Introduction

In today’s digital landscape, we have various means of digital marketing that can be leveraged efficiently. There are trends in digital marketing that also affect the implementation of marketing strategies in the long run. In Calicut, even though digital marketing strategies mainly focus on SEO, SEM, SMM, email marketing, etc., sometimes strategies like influencer marketing get missed. 

It’s also necessary that these marketing methods be utilised effectively so that businesses can turn their expected profits into results. To understand this, let’s discuss influencer marketing and how it can be leveraged in Calicut. 

What’s Influencer Marketing?

Influencer marketing is a way of utilising the power of influencers while marketing a product. By the way, influencer is a much more familiar term; influencers are people with the best following on digital platforms who also have the potential to express whatever gets into their minds. 

In this era, we have many options when it comes to both physical and online shopping. When they already have many followers on their respective platforms, these influencers can also generate sales for a physical store. 

There are many influencers in Calicut, and most businesses look forward to making them recognisable among the audience and engaging them in buying their products. 

Influencer Marketing: An Overview

As we have discussed what influencer marketing is, let’s learn more about it by explaining its features, types, and advantages. 

Features

Influencer marketing is utilised for its features, such as engaging more people, creating anything that can influence and target customers, and building credibility for a specific brand or business. 

Types

Influencers are classified into mega, macro, micro, and nano influencers based on their followers. They can be elaborated as follows:-

  • Mega ( +1 million followers) are mostly celebrity influencers, and branding is extended to luxury standards. 
  • Macro (100K to 1 million followers) are suitable for more extensive reach campaigns than mega. 
  • Micro (10k to 100k followers) can be chosen for brands with particular niches without making an overcommercial. 
  • Nano (1k to 10k followers) is a choice for most brands as they can attract customers by identifying their pain points and letting them know about them.

Advantages

Influencer marketing is a popular and effective method for marketing a product based on how users may feel. Therefore, content becomes significant, where influencers can specialise in several formats. Content like blogs, vlogs, podcasts, videos, etc., are some formats influencers can choose to attract an audience. Some of the main benefits of influencer marketing are as follows:-

  • Diversify the audience and attract better from them.
  • Engaging the people by creating engaging content. 
  • Unleash storytelling and boost ROI. 
  • Improved understanding of the customers and market. 

Leveraging Local Influencers in Calicut

It’s essential to have local influencers to lead an influencer marketing campaign. Most people at a regional level tend to rely on what these influencers say, which might be due to the belief that locals are better off explaining about the locality. Yet, there are some basic ideas when it comes to leveraging influencer marketing in Calicut. Let’s follow it in this section:-

  1. Identifying the Right Influencer

Identifying one right influencer among the thousands of local influencers can be very hard. You can simplify that task by collecting and classifying the influencers into specific categories. Some influencers can align perfectly with the niche, engagement, and local appeal. A local influencer has to maintain these three criteria. Yet, if they are good with one among them, influencers can be chosen based on their presentation, editing, experience, and such. For example, industries like real estate may need good influencers who can also meet business goals. 

  1. Setting Clear Business Objectives 

Businesses, even in the digital world, have objectives. These objectives can affect influencer marketing campaigns and results. A range of businesses, like small, medium and large-scale businesses, choose influencers according to what they expect to attain by employing them. Small-scale businesses might not opt for advertisements, yet a video can boost their businesses’ visibility and generate leads. Expanding businesses may opt to increase the visibility of both their online and physical stores. Other than this, goals like customer engagement and increased conversions can also affect influencer marketing campaigns. 

  1. Exploring and Creating Engaging Content

Creating content depends on how one influencer understands the customer’s ideals and preferences. The content itself is wide enough to be discussed. Even though there are content formats like blogs, videos, podcasts, etc., it can be a time-consuming task, but it should connect to the local audience through its linguistic dialect and cultural references. Additionally, storytelling can be included so that people can follow the idea the influencers are trying to convey. Such attractive content includes review videos, vlogs, shorts on YouTube, and Instagram reels. 

  1. Being Open to Collaboration

Collaborations with local influencers can be another way of giving exposure to a newly launched product or its variations. For events like in-store experiences, live Q&A sessions, or product launches, you also open doors to collaborations with local influencers in the present and future. Try using hashtags that can specifically get the audience’s attention and engage them in a campaign. To turn the influencers on your side, enabling them to promote any exclusive or limited edition products is better. You can also make influencers part of your affiliate marketing program. 

  1. Understanding Digital Platforms

With several digital platforms today, there are influencers on each of them. Influencers create content and attract their audience depending on how these platforms work. As a business owner, you have to be aware of the particular activities these local influencers take and engage their followers. Platforms like TikTok is banned in India, and the influencers who have gained much popularity are now content creators on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc. The majority of influencers today are very popular content creators, and they have the best of the best ideas to engage a person in the digital space. Leveraging such a quality of an influencer can help businesses understand how customers can actually communicate with the brand. 

  1. Measuring Campaigns 

An influencer marketing campaign is expected to produce results, and there is room for new ideas and improvements. Thus, measuring and analysing these campaigns has become a core part of marketing and businesses. The likes, shares, comments, and any other campaign interactions are to be analysed using tools like Google Analytics or social media insights. As ROI also matters for your business, learn more about affiliate links and discount codes that can be helpful in sales soon. 

  1. Boosting the Branding into Credible

Branding and credibility go hand in hand if the campaigns are run, building trust and reputation for the brand. For any small or large product, if it’s use is explained, and its marketing is done sincerely for the users, it can be titled as a brand. Even though branding lies in the purchases and satisfaction of the users, you can boost the current level of branding, which can attract attention and awareness about the brand. Branding can vary based on business types like B2C, B2B, and D2C businesses. 

Common Challenges

Influencer marketing, part of digital marketing, is the most opted marketing strategy today. Utilising an influencer’s creativity and ideas is very influential in deciding whether the campaign itself is successful or not. Therefore, there are common challenges that can significantly impact businesses. Let’s list some of them:-

  • Finding influencers at the right time. 
  • Gaps in conveying the promotional content and expected content. 
  • Lack of decision-making on campaign goals. 
  • Partial knowledge of digital marketing.

Conclusion

Let’s summarise our discussion on leveraging influencer marketing, especially the local influencers in a city like Calicut. For local influencers, marketing involves strategising local tastes and preferences as well as their purchases. This article also provides an overview and common challenges of influencer marketing, from which you can understand in detail about it. 

Aviv Digital is one of the leading Digital marketing course in calicut. We offer a wide variety of globally recognized certification programs that include SEO, SEM, SMM, Email Marketing and Inbound Marketing courses. For more details, Contact us at: +91 8156998844