A recent survey conducted by Influencer Marketing Hub found that “72% of marketers believe that the quality of consumers gained from influencer marketing campaigns is better than other marketing types”, and this is an identical result to last year’s study. But why do creator campaigns consistently help to drive qualified leads to a brand’s purchasing page and, therefore, produce a high-quality consumer base?

We’re taking a look at how influencer marketing campaigns succeed in increasing qualified leads, and sharing what brands can do to ensure a high-quality consumer base is achieved through their next campaign.

How do influencer marketing campaigns increase qualified leads?

Influencer marketing is able to generate leads that have a higher chance of becoming customers. This is because creators are able to reach a hyper targeted, highly engaged audience that already has an interest in the kinds of products that the brand is promoting. Creators are great at building genuine relationships with their audience, and this enables them to gain deep insights. When consumers engage with creators - via polls, stories or post analytics - it allows both the creator and brand to understand their likes and dislikes, and generally how engaged and valuable they are. Because of this, a brand can be sure that they are pushing a product or offering to a genuinely interested consumer and therefore have confidence in generating leads that will convert.

When using an Influencer platform that shares creator data, brands can be sure that the creator’s community has a proven interest in their brand or the brand’s wider industry before targeting them.

Content assets help a brand reach beyond their favoured audience

When working with a content creator, with the creator’s permission, brands are able to repurpose or re-use a creator’s content, depending on the terms and conditions of the campaign. If this is the case, a brand can publish content across multiple channels at once and therefore reach beyond their target audience. In this way, they can also ensure that they are gaining qualified leads from brand channels, by using the content assets and in-depth audience knowledge that they gain when working with a creator.

Moreover, pairing influencer marketing with paid media allows brands to run strategic and creative campaigns that reach new audiences across the whole marketing funnel. Where influencer marketing is a key tool in driving awareness and engagement among a targeted audience, paid media is an important driver for acquisitions and conversions. Influencer even recently announced a commitment to securing clients a maximum return-on-ad spend by offering clients guaranteed business results - including guaranteed sales and guaranteed acquisitions - providing a refund to clients if agreed outcomes are not met.

If you want your brand to benefit from using influencer marketing, it’s important to follow these tips and tricks. Gaining high-quality consumers off the back of influencer marketing campaigns relies upon:

Working with authentic creators

When brands work with authentic creators who embody their brand, it paves the way for genuine long term relationships that are likely to produce high-quality consumers over time.

With 71% of creators saying that it is an honest and authentic voice that keeps their audience engaged, it’s important to choose creators who are experts in their area. The best indicators of this are looking at stats like organic audience growth, which will highlight how invested a creator has been in their particular niche over a period of time.

Establishing a meaningful creator-brand relationship

Building creator-brand relationships is about much more than just seeing results from a campaign. Brands should bear in mind that when they work with a creator, they are being endorsed by that persona and this comes with an associative reputation. With 64% of consumers saying that shared values help them create a trusted relationship with a brand, it’s important that your brand works with creators who share your values and can authentically represent what your brand stands for.

Without cultivating these meaningful creator-brand relationships, we see leads drop off at the latter stages of the sales journey. In fact, Influencer’s Unsocial Media Report recently found that over half of Gen Z shoppers have abandoned a purchase because it didn’t align with their values.

Giving creators the creative control

Often brands will want to work with a creator because they know that this person can generate high-quality leads for their brand. However, they make the mistake of over-directing a creator until the content becomes forced and doesn’t resonate with the target audience.

In a recent study, 24.5% of creators cited requiring too many drafts for a post as a common mistake brands make when working with them, and 28% suggested that forcing them to over-share the content, or share across every channel was their biggest error. These findings prove that often it’s more effective to allow the creator to produce content that their audience wants to see without over-directing their approach

The value of influencer marketing is undeniable and brands that are considering working with creators should take immediate action. At Influencer, we build meaningful relationships between brands and our creators, and so are on hand to help you create influencer marketing campaigns that succeed in building a high-quality consumer base.