Influencer marketing is generally a part of the marketing mix of companies all over the world and so of course in Germany. But especially for foreign companies, influencer marketing offers an excellent option to introduce themselves to the German market and really take off.
Here we take a look at the advantages of Influencer Marketing and show you which 10 goals you can achieve as a foreign entrepreneur with Influencer Marketing to be successful in Germany.
The advantages of Influencer Marketing
The Influencer offers clear advantages over other marketing measures. However, it is usually useful to put together a good marketing mix and not to neglect other options. This way, the positive results of influencer marketing are further supported and multiplied.
Reach
The biggest and most obvious advantage of influencer marketing is certainly that you can achieve a huge reach with the help of a single person. Really popular influencers on Instagram, for example, have more than 1 million followers. Normal company profiles or organizations are far from having such a wide reach.
A good example is the presentation of a new fashion trend. If you show it on the account of Vogue Germany, you will reach less than 200,000 followers, while well-known influencer easily has a million or more followers.
Reach is not everything, however, because another advantage of influencer marketing, which is closely linked to Reichwiete, is that by cleverly selecting the influencer, one can address exactly the desired audience, while advertising on television or in the newspaper, for example, also addresses people who do not belong to the target group.
Authentic field reports
Another advantage is that with the help of influencers you can get authentic experience reports, reviews and the like, which are much more credible than commercials. Not only blogs and written reviews are possible, but also and especially videos on the popular platform YouTube. Honestly, how often do we all look for information on YouTube before we decide on a product or service? In contrast, obviously recognizable advertising videos on corporate channels are much less clicked on by consumers.
Influencers come directly after family and friends in consumer favor in terms of credibility in product reviews and purchase recommendations. But Mans should pay attention to this. It is important to make sure that the influencer has a good reputation and some expertise.
Lower advertising expenditure
One of the also very well-known and of course very popular advantage for companies is that the expenses for influencer marketing are significantly lower than for other measures. However, it must be clear that good influencer marketing is not for free and can be expensive depending on the awareness of the influencer. Nevertheless, this is not normally comparable to the cost of traditional advertising – for example, production plus the broadcasting of commercials.
Control is limited
One aspect of influencer marketing that is perceived by some as a minor disadvantage should not be concealed. As a company you lose a bit of control over the content, because although it is clear that the influencer should not report badly about the product and you as a company can of course provide information that you would like to have conveyed, the influencer is then quite free to implement it. In contrast, a company’s own Facebook page is under 100% control of the marketing department.
Especially during a longer collaboration with Influencer, it can even happen that the Influencer tends to oppose the product or gives preference to other products during the campaign. Therefore you should be very careful when choosing the influencer and set some guidelines in writing in advance. In this sense, it is of course very advantageous to work together with an experienced influencer platform and agency like Adfluencer.de, which will help you to find the right and trustworthy influencer for your campaign.
Advantages of Influencer Marketing when starting out as a foreign company
Influencer Marketing thus offers a lot of advantages for every company. Especially for foreign companies who would like to get started on the German market, it is an excellent instrument.
Because the influencer knows the German market very well, in contrast to the foreign company, which only wants to start activities in Germany. If you are unknown in this country, Influencer Marketing is a simple and above all, inexpensive option to be on everyone’s lips quickly. Influencers like to report on new trends and a new company with new products is certainly an interesting option.
10 goals that a foreign company can achieve with Influencer Marketing
So what exactly does Influencer Marketing do for the foreign company, as of course for any other company? What goals can be achieved by working with Influencern? The spectrum is quite broad and goes far beyond simple sales growth.
Goal no. 1: Brand Awareness
This point is of course particularly interesting for foreign companies that want to establish themselves on the German market. After all, these companies are generally rather unknown in Germany. By the purposeful employment of probably selected Influencern with influence on the desired target group one is fast in all mouth. The influencer attracts the attention for your brand. It is important that it is not only clear that your brand exists, but also what it stands for, what its special features are, and what makes it so special from alternatives already on the market.
If you want to create brand awareness, influencers should introduce your brand in more depth, especially in the beginning, for example by constructing an interesting story around it, testing your products and reporting about their experiences with them or presenting them in detail on their blog.
Objective #2: Image
The image of a brand is always quite subjective, as the product can often be perceived quite differently by different target groups. What is important here is the trust that followers have in the influencer. So if you want to build up the image of your brand, influencers are an excellent choice.
Unfortunately, like brand building, image is difficult to measure and can be negatively influenced quickly if you work with an unsuitable influencer. Therefore, it is absolutely advisable to trust the advice and support of a good influencer agency – such as Adfluencer.de – when dealing with these sensitive issues. Here you can find good influencers and can also build with many tips, information and of course, if desired, professional advice on influencer marketing.
Objective #3: Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Of course, in the case of influencer marketing with bloggers, you can also use this to optimize the relevance of your brand in search engines. For this purpose, backlinks to your website or blog are created. The more backlinks – especially from good sources – you have, the better it is for your search engine ranking. However, it should be clear that SEO should only be a great side effect of your influencer marketing and not the main goal.
Objective #4: Range
As a foreign competitor, you want to achieve a wide reach quickly, especially at the beginning? Then long-range macro influencers are the best strategy. However, just as with traditional advertising, you must expect a certain amount of wastage. In general, the use of the big fish is not so much about interaction as about product placement.
Goal #5: Engagement
Wer gerne möchte, dass sich die Follower tatsächlich mit der Marke auseinandersetzen, der achtet auf das sogenannte Engagement, also Kommentare, Likes und Teilen der Posts. Es geht somit nicht so sehr um die Qualität, als vielmehr die Qualität der Follower.
This commitment is demonstrated by qualitative comments and shared content or direct messages or e-mails with reference to the corresponding post. More promising in this sense are micro or medium influencers, which have even stronger contact with their followers than macro influencers.
This point is also extremely important especially for companies that are new to the German market.
Goal no. 6: Sales / Conversions
Especially in the beginning you want your product to be sold quickly, because you have probably invested a lot and the fixed costs have to be covered. So if you want to demand the turnover, you should focus on conversions. Followers trust the product recommendations and reviews of their favourite influencers. If this is your goal, then a blog post with links to your website or directly to your online shop, for example, is particularly suitable. Affiliate marketing is also an enormous advantage here.
Ziel Nr. 7: Leads
You are new on the market and want to get new newsletter subscribers, event visitors, raffle participants and the like as quickly as possible? With Influencer Marketing you can get them in an easy and uncomplicated way. The promised benefit for the followers makes sure that they change from the channel of the influencer to your website and perform the desired action there.
Objective #8: Product use
If your products are not only new on the German market, but also require some explanation, then video tutorials, explanatory videos or a detailed blog post are ideal. If you want to appeal to Generation Z, we would recommend the video on YouTube, because this is one of the most popular channels for younger consumers.
A small additional advantage is that a good video tends to relieve the burden on support, because customers can inform themselves well there.
Goal #9: Performance
By the way, the performance of your own social networkers will also get a good boost through Influencer Marketing and your community will grow significantly.
Objective #10: Content production
And finally, the influencers produce valuable content for you and you don’t have to take care of it yourself, or at least not to the full extent. The content, which was produced by the influencers, should then of course also be shared on your channels. If you want to use the material of the influencer afterwards, you have to clarify aspects of the right of use in advance. By the way, many influencers can also be hired as content creators.
How Adfluencer.de helps you
So if you want to make a real start on the German market as a foreign company, an Influencer Marketing Strategy is a very good option, which is not only very efficient, but also relatively inexpensive.
To get in touch with influencers and find the perfect influencer – from nano influencer for a specific niche to social media star – for you and your product or service, an influencer platform like Adfluencer.de is the ideal partner.
We help you to get started with your company in Germany!