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31 Influencer Marketing Statistics You Need to Know Now

[fa icon="calendar"] 01-Feb-2016 10:30:00 / by Iliyana Stareva

31_Influencer_Marketing_Statistics.jpgWith the proliferation of digital media, influencer marketing is becoming more and more important for inbound marketing to generate traffic and help drive leads, but it’s now also more challenging to do than ever before.  

We’ve spoken a little bit about influencer marketing when discussing it as part of the PESO (Paid, Earned, Shared, Owned media) model that guides modern PR and even more so inbound PR that is strongly orientated towards digital and inbound.

Basically, influencer marketing is getting others to tell your story, and not just any others, but people who have somewhat of a celebrity status within their area of expertise and have a fairly big audience due to their popularity and reputation. When we say celebrity, that doesn’t necessary mean an actress or a singer. It could, for example, be a fitness blogger with a huge Instagram following.

The problem with influencer marketing, though, is that it’s hard, you cannot control the results, and with the rise of other influencers such as YouTubers or Instagrammers and no longer just journalists or bloggers, the sheer of influencers has made it even more complicated to pick the right ones. 

And there’s, of course, the notion of not knowing how to approach those influencers as it is still rather new and very different than traditional media relations. Influencer relations is the Wild West now.

The sheer of choice and not knowing how to work with influencers makes many marketers unwilling to go that route. They’re scared that they’ll invest a lot of resources and time and get no results.

But influencer marketing when done right can actually serve them really, really well by bringing even more people to the corporate website (and with those inbound links growing one’s authority on Google for better ranking) and spreading positive word of mouth through the digital space. That’s what influencers do – they influence. And working with them is totally worth it.

Still not convinced? I’ll let the below stats do the work:

31 Influencer Marketing Statistics You Need to Know

  1. Influencer marketing is the fastest growing channel for customer acquisition. Tweet this stat! (Source)
  2. Businesses make $6.50 for every dollar invested in influencer marketing. Tweet this stat! (Source)
  3. 93% of marketing professionals are getting results in improving visibility through influencer engagement strategies. Tweet this stat! (Source)
  4. 75% of marketing professionals consider influencer engagement effective in lead generation. Tweet this stat! (Source)
  5. 76% of marketers consider influencer engagement effective in garnering customer loyalty. Tweet this stat! (Source)
  6. 84% of marketers and PR professionals globally plan to leverage influencers in 2016. Tweet this stat! (Source)
  7. 92% of consumers turn to people they know for referrals above any other source. Tweet this stat! (Source)
  8. 88% of people trust online reviews written by other consumers as much as they trust recommendations from personal contacts. Tweet this stat! (Source)
  9. 84% of consumers say they trust peer recommendations above all other sources of advertising. Tweet this stat! (Source)
  10. Marketing-inspired word-of-mouth generates more than twice the sales of paid advertising. Tweet this stat! (Source)
  11. 74% of consumers rely on social media to inform their purchasing decisions. Tweet this stat! (Source)
  12. 60% of teens are more likely to believe and buy from YouTube stars than movie stars. Tweet this stat! (Source)
  13. 97% of the conversations around beauty products and brands on YouTube are controlled by beauty vloggers. Tweet this stat! (Source)
  14. People referred by loyal customers have a 37% higher retention rate. Tweet this stat! (Source)
  15. 78% of brands increased their content output in the last two years but average content engagement decreased by 60%. Basically, content marketing really needs influencer marketing to succeed. Tweet this stat! (Source)
  16. 67% of marketing professionals identify content promotion as the main benefit obtained from working with influencers. Tweet this stat! (Source)
  17. 59% of marketers use influencer engagement campaigns for product launches and content creation. Tweet this stat! (Source)
  18. 23% of marketing professionals consider influencer engagement strategic for SEO purposes. Tweet this stat! (Source)
  19. 68% of communications professionals consider Twitter to be the key channel for influencer engagement campaigns. Tweet this stat! (Source)
  20. 51% of professionals use Facebook as their third most preferred channel for influencer engagement campaigns. Tweet this stat! (Source)
  21. 55% of communications professionals say that extending their community and reach is the driving motivation for influencers. Tweet this stat! (Source)
  22. 45% of professionals say that creating quality content for their audiences is the second motivational driver for influencers. Tweet this stat! (Source)
  23. 70% of marketers believe that an event is an ideal place to leverage the influence of an opinion leader. Tweet this stat! (Source)
  24. 69% of professionals identify blogs as most effective content to leverage a collaboration with influencers. Tweet this stat! (Source)
  25. 69% of marketing professionals don’t really pay the influencers they work with. Tweet this stat! (Source)
  26. 28% of professionals think influencer engagement campaigns should be managed by the heads of PR. Tweet this stat! (Source)
  27. 75% of professionals consider identifying the right influencer for their brand to be their biggest challenge. Tweet this stat! (Source)
  28. 42% of professionals identify web search as the most popular way of finding influencers. Tweet this stat! (Source)
  29. 39% of professionals use social media monitoring tools to find influencers. Tweet this stat! (Source)
  30. 51% of marketers believe they get better customers from influencer marketing as the relationship began with trust in the influencer. Tweet this stat! (Source)
  31. 77% of influencers say they’re more likely to buy from their sponsors, becoming brand evangelists that way. Tweet this stat! (Source)

Yes, there are challenges, but the possibilities far outweigh them!

What experiences have you made with influencer marketing? 

 

Topics: Public Relations, Inbound Marketing, Marketing

Iliyana Stareva

Written by Iliyana Stareva

Iliyana Stareva is the author of Inbound PR - the book that is transforming the PR industry. She's also a keynote speaker and a consultant in inbound and digital for fast-growing companies and agencies. Currently, Iliyana is Chief of Staff to the EMEA President at ServiceNow. Before that, she held global and EMEA-wide positions at Cisco and HubSpot. She is also certified by the PMI as a Project Management Professional (PMP)®. In her free time, you can find Iliyana writing for her blog, dancing salsa or travelling the world.

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