Why Influencer Content Should Fuel Your Performance Marketing Channels

A growing number of brands are moving away from planning expensive and time-consuming professional shoots, and instead working with influencers to source all of their branded content. By working with influencers to develop, source, and repurpose content, marketers can increase ROI while lowering costs. 

In a recent webinar, our Senior Director of Strategy, Magda Houalla, unpacked the value of influencer content and how to leverage it to fuel all of your performance marketing channels. Keep reading for the top takeaways.

There’s a universal need among brands for high-performing content.

The content landscape is changing. Brands used to create all content in-house, then moved on to working with influencers to create aspirational content. But now with a bigger focus on authenticity, brands work with their wider community to generate content that inspires real action. 

Now, successful branded content encompasses these qualities:

• Show vs. tell: An influencer showcasing how to use the product is much more appealing than an influencer simply mentioning it. Whether it’s a try-on clothing haul or a step-by-step makeup tutorial, people want to see demonstrations of the products that you’re selling so they can better understand what they’re spending their money on.
• “Lo-fi” content: Today’s audiences are looking for content that isn’t overproduced. Authentic and relatable content, such as honest taste tests and real before-and-after pictures, are what draw people in. 
• Created by everyone: Follower count doesn’t matter anymore. Everyone has influence in their own circle and people care more about relatable experiences over an influencer’s following.
• Video-focused: Video content has continuously risen in popularity over the last few years, and it’s not slowing down. Short-form video content is particularly worth investing in. In fact, 90% of marketers will increase or maintain their investment in short-form video in 2023.
• Evolving brand marketing strategies: As the industry evolves, so should your marketing strategies. For example, as paid budgets get cut, the most savvy performance marketers are investing in influencer marketing to stretch their dollars and optimize their ads with high-performing content. 

Creators can now fully fuel your content engine.

As marketers, we’re always looking for solutions that help us cut costs where we can, while still bringing in impressive results — especially as we navigate this difficult economic climate. That being said, we know that content creation can be one area that consistently swallows a major chunk of your brand’s budget each year

The good news is that engaging, relatable, and authentic content is everywhere these days. In the new world of brand marketing, the most impactful content can be created by anyone, not just someone with a large following on social media. While influencer-generated content (IGC) has many benefits, user-generated content (UGC) is just as powerful today. 

How do the two differ? 

• User-generated content (UGC): Content created by anyone who has used your product or service, and does not always have to go live on social media.
• Influencer-generated content (IGC): content created specifically by someone who is influential on social media, and oftentimes this content also goes live on their social channels.

User-generated content is completely organic, whether it’s a review on your website or an Instagram post from a customer sporting your brand’s clothes. This means that a customer loves your brand so much that they’re willing to tag your brand on social, leave raving reviews, and spread word-of-mouth praise to their friends and family. In the same way IGC allows you to have a familiar face representing your brand, UGC provides the social proof that consumers are looking for. 

So, what does all this mean for your brand? 

It’s time to leverage the content these creators are producing to fuel all of your branded channels. 

Benefits of UGC/IGC vs. brand-directed content:  

• Lower production costs: The cost of outsourcing content from influencers and consumers is significantly less than putting together a photoshoot.
• Better performing content: UGC and IGC are created by people from all walks of life, allowing the content to resonate with a large group of people on a more personal level.
• Custom tailor messaging to specific audience: Because UGC and IGC are widely available, it’s easy to personalize messages and feed relatable content to all of your different audience segments.
• Year round turnkey access to content: Leveraging UGC and IGC empowers you to have access to an always-on content engine. Content sourcing can be dependent on real users, rather than just in-house content creation efforts. 
• Algorithmic benefits: Algorithms are prioritizing the paid creator content, which means putting spend behind IGC will likely provide high returns.

Repurpose influencer content to stretch its impact. 

Traditional influencer marketing campaigns are already proven to boost ROI, but repurposing IGC can take your business to the next level.  Repurposing content is not only a quick and cost-effective way to fuel all of your branded channels, but it’s also proven to bring in high returns. In fact, influencer content garners double the engagement of brand-directed content, and ads using this kind of content get 4x higher click-through rates. 

Make sure you have the proper usage rights to reuse IGC or UGC — then get to work!

For performance marketers, these are the best channels to repurpose content to make a big impact: 

• Email marketing: Keep your assets relevant to the different segments you target. For example, if you sell vitamins for a wide range of age groups, you can leverage UGC from your mom community to target other parents, and repurpose IGC from a recognizable wellness influencer to reach your millennial and Gen Z audience. Additionally, you can create FOMO by adding UGC and IGC to abandoned cart emails. 
• Website: Highlighting UGC and IGC throughout your site will create a socially optimized web experience. More importantly, it’ll improve conversion rate on product pages by showing real people interacting with your products. Lean into the trust that consumers have with one another. 
• Paid social ads: Repurposing IGC on paid social ads is a no-brainer, as the content is already native to the platforms. By putting spend behind IGC, you not only leverage the visually striking content, but also the influencer’s namesake. This practice has proven to be successful for lowering CPA while improving ROI.

But the possibilities are endless! Marketing channels like organic social media and even out-of-home ads are great outlets for influencer content, as well. 

As content creation costs get more expensive, it’s time to put your dollars where they matter. Collaborate across teams to produce high-quality, high-performing content at scale, then repurpose it to boost all of your branded channels.

For more actionable tips on this topic, watch the full webinar, Using Influencer Content to Fuel Your Performance Marketing Channels.

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