your list. In which case, there’s no better time than right after Christmas to start working on a serious (and appropriately segmented) email marketing strategy. Too soon to start bugging those who only recently shopped with you? Not at all – it’s always best to reach out to satisfied customers while they remember why they shopped with you in the first place!

5. Stay Active and Communicative

Last up, don’t make the mistake of going quiet and temporarily vanishing into thin air. Due to a combination of fatigue and the fact that business is slow, countless brands go dormant and largely inactive after Christmas. In doing so, they overlook (or are oblivious to) the fact that social media use skyrockets during the darker and gloomier months of the year. Hence, there’s really no better time to engage your audience and take your social media marketing strategy a step further.

October 2020 Latest Digital Marketing Statistics

The time has come for us to once again share a few interesting and important facts and figures regarding the world of digital marketing. This time, there are snippets in their regarding livestreaming, personalisation, the travel industry and more. 

So we’d like to think, something for everyone…with a bit of luck! 

Here’s how things are looking right now in a few key areas of digital marketing:

Live streaming is growing in popularity

First and foremost, new research suggests that live streaming engagement is in the midst of something of a meteoric rise. Compared to the same period last year, the number of social media users engaging with live streaming content has jumped by around 8%. More than ¼ Internet users stated that they have now engaged in at least one live stream on social media.

72% of consumers turn to Amazon to research products

Despite the fact that it may not be used for quite as many purchases, evidence suggests that Amazon has become the number one resource for researching products. In fact, almost ¾ (72%) of people stated that they use Amazon to research products before purchasing them. While 51% stated that they use Amazon to compare prices, around 26% use the information available to compare similar products, read reviews and so on.

Personalisation generates 50% higher email open rates

Once again, there’s strong evidence to support the importance of personalisation when it comes to marketing emails. Even when something as simple as the subject line is personalised, click-to-open rates have been found to increase by a full 58%. Which would seem to suggest that those who are not using personalised e-mail marketing could be letting significant amount of time and money go to waste.

Live TV is on the decline

While the issue itself is far from a new development, it’s becoming clear that live television is experiencing an even faster decline than before. The CTA reports that more than half of all millennials are now watching recorded or streaming television services rather than standard live TV. For over 35s, around 35% prefer this time-shifted content.

Millennials respond better to sales outreach via social media

A study carried out by Bambu found that a growing proportion of millennials respond better to sales tactics in general that are performed using social media. A 35% stated that they would be more likely to make a purchase when product information or industry news are shared by representatives via social media – the total percentage preferring this kind of outreach having increased to 45%.

Only 9% of people use high-street travel agents

Last but not least, it would appear that the long-predicted and somewhat inevitable death of the traditional travel agent has taken a significant step towards becoming a reality. According to a recent study carried out on UK consumers, just 9% of those actively planning and booking holidays now visit traditional travel agents in any way, shape or form. As far as younger audiences go, the figure falls to an even lower 4%. Nevertheless, the same study found that if traditional travel agents were to fully embrace modern technology like virtual reality, close to half (48%) said that they would be more likely to revisit them once again.

The Rise and Rise of mCommerce

 Once again, the extraordinary value and importance of mCommerce has been illustrated in the numbers alone. As of right now, approximately 1.6 billion people are known to be using mobile devices to make purchases online. Or to put it another way, that’s more than 25% of the entire population of the world. 

Not only this, but as the popularity of mCommerce continues to grow worldwide, traditional eCommerce by way of desktop and laptop computers is seeing something of a decline. Nothing particularly dramatic, but a 15% in 2019, compared to the year before. During the same period, transactions originating from smartphones doubled.

Quote these figures to the average business owner and chances are they’ll be anything but surprised. After all, mCommerce didn’t exactly come out of nowhere and nor is it a secret that the modern world is addicted to mobile. But what is interesting is the way in which so many business owners still seem entirely unsure as to how to adapt and engineer their content for success in the mCommerce era.

Smooth and Simple

As a rule of thumb, the key to success when it comes to mCommerce is to deliver a smooth, simple and seamless experience for every customer. Easier said than done, but nonetheless essential.

Speed and simplicity are the two most important attributes demanded by today’s consumer. For example, approximately 65% of mCommerce shoppers are unwilling to wait more than 4 seconds for any given webpage to load. If it takes longer than this, they’ll head elsewhere. When they do, close to 70% stated that they’d be far more likely to go through with a purchase, if the mobile experience as a whole was on-par.

By the end of 2020, total mCommerce value in the United Kingdom alone is expected to hit an incredible £42 billion. What’s more, mCommerce will also account for at least 45% of all online sales – its highest figure to date.

So it’s abundantly clear that mCommerce isn’t going anywhere but skywards for the foreseeable future. Hence, now really is the time to invest as heavily as necessary in creating a premier mobile experience, built in accordance with the following key principles:

• Creativity. However you choose to go about it, your mobile website needs to stand out from the crowd, delivering a strong and true reflection of your brand. It shouldn’t be a generic, watered-down version of your primary desktop website.

• Visuals. Most mobile shoppers expect the kinds of high-quality visuals that make it quick and easy to see what it is that’s on offer and whether or not they want it. Creative imagery having much greater impact than standard stock photography.

• Adaptability. It’s no good to provide a mobile experience that’s outstanding on the customer’s Samsung smartphone and pure garbage on their iPad. Quality mobile web design means ensuring your content and layout can adapt to all devices, without exception.

• Simplification. Ideally, the customer should be able to find whatever they’re looking for and complete the entire purchase process in just a few touches. The slower and more complicated the conversion process, the less likely it is to happen.

• Speed. Last up, capitalising on the value of impulse purchases and generally maintaining the attention of modern audiences means providing a lightning-fast mobile experience at all times. When mobile site speed isn’t up to scratch, it’s game-over.

Still Focused Exclusively on Search Engine Rankings?

 For much of recent history, it’s been the norm to focus on SERP rankings above and beyond everything else. Which of course makes sense, given the way in which a high position in Google or Bing can result in the most enormous traffic boost for any website. 

But here’s the thing – rankings never have been the be and end all of things.

What’s important to acknowledge is the way in which your current position in any search engine doesn’t accurately indicate the success of your wider campaign. There are three primary reasons why an unhealthy fixation on rankings is exactly that – detrimental to your business and your marketing strategy:

SEARCH RESULTS ARE PERSONALISED

First up, it’s becoming extremely difficult – impossible even – to accurately measure your own SERP performance. The reason being that search results have never been more meticulously personalised. From location to browser to device to language to personal preferences and so on, thousands of different search results are delivered by the hour for the exact same search terms. You cannot look how you perform for one or two specific terms and interpret this as a constant for all searchers across the board. It might show one thing for you, but could show something totally different for someone else. Particularly in the case of local businesses and local search, personalisation has never had a greater influence on both exposure and performance.

RANK FLUCTUATION

No matter what you do and how much you do it, you’re never going to hold onto the same ranking indefinitely. It just doesn’t happen. One day you’re third, the next you’re second, then you fall to page 5 and jump back to the first page once again. Why? For any number of reasons – being outperformed by competitors, algorithm changes at Google, flaws in your own SEO strategy etc. In any case, your position is always going to change on a fairly regular basis. As such, and given the fact that there’s often nothing you can do about it, you cannot gauge your overall performance by rankings alone. There are so many external influences that can affect your ranking – it isn’t all nearly as within your control as you might think.

RANK DOESN’T ALWAYS CORRELATE TO SUCCESS

Last but not least, traffic represents just one contributory element to wider success in business. Without exception, a solid Google ranking for a competitive keyword is going to win you a lot of traffic. But what then? What if just 5% of these arrivals stick around and less than 1% convert? You’d perhaps have been better-off with a tenth-place position and greater focus on improving conversion rates. If you focus all your time and attention on rankings, you cannot focus sufficiently on the quality of your website. Even a number-one ranking is all but useless if it isn’t backed-up by an outstanding user-experience. The problem being that far too many businesses seem unable to strike the ideal balance between the two, in terms of their own efforts and investment.

So if you are still focusing somewhat obsessively on rankings above all else, it’s worth asking:

What might you be allowing to suffer in the background?