Does Online Influencer Marketing Really Work?

As technology evolves, so too do the ways in which we do business. If the word influencer had been thrown around just a few years ago, most companies would have packed up laughing. Now, however, many are taking the idea of influencer marketing a great deal more seriously.

A recent study revealed that 85% of top marketing firms have plans to use influencer marketing. This in itself is an incredible statistic, more so that 59% of those using the platform plan to pour more spending into the project. So, this means that influencers are the bold new step in the world of marketing, right?

Not so fast. While some signs point to the new form of marketing being very effective, other signs point to it as being very overrated.

The ROI Numbers

First let’s look at the numbers that have everyone so excited. A recent case study found something extraordinary. The return on investment (ROI) for influencer marketing was found to be dramatically better than other digital marketing methods, with 1,000 impressions generating around $285. Furthermore, the ROI did not reduce over time as would be expected, but instead increased.

Again, all signs point to a marketing revolution. But here is the trick. What isn’t being mentioned above is that these sorts of incredible numbers aren’t guaranteed. In fact, they are more a fluke than anything else. The hard reality is that marketing of this type is basically a dice roll, and while $285 per 1,000 impressions sounds incredible, the real numbers are far more likely to be significantly less.

The reality is that influencers have to not only be carefully chosen, but may still produce poor results in the end, with little to no explanation as to why.

Audience Versus Influence

What is not mentioned during conversations about this form of marketing is that influence is very different from audience. Marketing an online casino welcome bonus, for example, is about more than just raising awareness. It is also about driving action. A random influencer can raise awareness about the bonus, but very few have the power to drive their audience into taking action.

Most influencers have audiences that seek entertainment, not suggestions on where to spend money. On the contrary, the product may even develop a poor reputation in the hands of the wrong influencer. It is, again, a prospect of simply rolling a dice and hoping for the best. 

This is versus traditional digital marketing where numbers are a great deal more consistent. It is true that the ROI may not equal the numbers above, but at least the numbers are reliable.

This doesn’t mean that influencer marketing is without value, but what it does mean is that the hype often doesn’t match the realities. Though, this does also depend a great deal on the product being marketed. Some industries are a great deal more likely to benefit than others. This flies in the face of those claiming that influencers are the universal marketing future. A more honest reality is that influencer marketing has a place, but not in every industry.

When you are running an electrical contractor company, you have to be open in trying all possibilities to improve your marketing techniques because this is a business and you have competitors as well. Keep in mind that there are countless residential and commercial buildings in town so these will require electrical wiring inspections regularly which means that they need your electricians. But how can they learn about the services you offer if your visibility is limited or low so this only shows that we need to widen this by hiring digital marketing specialists?

There are a lot of companies out there, such as Viva Traffic which offers various SEO and digital marketing services for electrical contractors and it would be great if you can hire specialists from such firms for better strategies. Keep in mind that a good marketing specialist should be able to find ways to increase traffic on your official website and encourage viewers to land on your page. Well, these are just a few of what you will miss if you don’t have someone to work on improving the techniques because we can’t always stick to the traditional strategies.

Now, if you are an electrical contractor, you should find a digital marketing specialist who excels in creating or designing a page, optimizing this for various search engines, improving local SEO, running ads or campaigns, and working on blogs. You may think that these might be too much to handle for one person but these ideas would be more successful if your people will work as a team so this is something that you must invest in. Do not consider this as another expense because you are going to pay these people but this team will greatly contribute to boosting your income later so let’s learn more of these techniques.

Creating a unique website

The first thing that you have to do is to create a site that would be exclusive to your electrical contracting firm because this is how we will market your services and this is the heart of every technique that involves digital marketing. Let’s say that this is a crucial task so you have to make sure that it would be clean, organized, and engaging to the public viewer if you would like to have a successful presence online. This will include various elements that play a very important part in your pages – check out https://medium.com/@crescenttech555/10-elements-of-website-design-898a910fcb02 to learn more.

We have to choose colors that must reflect your company for easy recognition and consistency. Then we have text as well as interesting images or videos to encourage viewers since you are showcasing your work and electricians. 

Do not forget that you need to impress your visitors so navigating the pages should not be complicated and let them find categories as well as subcategories fast. And then, it has to be mobile-friendly because most users are using their smartphones so it must be compatible with such devices.

Optimizing for Search Engines

You can maximize your company electricians’ appearance online through SEO because this helps in improving your chance of appearing on the results page of a user who is searching for your services. Without this technique, then you’ll have a low rank and fewer chances of gaining visitors so there won’t be less traffic on your website as well.

With SEO, you have to use long-tail keywords for searchers to find you through search engines. Make sure that your pages will load fast because users won’t wait for slow loading sites which affect their experience. Again, it has to be designed as mobile-friendly for accessibility and compatibility.

Investing in Local SEO

This is very important because your customers are usually from your area. So before dreaming about being a global electrical contracting firm, you have to start an online presence in your locality – look at this for more details. With this, the people will come to learn about you and your electricians.

To do this, you may incorporate applications, such as Google My Business so that your firm will be listed in their system and will pop up when customers in your locality need electricians.

You should also incorporate keywords relevant to your localities, such as your town, products, and services. And then, you must have a verified name, address, and phone number on various platforms so that the readers can reach you.

Running paid ads

One way to reach viewers is through paid ads which are all over different applications today. Most of these advertisements appear when you are using an app on your smartphone and these usually appear from 5 to 30 seconds. It’s not too much time taken away from the users when using their social media accounts or playing games, anyway and it is a cheaper strategy than running in a television or radio station.

PPC ads or pay-per-click are commonly integrated with search engines. So when searching, you’ll find the PPC on top of the results page. This means that these are paid and appeared because it comes with keywords that potential customers have keyed in.

Blogging

These blogs are very important and an ideal way to provide relevant information to the public. The contents are usually about electrical topics since your business offers electrical services. There could be topics on electricians giving tips or basic knowledge in this field.

Here, make sure that the content is of high quality. You may add photos and videos as well but consider the loading speed. And then, focus on the interest of your target viewers.