What is Confluence Marketing and How Will It Prevail in 2020?
by | Nov 25, 2019
As 2019 comes to a close, it’s time to start thinking about the new year and the inevitable changes in the world of communications. It’s no secret that marketers and PR professionals are constantly faced with changes that alter the way we work.
Denying yourself the chance to embrace these changes can hurt your business, causing you to get lost in the mix.
Adapting to new trends and staying on top of transitions will be significant to your success in 2020, but we can’t move forward without taking a look at what’s happened in the past year.
Influencer Marketing in 2019
2019 put influencer marketing in bright, shining lights– and for good reason. Influencers are now ubiquitous and popular with advertisers, resulting in more sales and more exposure for brands.
Check out these mind-blowing stats on influencer marketing:
- According to tapinfluence, influencer-led campaigns generate $23 for every dollar spent — more than five times the number produced by banner ads.
- The influencer marketing industry is on track to be worth up to $15 billion by 2022, up from as much as $8 billion in 2019, according to Business Insider Intelligence estimates, based on Mediakix data.
- Nearly four in five (79%) brands predominantly tap Instagram for influencer campaigns.
- Instagram Usage Grew 10x Over 5 Years.
- Google Searches for Influencer Marketing grew 1500% over 3 Years.
With almost unlimited access to information, buyers are overwhelmed and resorting to influencers for guidance they can trust. According to Traackr, 51% of customers trust authoritative content, 27% trust branded content, and only 22% trust ads.
Confluence Marketing
With competition becoming more fierce, choosing the best possible marketing strategy to deliver sustained growth is paramount. Staying relevant to your buyers is crucial, and you need the right tools to accomplish this.
Queue confluence marketing: The hybrid strategy that merges both content and influence.
By combining content and influence to increase reach and produce high quality referral sources, traffic and conversions have the potential to grow through the roof.
How to Influence the Influencers
So what’s the key to confluence marketing? Building meaningful relationships with influencers.
Seems simple enough, but just how do you do this? By establishing your content with an influencer strategy.
Here are four steps to take for an effective confluence marketing strategy:
Plan
Research and planning is the first step to any compelling marketing strategy, and listening to your influencers is the best place to start when it comes to confluence marketing.
Gain insights by watching how influencers engage with your target audience. Evaluate how they grasp trends that identify opportunities and gaps in the market.
Use their content as inspiration for your own content production and keep up with top stories to stay in-the-know for what’s coming next.
Pro tip? Make friends before you need them.
Create
Involve your influencers in your content creation by curating expert content and adding your own value layer. When curating content, rather than simply pulling together a list of interesting posts from the week, carefully select elements of your influencers’ content and provide additional context, resources, and insight to add value to a larger discussion. Influencers can be helpful but it’s your own expertise that will help you stand out.
Be sure to link your influencers’ content from your article and involve them in your own content creation. This way, you’re publicly giving them credit and helping develop ideas on topics of interest. Establishing a strong relationship can help for future co-creations with other influencers in the market.
Distribute
Reaching the right people in the online community will help drive success. Talk to the influencers who are most relevant to the idea you’re trying to convey. Get them involved by using their hashtags, inviting their commentary, and engaging them in context.
Ready to take your business to the next level? Contact us. We’re here to help.