Let's take a look at the top 5 trends in the influencer marketing industry of 2020, and get prepared for your next successful influencer marketing campaign.
1. Influencer marketing will have a place in the marketing industry and become more and more influential in the future.
Influencer marketing has survived the test of the market that the average return of media value per each dollar spent is $5.20 and the growth of the influencer marketing reaches as high as 4.6 billion in 2018 (the trend is likely to continue in 2019 and 2020). In fact, according to Mediakix, 80% of marketers surveyed finds influencer marketing to be effective.
After seeing the benefit and potential of influencer marketing, the brands, of course, decides to follow the trend.
For instance, a micro influencer and a team of wife and husband, Sam Schuerma, was invited to takeover the Instagram page of T.J.Maxx which gives Sam Schuerma a challenge to buy as many great gifts with the $50 given to them.
According to Influencer Marketing Hub, 86% of marketers are willing to put a specific budget for influencer marketing in 2019.
Thanks to the influx of funds, influencer marketing has begun to make more use of email marketing, internet marketing, and content marketing models which will increase the flexibility of influencer marketing and helps it to take root in the market as it becomes more mature.
2. AI and machine learning will become the driving force of influencer marketing.
AI and machine learning will be the primary solutions for improving measurability, finding return on investment, and authenticity of followers or subscribers. From eliminating spam with image recognition to determining effectiveness of market campaigns with language processing, AI and machine learning is starting to be applied on a large scale in the market as it’s more and more important to maintain a healthy community for users while keeping up with public to react as fast as possible. Works such as tracking ROI can be easily done by AI search engine rather than calculated by hand. According to CapGemini, 84% of marketing organizations are implementing or expanding AI and machine learning in 2018 to increase their efficiency.
3. Instagram’s action of eliminating fake followers will brings a large reform to the influencer marketing industry.
The brands’ marketing engagement rates are not depend solely on the quality of the contents generated by the influencers and their size of the followers due to gray industry of buying followers and using content farm. The elimination of the fake followers might hit many fake influencers, but it also allows the brand to be confident to invest in influencers find by themselves. According to a survey done by Influencer Marketing Hub, 64% of marketers surveyed are concerned with influencer marketing fraud. This elimination would definitive help to marketers to reduce the risk of fraud and potential loss in the future.
4. All major influencers will also launch their own brands.
In 2018, many far-sighted influencers, who are tired of sharing profit with third party and the lack of control, have achieved great success by launching their own brands.
For instance, Kylie Jenner, an influencer with 138 million of follower on Instagram, started her own brand called Kylie Cosmetics which generated almost $1 billion valuation this year.
By using their close relationship with followers, the influencers can easily sway their audiences’ decision since people are more familiar with their influencers than the brands which they might never heard of. According to the Fashion Law, almost 99% of recent polled consumers said that they discover new brands and products from the influencer they followed.
As more and more influencers starts to enter the market by using their influence among followers, the other brands might need to prepare to respond to this shift of market in order to survive in this completion that getting intense. Celebrities like Rihanna, Kim Kardashian, Kylie Jenner, and top influencers like Jeffree Star, Wayne Goss have built up their own beauty brands quite successfully.
5. Each company will set up an online marketing team in the future, and the demand for talents with multiple backgrounds will increase.
Same as with other marketing areas, companies are seeking for more influencers with different variations to be included in their brand promotional activities to expand their potential consumer base. This will lead to changes in the demand for talent in the entire industry, because traditional influencer marketing can no longer meet the promotion needs of the brands. To increase their influence among the public, the brands need to expose their product to as many target users as possible.
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