Influencer Marketing in Fintech

Influencer marketing is a viable way to expand your brand’s reach on social media, attract new audiences, tell people who you are and what you do, explain the purpose and prospects of your product. This type of marketing is a fusion of conventional and next-gen promotion tools. Essentially, it implies advertising your product in partnership with an online celebrity with a large audience. Such celebrities are called influencers.

Most influencers have spent months building their army of fans. This is why their fans are very loyal to what their opinion leader says.

You must have come across some Internet influencers amongst YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter bloggers that see millions of readers and viewers. But have you ever thought that these popular people could advertise your product to their followers? If you haven’t, you might be missing out on an easy start.

Influencer marketing has become an integral part of fintech marketing without which it is barely possible to promote a product amongst the general public. We will tell you how it can benefit your company.

What influencer marketing is

Advertisers used to partner with offline celebrities. But in the digital world, content creators with specific audiences can deliver higher value to brands than advertising from any global celebrity of yesteryear. Even small social media profiles have thousands of active followers, let alone those with millions of devotees.

One of the earliest cases of such marketing was a campaign for horror film ‘As Above, So Below’ with YouTube blogger PewDiePie. Together with the creators of the film about French catacombs, he made a series of videos in which he took challenges in terrifying places. That was perfect content for 27 million followers (as of 2014; today, PewDiePie’s follower count has passed 111 million). And the blogger saw twice as many views as the film trailer. The campaign was a complete win-win, for PewDiePie and for the film.

This shining example helps us define influence marketing as a way to advertise a product or a brand with the help of respected bloggers or opinion leaders famous on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Telegram, and other platforms.

Influencer marketing implies that you cooperate with high-impact bloggers. Why them? Just because they serve broad—and loyal—audiences and thus can affect opinions. This is why companies pay them for promoting products or services.

What you should know about influencer marketing

• In 2022, spend on influencer marketing reached $16.4 billion.
• Companies earn $5.2 from each dollar invested in influencer marketing.
• For 2021, 75% of marketers in the U.S. actively used influencer marketing to promote brands and products.
• In 2021, platforms utilising influencer marketing attracted $800 million in investment.
• In just one day in October 2021, popular Chinese streamers Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya sold $3 billion worth of merchandise. That’s three times Amazon’s average daily sales volume.
• In 2021, Netflix was the most popular brand on TikTok.
• Over the past 5 years, 1360 platforms and agencies have entered the influencer marketing market.
• Since 2016, the number of searches for ‘influencer marketing’ on Google has increased by 465%.
• 80% of brands used YouTube and Instagram as influencer marketing platforms.
• 67% of brands used YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok as influencer marketing platforms.

Who influencers are

Let’s define who an influencer is. Basically, an influencer is a person having authority and popularity in a certain niche. Influencers are often called opinion leaders because they enjoy recognition and see crowds of admirers on social media — being able to influence them with calls and content.

A popular Instagram photographer, a well-read cyber security enthusiast sharing thoughts on Twitter, a respected head of fintech from LinkedIn — all these people can be influencers. There are powerful people in every vertical and market. You just need to find them.

Some have hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of followers. But many look like regular social media users seeing no more than 10,000 subscribers. But they all have earned a reputation as experts in this field. These professionals respond to questions from other people, explain complicated things, and publish the most noteworthy content on their topics.

Types of influencers

Influencers can be categorised by audience size:

• Extra-big influencers (the most expensive): over a million followers.
• Macro influencers: 50,000 to 1,000,000 followers.
• Micro influencers: 10,000 to 50,000 followers.
• Nano influencers (the most budget-friendly): < 10,000 followers.

We can also group influencers by type of activity:

• Bloggers. They develop their social media profiles or blogs.
• Fashion bloggers. They create beauty and fashion content, and advertise apparel, accessories, and fragrances.
• Beauty bloggers. They publish content about cosmetics, care products, makeup, tattoos, and hairstyles. They also advertise cosmetics brands.
• Travel bloggers. They share content about travelling and culture of other countries, all with high-quality visuals. They promote gadgets, hiking gear, hotels, travel agencies, and airlines.
• Lifestyle bloggers. They showcase a lifestyle, share tips and thoughts, and help instil useful habits. They advertise food, digital technology, gadgets, cosmetics — any brands related to their concept.
• Food bloggers. They share recipes, tell about tasting sessions, and restaurant business. They usually advertise food and restaurants.
• Fitness bloggers. They create content devoted to healthy lifestyle, sports, and exercising. They advertise supplements, sports nutrition, vitamins, and food.
• Celebrities. Actors, models, singers, journalists, athletes, and other celebrities popular not only on social media but also in conventional media.
• Content creator. These people—artists, musicians, designers, writers—create artistic content. Some of them are celebrities.
• Experts. People widely known in a certain industry. Lawyers, physicians, marketers, programmers, stylists.
• Personal brands. People who have built their personal brand associated with a specific activity.

Besides, you can also sort opinion leaders by social media platforms where they are popular. For example, YouTube influencers, Instagram influencers, TikTok influencers and others.

How to choose an influencer to cooperate with

When you decide to partner with an opinion leader or influencer, you might recall such celebrities as Paris Hilton, Dwayne Johnson, even Lil Pump. But while these people are considered one of the most powerful influencers, not all opinion leaders enjoy such great fame.

In fact, you don’t always need an extra-famous person for your campaign. An influencer with around 15,000 followers, who is respected and famous in their vertical, can bring a better result than a large blogger with millions of irrelevant subscribers.

For example, you decide between an entertainment blogger with a million followers and an influencer with a smaller audience (a few thousand followers) and content devoted to financial services and crypto projects. Who will you choose?

At first glance, it seems that a larger blogger is much more appealing considering their reach. But the actual benefit of advertising on their profile is questionable. If you take a deeper look at their audience, you will find out that most of their followers are teenagers, while the others aren’t interested in any ads whatsoever. Almost all of them subscribed to this blogger for entertainment. Don’t expect any good reception from them when your partner introduces your fintech brand.

On the other hand is an influencer who only serves 10 to 20 thousand followers. And cooperating with them can be a way more productive affair. Their audience is focused on fintech and thus more eager to learn about your brand.

You need to do some research before you find the best option for promoting your product or your brand:

1. Analyse dozens or even hundreds of influencers.
2. Study their audience.
3. Review their content.
4. Define the topic.
5. Compare promotion rates.

If you don’t have a seasoned influencer relations specialist, you can come to Polygant. Contact us on Telegram or use the feedback form to learn how our influencer relations manager can help your company.

How to streamline cooperation with influencers

A powerful influencer marketing consists of 5 stages.

Define your goals

The main purpose of influencer marketing is attracting new target customers. And the opinion leader you partner with is also interested in cooperation, since such a campaign can expand their reach.

Remember that your mission is just to attract prospects. They don’t have to buy from you or do anything on your website. This is the third goal of your campaign; the second one is boosting brand and product awareness.

Learn who you will influence

For starters, identify your audience. Then make a list of potential opinion leaders. This way you will make sure you understand who you are going to partner with. You might either address a large part of your existing audience or reach a whole new market.

Trust is king when you decide on your future partner. It’s critical that your audience has confidence in what your influencers say. Without it, any results will be sketchy — and you won’t see any significant benefit.

How do you know whether people trust a potential opinion leader? Take note of views, likes, shares, and comments. You will see segments of followers you are going to reach. What reflects the true loyalty is a high engagement level, rather than an inflated follower count that can be achieved with fakes and bots.

Do some research

Check what potential influencers publish. How often do they advertise brands or products? If their followers are tired of their sponsored posts, engagement won’t remain healthy for too long. It’s better to go with those sharing much free content to maintain followers’ enthusiasm and interest.

When you start cooperating with an influencer, always take into account the frequency of your posts and their posts. If you ask them to output a bunch of posts in a row, a smart influencer may not accept your offer, even if you pay high. They care more about the loyalty of their followers.

Sought-after opinion leaders usually have an inbox full of various offers. This is why they can reject many of them. When you approach an influencer, show them you have studied what they are doing. And make sure you do know what their profiles are about and who their followers are.

Establish direct communication

It may take you a while to compose a good proposal. But this way you will demonstrate that you are serious about your potential partnership. This will boost your chances of clinching a deal.

Provide as much information about your brand and product as you can. Tell what you are going to achieve with your campaign. Explain to the influencer how you can benefit them besides the reward.

Measure your performance

When you launch your campaign with an influencer, you may want to focus on likes and comments as target indicators. If a famous opinion leader has too many followers, you may be astonished by loads of likes landing on your post or video.

Don’t be fooled. This is not a result you need. You should monitor and analyse the following important indicators:

• Visits to your website
• New users
• Users who stayed with you after a few days
• Users who showed activity on your website

Look for an influencer yourself or go to a company?

So you now know what to remember when looking for a relevant influencer who will present you to their audience in the best light to boost your brand awareness and attract new customers. But now you ask yourself: how do I find an influencer that will be my best partner in promoting my products on the web?

Partnering with an irrelevant opinion leader may result in budget wasting. But if you make the right choice but you approach your potential partner for the first time, they will only offer you a basic rate (just because you will be a new customer amongst thousands of existing ones). But if you come to them through an influencer marketing agency, you are likely to get better rates because of agency’s status as a long-standing client.

This is why we recommend that you approach a company who has cooperated with influencers for years and will choose the perfect opinion leaders for you. Here are the benefits of such a way:

• Saving time and money
• Acquiring new customers
• Boosting brand awareness and enhancing company reputation
• Sales growth

Polygant has been in the influencer marketing industry for over 10 years. We have a number of successful cases and 100+ satisfied clients. Call or write to us, and we will tell you how we will promote your brand through partnerships with opinion leaders.