How To
What Benefits Influencers Can Add To Your Beverage Marketing Strategy
People all over the world are becoming more and more influenced by the thoughts or actions of opinion leaders. The traditional advertising is becoming less popular and trusted, and the reviews of particular influencers on some product or service are gaining more popularity. Be it YouTube, Instagram or Twitter, every social media has its users, and the bloggers and professional writers are right here ready to advise.
What is the nature of influence marketing and how to deal with it?
Influence marketing is a relatively new kind of marketing which provides the collaboration with some particular blogger or opinion leader. This type of marketing has become very popular amidst beverages brands, as the main purpose of it is a personal influence by someone trusted to create the positive opinion about the brand amidst thousands of followers.
Influencers can speak about products in different ways and on the different social media. They have an impact on people’s decision on what to eat, what to drink, which hotel to choose, where to go and along those lines. That’s why it is crucial for brands to pick the right influencer who can be associated with the style of the brand.
What are the advantages of influence marketing to beverage brands?
It was defined, that the collaboration with opinion leaders has three main advantages: it helps during the decision-making process, builds the positive image of the brand and speaks to the right audience.
- The impact on decision making. A few years ago when a customer was going to purchase something, he (she) took into account the advertising he saw, the popularity of the brand and it’s image on the market. Now things changed. In the age of Marketing 3.0, which focuses on personal values, the opinion of every individual count. Customers are more likely to trust some real people rather than the brands. That’s why a cool opinion leader drinking Coca-Cola will cause a better effect on sales, than the TV advertising of the company.
- Builds the positive image of the brand. When the new brand enters the market, it is crucial for the future development to create a positive opinion among the target audience. Also, for the brands that are already popular, it’s important to take care of the reputation and to evolve the brand’s name. In both cases, the influencers marketing can be used.
- Speaking to the right audience. Every opinion leader has the whole army of his (her) followers, ready to perceive valuable information about the products or services. As said before, the collaboration with the influencer should be built on the common values, personal style and a specific area of interests. For example, the natural smoothies brand would rather work with the vegetarians or sportswomen, who are mostly interested in such products. Therefore, their audience is likely to have the similar lifestyle.
How do opinion leaders influence the beverages market
Today, with the new beverage brands raising on the market every day, catching the attention of a potential customer isn’t that simple. Much less persuading him (her) to buy the product. That’s why collaboration with bloggers and opinion leaders have become a new trend used by many beverage companies. We studied some examples of such collaboration and highlighted the most interesting below.
Coca-cola #ThisOnesFor
Recently the Coca-Cola invited 14 Instagram bloggers to participate in the Instagram campaign #ThisOnesFor, focused on raising the popularity of classic Coke drink in Western Europe. The opinion leaders created 22 posts during this campaign, and in every post, they mentioned the person they would share the Coke with.
Peet’s Coffee at Coachella
The brand of coffee called Peet’s used in their campaign Coachella festival as an opportunity for promotion of cold coffee. The brand invited millennial bloggers that have a different lifestyle and, therefore, different followers to show that their cold coffee suits every lifestyle.
Heineken at Coachella
Similar to Peet’s coffee, the Heineken was aimed to promote their beer amidst millennials. So they created the whole house at Coachella with their own musical performances and free beer for guests. For this campaign, Heineken invited the whole range of millennial Instagram bloggers.
Absolut vodka
When launching the Absolut Elyx, the Absolut brand set a range of VIP parties for opinion leaders of different types and industries: business executives, musicians, social media bloggers, etc. After every party, the influencers gave feedback about the new drink and created buzz over it.
So, how to use influencer marketing effectively and what impact can an influencer have on the marketing strategy as a whole?
Influencers are the new celebrities, and they promote nearly everything – from food and drinks to car services. That’s why beverage companies have started to collaborate with bloggers and opinion leaders years ago. How do they do it?
There are several ways to collaborate with an opinion leader during the marketing campaign:
- A company can invite a particular blogger for direct collaboration in terms of some marketing campaign. Such a strategy will create the valid message sent to a particular audience in the real-time (for example, post with a photo of the product);
- Brands can collaborate with opinion leaders through events. In this case, the message to the audience will be sent afterword (for example, post with a review on some event);
- The company can invite a blogger to become the brand’s ambassador. In this case, an influencer will post relevant information about the brand, host events and create a positive image of the company during a longer period.
These are the main ways to collaborate with an influencer. But there can be much more of them created in terms of the marketing strategy. Depending on the purpose of the marketing strategy, a company can choose only a couple of macro bloggers with the defined audience to collaborate with or to cooperate with macro and microbloggers, host events for influencers, buy the “review posts” etc.
Nevertheless, being one of the most effective promotion methods in the 2018 year, influencer marketing cannot be neglected.
