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For many marketers, an influencer marketing strategy is a no-brainer. The others are still deciding on the worth of influencer marketing. 

Both are perfectly right in their own way: After all, the importance of influencer marketing “depends” on the type of industry you’re in and the kind of work you do. 

However, if you’ve never dipped your toe in the world of influencer marketing but are eager to learn more, we’ve got some jaw-dropping statistics that’ll help you shape your strategy in 2023.  

Please note: We’ve only noted the statistics acquired from studies conducted between 2021–2023 to ensure relevancy.

Let’s dive in.  

Key statistics to shape up your influencer strategy 

1. When asked to share a budget, 23% of marketers planned to spend 40% of their marketing budget on influencer marketing, whereas the average majority (25%), planned to dedicate 10–20% of their budget. (Source)

Some marketers leverage AI to cut down costs. There are tools that help to find potential candidates in a short period of time, plus writing tools can help develop guidelines and brand books to make the partnership seamless. 

Tools like Klear, Chat GPT, and specialized writing tools for marketing and sales content, for instance, are some valuable resources marketing teams can leverage to save time and money. However, it is crucial to check for features and specifications in advance to choose the right toolset. For those looking in for tools in the content space, online reviews like this one on Jasper.ai vs. Copy.ai are helpful. 

2. 43% of brands spend less than $10k/year (US Dollars) on influencer marketing. However, there are a few who spend more than $500k. (Source)

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3. Instagram is the most popular channel for influencer marketing, with 87% of marketers and 90% of creators planning to increase their presence there. (Source)

4. According to a 2022 survey (whose respondents were mainly brands and PR and marketing agencies), 54% of the organizations said they worked with up to 10 influencers, and 3% said they worked with 1000+ influencers. (Source)

5. In 2023, brands plan to decrease their spending on the following platforms: Snapchat (73%), Twitter (58%), Pinterest (43%), etc. (Source)

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6. Zara, Shein, and Instagram are the most talked-about brands on Instagram. (Source) 

This indicates the audiences there place importance on fashion, which means if you’re in the fashion business and you sell products like leather jackets and linen suits, partnerships with creators on Instagram may be an exceptionally good strategy for you. You can get a lot of valuable data for earned media and social media mentions and utilize this data for your HubSpot lead scoring, which will help you get more conversions in the end. 

7. In 2022, brands placed importance on the following metrics when partnering with influencers: engagement rates (32%), social media traffic (19%), and brand mentions (11%). (Source) 

However, in 2023, the following metrics have the highest level of importance: views, reach, and impressions (49.6%), engagement (25.5%), and conversions/sales (24.9%). (Source)

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8. 61% of brands prefer to work with the same influencers, whereas the remaining 39% prefer working with new influencers. (Source)

9. An average majority (77%) of influencers are female, and 23% of them are male. (Source) You’ll find a breakdown of this statistic by each platform below. 

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10. In 2021 and 2022

• Mega-influencers charged at least $1,200 (US dollars) per Instagram post, whereas macro-influencers charged anywhere between $185-$2500. (Source)

• On TikTok, mega-influencers charged an average minimum of $1,034, and macro-influencers charged anywhere between $151-$793. (Source)

• On YouTube, the former (mega-influencers) charged an average minimum of $2,500, and the latter (macro-influencers) charged between $1105-$16,234, thus making YouTube the platform that requires the highest amount of investment for influencer partnerships. (Source)

If your budget doesn’t allow you to partner with mega or macro influencers, you can try getting your foot in the door with organic posts instead of paid ones. 

For example, if you’re in the pet industry and want to work with a cat influencer, you can offer them free products, such as toys, food, accessories, furniture, and even cat insurance. That might get you noticed (and if your luck has it, you might get a free post out of it too). 

This barter strategy worked so well for Awful Cloth, it got them noticed by influencers Jason Derulo, Bryce Hall, and Charli D’Amelio. 

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If you get a free post or promotion, make sure to highlight it in you social media and website to use it as social proof. Create eye-catching captions to boost sales by leveraging AI writing tools, photo editors and upscale API to ensure high-quality.

11. A 2021 survey said that 53% of respondents believe influencers are the most skilled at promoting beauty products, and 45% of them said they are the most skilled at promoting clothing/accessories. (Source) 

12. More than 61% of the brands plan to use artificial intelligence or machine learning to identify which influencers to work with. (Source). 

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13. 39% of brands prefer to work with nano-influencers, whereas 30% of them prefer to work with micro-influencers. (Source) 

14. An influencer collaboration takes approximately 16 days to complete its full lifecycle. (Source)

15. Price per post for any influencer partnership is usually determined by the following formula, “Average engagement x Engagement Rate Price.” 

The average engagement rate cost on YouTube is $0.04, on TikTok is $0.21, on Instagram is $0.56, on Facebook is $2.63, on Pinterest is $5.51, and on Twitter is $37.82. (Source)

Side note: Prices are in US dollars. 

16. Lifestyle, fitness, entertainment, etc., are some of the most profitable niches for influencers. (Source) 

When you take an average of how much 500,000 influencers charge across various niches on a variety of platforms, these are the figures you’ll get:

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17. In 2022, these were the accounted engagement rates of influencers: Nano-influencers (2.53%), micro-influencers (1.06%), mid-tier influencers (0.91%), macro-influencers (0.86%), and mega-influencers (0.92%). (Source)

18. Between 2022 and 2023, 70% of influencers have increased their rates, 2% have decreased them, and around 28% are keeping them just the same. (Source) 

19. Men prefer to follow influencers who operate in the gaming, fitness, and food niches. While women prefer to follow influencers who operate in the skincare, fashion, and food niches. (Source)

20. A study that focused on Gen Z and millennials said that these audiences prefer to follow someone who’s authentic, funny, or knowledgeable, as opposed to someone with a large following. (Source)

Learn more about influencer marketing 

Since we’ve only seen the rise of influencer marketing in the past few years, there’s still a lot to learn about the industry’s future and how effective it could be in the long run. 

To keep up with all the trends in influencer marketing, you can regularly follow places like Influencer Marketing Hub, Adweek, and Noupe (as we regularly post advice on improving your brand presence and marketing strategies).

So are you ready to take the leap and invest in influencer marketing? Join the thousands of brands already tapping into this lucrative marketing strategy. You won’t regret it and neither will your bottom line. 

Happy influencing! 

Featured Image by rawpixel.com on Freepik

The post 20 Key Influencer Marketing Statistics to Help You Shape Your Strategy in 2023 appeared first on noupe.

Blogging is a marketing technique that allows brands to meet their buyers during the discovery or awareness stage of their buying journey. This type of content can be created in many styles and distributed in many ways, making it a great tool for businesses of any type.

Although hiring a skilled content writer is one of the most efficient ways to create high-quality blog content for your site, many small businesses don’t have the marketing budgets to hire these specialists.

Luckily, with a little knowledge and practice, it’s possible to take a DIY approach to build a successful blog from the ground up. You have to start somewhere, right?

In this comprehensive guide, we’re going to cover how to write a blog post that people actually want to read.

We’ll start by covering the basics of blogging before we dive into the step-by-step process of writing a blog post. To wrap up, we’ll provide tips and tricks for writing blog posts to keep your readers’ attention.

Are you on the edge of your seat?

Let’s dive in.

The basics of blogging

Blogging is a form of content marketing. In other words, a brand creates content that it believes to be relevant and interesting to its audience with the goal of it being discovered organically.

Blog posts are similar to news articles but broken down into lists or sections for greater readability. Some popular blog posts include listicles, reviews, comparisons, and how-tos.

Although plenty of emerging resources can help you improve the content creation process, it’s still a great idea to understand the mechanics of blogging to take the output from these tools and polish them into engaging, readable articles.

For example, GrowthBar, an AI copywriting tool, can help you create long-form SEO content that Google loves five times faster than a human writer. These tools save time, but the human touch is valuable for ensuring readability and engagement.

Pro tip – Before you start blogging, make sure you find a good name to brand your blog. A good business name generator can be a great place to get some ideas flowing.

Don’t worry. We’ll teach you everything you need to know.

How to write a blog post

Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s dive into the nitty-gritty of how to write a blog post.

1. Choose a topic

The first step to writing a compelling blog post is choosing a topic your audience is interested in.

If you’re unsure where to start, it’s a good idea to check out your competitor’s blogs to see what topics they’re covering.

One great hack for streamlining your blog writing process is to keep a running list of topics to cover that you can add to as ideas pop up. That way, you always have something to work with, even if inspiration is lacking.

2. Find the right keywords

Google and other search engines are a great way to distribute blog content to get your brand in front of a larger group of people.

If you want to tap into search engine optimization (SEO) to distribute your content, you’ll need to choose keywords to target in your article.

Finding keywords is easy with the help of a dedicated tool.

Ahrefs, Moz, SEMrush, and Google Keyword Planner are among the most popular options. These tools tell you how much search volume there is and how competitive the search engine results page (SERP) is for a specific keyword.

You’ll want to choose a keyword that’s getting at least some search volume. Some people exclusively target words that are getting thousands of searches per month. However, don’t be afraid of a lower volume if you find a niche keyword that’d resonate with your audience.

Typically, you’ll want to choose one primary keyword to focus on and a few secondary keywords.

3. Create an outline

Next, you’ll create an outline for your blog post. This step is very important because it’ll help you create an article that’s well-structured and effectively organized.

You don’t have to follow MLA or any format you learned in school, but you should keep the general structure of separating topics in a hierarchy that’ll yield an article with a sensible flow.

4. Research the topic

Now, it’s time to fill in your outline with research.

• Pull your information from reputable sources and industry thought leaders.
• Find statistics to quantify your claims, and refer to studies where necessary.
• Keep track of your sources so you can link to them in your article.

While conducting research is crucial, personal experience and expertise reign supreme. When you are confident that you have the correct method for doing something, utilize that understanding to supplement your outline.

For example, if you own a cleaning company that sells car cleaning products such as steering wheel cleaner or leather cleaner and have been using these products for years, you can simply pour the information from your brain.

Piece of cake!

5. Write the post

After researching and jotting down ideas, you can move into the writing phase. It’s as straightforward as it sounds. Turn your ideas and notes into legible sentences and paragraphs.

Assuming your outline flows well, you can keep your top points as your headings and subheadings in your blog post. You can tweak them to make them blog-appropriate, but leaning into that structure can be helpful.

To maintain readability, keeping your sentences and paragraphs somewhat short is important. Large blocks of text and run-on sentences are two surefire ways to lose your readers’ attention.

6. Edit the post

Once the post is complete, it’s time to edit. Read through your work to look for typos and grammatical errors.

It’s also a good idea to use tools like Grammarly and Hemingway App to help pick up mistakes you may have missed.

One tip that can significantly enhance your writing quality is hiring an editor. A professional editor can not only catch grammar and spelling errors but also provide valuable insights into the readability and flow of your writing.

Either way, editing can make a huge difference in whether people actually want to read your blog posts.

Tips for writing engaging blog posts

Now that you’re more familiar with the blog writing process, let’s review a few helpful tips to ensure your blog post is engaging.

Use a catchy title

Creating a catchy title is key to getting people to read your blog post. The title should be compelling and informative.

However, it’s worth noting that “catchy” doesn’t equal “misleading,” so it’s important to avoid using clickbait in your title. Make sure your article delivers everything the title promises, and don’t set false expectations.

Curate for the target audience

Ensuring your blog content is relevant and interesting to your target audience is key. You wouldn’t buy delicious bacon if you were a vegetarian. Consequently, your readers won’t read a blog post that isn’t interesting to them.

That’s why it’s important to define your target audience correctly before writing. You should get to know your audience well so you know exactly what content they are looking for.

For example, users of the platform Salarship mainly use it to find job opportunities, but they also actively read the Salarship blog. This is because the articles are informative and contain insights that are valuable to the reader. They make them feel that they aren’t alone in their professional challenges.

Your blog posts can provide a sense of community to your target audience.

Keep things interesting (but accurate)

One secret to keeping your audience interested is to write about something your audience already cares about.

If your goal is to write about a specific topic, remember that you must first create interest in that topic or find something that your audience has expressed interest in.

Let’s say, for example, your website is in the fashion niche, and a famous designer presented a new collection of linen suits on the catwalk this week. You can take this opportunity to talk about reasons to buy linen suits in your new article while linens are relevant.

On the other hand, if you’re writing in the medical niche, you should cover any topic with the utmost precision and empathy — including sensitive topics like sexually transmitted diseases or Viagra use.

When you use a mix of hot topics and real and raw content, your readers are more likely to trust you and start reading your blog posts for practical purposes.

Use graphics

Although the text is the star of the show with this medium, it’s important to use graphics to break up the text and improve its readability. This could include images, charts, graphs, videos, and gifs.

If you have the bandwidth and resources, you should try your best to create custom graphics for your blog. However, you can also find stock images on sites like Pexels, Shutterstock, and Unsplash.

You can also find images on Google, but it’s important to filter your results to those eligible for commercial use.

Final thoughts

With so many great tools available at your fingertips, writing a blog post is easier than ever.

And publishing high-quality blog content is great for improving your brand’s discoverability and connecting with your target audience.

So now that you know how to write a blog post, are you ready to start writing?

Featured Image by Amelia Bartlett on Unsplash

The post How to Write Blog Posts That People Actually Want to Read appeared first on noupe.

When you sit down and think about creating a visual identity for your business, you may not think about starting with your marketing strategy first. 

In fact, some brands go straight to creating their visuals before taking the time to understand who they’re serving and how they plan to market to them. This is a huge disadvantage as the visuals completely dismiss the company’s overarching mission and aren’t tailored to the audience it serves.

In other words, if you want to reach your target audience and remain impressionable, you need to create a visual identity in line with your mission and their needs. 

If you’re interested in giving this a go but don’t know where to start, we’re here to help. 

In today’s article, we’re breaking down how to create a visual identity for your business through your marketing strategy. 

Ready for the details?

Let’s begin.

Outline your brand mission 

Your mission is the most important part of your visual identity. So, in this step, start by outlining your company’s overarching vision.

Think about it. What do you hope to achieve in the next year? Two years? Five years? 10 years?

For instance, maybe you run a graphic design freelance collective, but you’re aiming to scale it into a full-out design and marketing agency in the next two years. 

Or, maybe you run a US eCommerce store and you’re interested in branching out to international markets in the next year. Whatever the case may be, be as specific as possible.

Next, consider your audience. Who do you help and why? Why should they care about you? And how do you help them exactly? For instance, maybe you help mompreneurs create their logo, visual elements, website design, and blog design. If you feel like you need some inspiration when creating your visual identity, startup books can be a goldmine of guidance and advice to get your ideas flowing.

Next, write out your long-term goals, short-term goals, and company milestone goals. For instance, if you run a SaaS company, your goals and milestones may include:

• Long-term goal: Acquire multiple SaaS startups and reach unicorn status
• Short-term goals: Grow customer base by 20% to 25% every quarter 
• Milestone goals: Acquire two funding rounds, one in the Spring of 2023 and the second in the Spring of 2024

When you’re finished, use all this information to create your official brand mission. 

Here’s an example: 

“We’re a project management SaaS company that’s passionate about helping project managers shave unnecessary tasks off their workload each week. With our complete all-in-one platform, project managers can plan, track, and execute projects 30% faster than with any other project management tool. Our top mission? Helping project managers become project warriors.”

When you finish your mission statement, add it to the “About” tab or the “Company Mission” tab on your website. 

Next, refer to your brand mission to create a simplified value statement. 

In your value statement, be sure to list who you help and include a CTA.

Here’s an example:

“We help project managers execute projects 30% faster than with any other project management tool. Sign up for a free trial today.”

Finally, add your value statement to your social media bios and as CTAs on your landing pages, website, and blog. 

Get a firm grip on your target audience 

The people you serve will act as your top inspiration when you create your visual identity. So, in this step, get laser-clear on who you serve. Our favorite way to do just that? Create buyer personas. When you create your buyer personas, get super specific on the details. For instance, if you cater to B2C or DTC audience, be sure to include a faux:

• Name
• Age 
• Occupation 
• Purchase habit list
• Needs list
• Pain point list 
• Desire list 

If you serve a B2B audience, be sure to include a faux:

• Company name
• Company start date 
• Company size 
• Company target audience 
• Purchase habit list
• Needs list
• Pain point list 
• Desire list 

Next, strategy ways to create a visual identity in line with your buyer personas.

For instance, CalAmp, a telematics software company, is a perfect example of a company that’s created a solid visual identity through its marketing strategy. With its clear target audience in mind, CalAmp has structured its visual identity to convey its professionalism and flexibility in the telematics industry.

In this example, we especially love the professional images CalAmp uses to speak directly to highlight the audience it serves. 

To follow suit, consider creating website icons, banners, and professional images that speak to your ideal customer, too.

For instance, if you sell baking supplies, you might take professional images of bakers using your supplies in their professional kitchens. Or you might create bakery-themed icons, such as cupcake icons, cookie icons, and pie icons to use in place of bullets when you create your product list.

And speaking of icons, some businesses use symbols and icons to convey who they help and how in an easy-to-understand way. For instance, VPSBG has a service that allows customers to pay for a VPS with BTC. To make this process easier to understand, VPSBG breaks down its features using simple paragraphs with assigned symbols. 

Here’s what that looks like:

If you’re interested in adding symbols to your website, we recommend hiring a designer to create custom icons for you. You can also test out some free vector graphics to discover what kinds of icons look best before officially hiring a designer. 

Identify the problems you solve and the mood and feelings you want to evoke

In the next step, it’s time to uncover what root problems you solve and what kind of mood and feelings you’d like to evoke. 

For instance, if you’re a real estate agent for first-time home buyers, you likely solve problems such as:

• Walking customers through required documents and all legal processes
• Holding customers’ hands throughout inspections, appraisals, and last-minute home repairs and renovations 
• Helping customers locate homes according to their specified criteria 
• Helping customers understand how their loan and mortgage payments will work 

After you’ve outlined the problems you solve, consider the feelings you’d like to evoke in your audience. If we refer to the same example, you’d likely want to evoke a sense of calm and ease in your first-time buyers. 

In this case, maybe you’d choose color palettes, fonts, and visuals representing peace, relaxation, and a sense of home. 

For instance, you might use calm colors, such as sage, cream, linen, and tan. You might also go with an easeful font, such as Calm Gray or Calmine Font Duo. 

And as far as images go, you’d probably use professional photos of staged, cozy homes — maybe even with candid, happy families in some of them. 

With that said, let’s take a look at some real brand examples:

Our first example is Luxury Presence, a luxury real estate website design platform that focuses on evoking a sense of… you guessed it: luxury and class. 

As such, Luxury Presence uses high-end and classic colors, fonts, and images to establish its mood. Take a look at its black-and-white palette and classic font style to see what we mean:

Another example is the all-in-one trading journal, TradeZella. 

TradeZella took mood and feelings to a whole new level when it created a character and tool named Zella to help its customers analyze and optimize trading activity. The tool design looks like it’s straight off of Wall Street, helping to further establish a trading theme.

Choose theme sets in line with your marketing strategy

Make your life easier by investing in theme sets in line with your marketing strategy. 

For instance, grab some poster templates from Picsart, use email marketing templates from ActiveCampaign, and sort through social media marketing templates from Social Curator.

Having collections of theme sets like this ready-to-go can shave hours off of your marketing team’s efforts and remove unnecessary design burdens. 

If you prefer to go custom, consider hiring a designer to create custom theme sets for your brand. 

Whichever method you choose, be sure to finalize your colors, logo, visual elements, and any other visual identity details before settling on your themes. 

Why? To build a visual reputation, it’s important that all of your theme sets stay congruent, so don’t skip this step. Psst: We have a checklist for you in the next step that walks you through each visual detail you need to create!

For instance, let’s say you’ve chosen the following:

• Colors: Black, purple, silver, sparkling white
• Logo: A silver moon with a black and purple outline 
• Icons: A star icon, moon phase icons, and a planet icon
• Graphics: Moon, stars, galaxies, rockets
• Font: Asheboroby by Parker Creative

In this case, you’ll need to make sure that your theme sets include the same colors and visual elements listed above before implementing them. 

For instance, maybe you could include black and purple colors detailed with star and moon icons in your email marketing templates. And maybe you can bedazzle your poster templates with rocket graphics and shooting stars.

Whatever the case may be, make sure all of your theme sets look consistent across the board. 

Add your visuals 

Now that you have a firm grasp on your brand mission, target audience, the problems you solve, and the feelings you want to evoke, it’s time to finalize and add your visuals. 

Here’s a checklist you can use to organize the process:

• Finalize your color palettes, fonts, and visual icons
• Create a custom logo and add it to your company branding materials, website, blog, and email signature line
• Add your brand mission statement to your About tab or Company Mission tab on your website 
• Add your value statement in your social media bios and ensure your profile photos evoke the mood you’re aiming for 
• Revamp your landing pages to include your dedicated color palettes, images, and icons 
• Finalize your email newsletter design or choose from themed templates
• Revamp your website with your color palettes, fonts, visual icons, and professional images
• Create a professional welcome video in line with the mood and feelings you’d like to evoke and add it to the homepage of your website
• Design your physical products, product labels, and print materials using your dedicated palettes, fonts, and visual icons
• Hire a photographer to shoot professional images related to the mood you’d like to convey — stick to the same color palettes when shooting your photos
• Revamp the look and feel of your blog so it’s congruent with your website, landing pages, and social media profiles 
• Hire a copywriter to refresh the copywriting on your website, landing pages, and related marketing channels 
• Batch your social media content 90 days out and make sure it’s in line with your theme sets, colors, and the mood you’d like to convey

Wrap up 

Ready to create a visual identity in line with your marketing strategy and audience’s unique needs? 

We hope the steps we shared today are helping you breathe a sigh of relief as you move one step closer to building a visual identity that sells. 

For good measure, here’s a quick recap of the steps we shared today:

• Outline your brand mission
• Get a firm grip on your target audience 
• Identify the problems you solve and the mood and feelings you want to evoke
• Choose theme sets in line with your marketing strategy
• Add your visuals

And that’s it, friends. Now, go forth and create a visual identity you and your customers can be proud of. To your success!

The post How to Create a Visual Identity for your Business Through Marketing Strategy appeared first on noupe.