Here’s how Influencer Marketing can help jewelry brands
11 min read
11 min read
Nowadays influencer marketing – the collaboration between brands and social media personalities with a considerable follower base – is a powerful tool for implementing an effective marketing strategy as it enables businesses to reach large audiences. The approach has been increasingly used over the course of recent few years and thousands of companies have already reaped the benefits. In this article, we will share useful tips that you can implement to make the most of influencer marketing for your jewelry brand.
The influencer marketing industry has grown tremendously over the last few years and its global market size will only continue to expand
The influencer marketing industry has experienced considerable growth in the past few years, with its global market size expanding from $1.7 to $13.8 billion between 2016 and 2021 and projections showing the expectance to reach $16.4 billion in 2022. In 2021, we witnessed a significant increase of 26% in the number of influencer marketing-related businesses and service providers to 18,900 globally. As you can see, influencer marketing is not a novelty in 2022 and we don’t expect to see any drops in its use in future.
The perks that will convince you of the power of influencer marketing
First and foremost, influencer marketing enables brands to expand their reach by accessing large audiences that follow the social media influencer they work with. In this regard, companies can be assured that they can target potential customers who have a particular interest in the area of their operations by collaborating with influencers who usually create related content. For instance, jewelry brands can work very well with beauty or fashion gurus who have a niche social following with specific interests.
In fact, over the last years, there has been a shift in the type of influencers used by brands, resulting in collaborations with micro-influencers in 2019 being 10 times more frequent than those with mega-influencers in comparison to 2016 when they were used only 3 times more often. This upward trend suggests that micro-influencers with less than 100,000 followers are increasingly preferred due to being commonly perceived as experts in specific areas with niche followers particularly interested in their opinions and content compared to mega-influencers and celebrities who are usually followed simply because of how famous they are. Therefore, whilst you may be used to influencer marketing, it is other influencer types you may want to start working with to adapt to market changes.
Furthermore, influencers have over time built strong trust-based relationships with their followers, meaning that their product mentions and endorsements are seen in a way as social proof. If an influencer mentions in their post how much they like a necklace or how good it matches a particular outfit, then their followers will most likely agree and like it too.
According to a 2021 survey published by Statista Research Department, clothes and accessories take the second place among the industries in which influencers are most effective at promoting products or services based on the views of internet users worldwide (45%), with the beauty and personal care sector being the leader in the ranking (53%). While it is a well-known fact that customers depend on and trust influencer recommendations in general, the Statista Global Consumer Survey from 2021 demonstrates influencers’ power over customers’ purchasing decisions across countries, with Germany being one of those where their influence grew the most during the observed time period between 2020 and 2021. This should serve as proof to German brands that while the share of German consumers who are influenced by social media personalities when purchasing products is smaller than that in countries such as Brazil and China, it is experiencing a positive trend which should be taken advantage of.
You are still not entirely convinced of the perks of using influencer marketing? Do you know that 90% of marketers in 2021 consider influencer marketing an effective form of marketing? Besides, influencer marketing activities generate on average $5.78 for each dollar businesses spend on collaborations with influencers. This considerable return on investment rate is evidence of the high profitability of influencer marketing. At the end of the day, boosting sales and achieving big financial gains are at the core of business success, including for jewelry brands.
Here’s how you can make the most of influencer marketing for your brand
Giveaways and special offers are great, exciting ways to get potential customers to engage with your products. For instance, followers can participate in giveaway competitions by following the brand’s account or tagging a friend in the comments. Special offers can also attract new clients who are otherwise unable to buy your product at its original price and can therefore be persuaded by the influencer to buy it, thereby benefitting from a discount. Influencer marketing becomes a powerful tool for your jewelry brand when it comes to special offers due to the widespread belief of internet users in influencers’ effectiveness at promoting accessories as well as the high return on investment of influencer marketing activities.
This essentially means that while you may initially feel like offering a 20% discount will preclude you from achieving the biggest possible financial gains, influencer marketing will actually bring in even higher revenue than what you would originally be able to rely on.
Last but not least, by means of discount codes with the name of the particular influencer and the discount percentage, you can successfully monitor how effective your collaboration with the influencer is over time as well as compare it with the performance of others whom you have worked with in the past.
Caring about your clients goes a long way, and the same applies to your influencer partners. The chances are you are already aware of the practice of gifting influencers with your products in order to spur their interest and the interest of their followers. Yet, instead of sending presents to a few influencers or even mega-influencers, we highly suggest focusing on a few micro-influencers. This approach will demonstrate to followers the brands’ special treatment of the micro-influencer and, accordingly, how they would be treated and taken care of if they decide to make a purchase, too.
Using a micro-influencer, in this case, is a successful strategy since they can post photos of themselves wearing the product or share an unboxing video showing their authentic first impression of your product and your innovative packaging. And, as we have already seen, micro-influencers are considered niche experts with a very concentrated follower base that enjoys their content, shares common interests, and holds similar views. That means that, to an extent, their followers are much more trusting and keen on following micro-influencer advice over something else. If you manage to impress the micro-influencer with your gift, rest assured that you will see their followers’ orders in no time.
Another reason why collaboration with just a handful of micro-influencers is the right move to make is the fact that you will most likely keep working with them, thus deepening the knowledge of their taste. This is how you will actively work on reducing the risk of someone’s refusal to create content promoting your business or sharing a negative review of your product with their followers – by investing in getting to know them better.
Another great way of making the most of influencer marketing is by partnering with your fellow influencer when launching a new product and getting their attention from the get-go – in other words, using them as the face of your brand. The work of Pomellato for Women with Chiara Ferragni or that of the Swiss brand Chopard with her and Léa Seydoux for red carpet events are examples of such collaborations.
As a brand ambassador, the influencer can easily promote new products and product lines when you are working hard on product launches. Having a familiar face creating the hype around something that’s ready to launch will create excitement among both your brands’ regular clients and the influencer’s follower base in advance.
The role of influencer marketing here isn’t a small one. When there is something new on the market, you can always count on hesitation. This is why social proof is crucial here, to serve as a guarantee of quality and satisfaction with the new product. Given that followers usually have a great trust bond going on with their admired influencer, being reassured by them that the new line is worth exploring will easily prompt them to make the final call and buy the new product.
It is worth mentioning that you should give influencers particular guidelines about the presentation of your products to ensure consistency across various channels. Nonetheless, they should always be given freedom and space for creativity and inventiveness in terms of the content they share since they know what will best capture the interest of their own followers.
Once you have established an ongoing relationship with a specific influencer, it’s a good idea to make them part of your brand! An example of a successful partnership where the influencer has designed their own jewelry collection is between the jewelry brand Missoma and Lucy Williams, with the collection having turned out to be Missoma’s best-selling coin necklaces. The world-famous star Sarah Jessica Parker has also designed a high-end jewelry line for Kat Florence.
Giving influencers the freedom to be creative when designing their own jewelry product lines can benefit businesses in a myriad of ways. The influencer will regularly publish photos of themselves with the products and give recommendations to their followers as to what outfit they should be wearing them with.
Again, social proof plays a key role here. The best guarantee that the influencer will present your brand in the most positive light is if they are truly enchanted by your products. And the best way to achieve this is by letting them make their own design decisions to best suit their taste. The same goes for influencers’ effectiveness at promoting accessories. The higher their personal liking for the jewelry collection, the more persuasive they will be and, in turn, the more likely their followers will like it too.
After all, it is the influencers, with emphasis on the micro-influencers, who are followed because of very particular interests they have in common with their follower base. Furthermore, it is worth acknowledging that this approach to influencer marketing also strengthens the long-lasting relationship between the brand and the influencer. The social media personality will feel trusted and valued by the brand as they will recognize that you share the control over the design process and invest large amounts of money – something that anyway involves some business risk. Thus, the influencer will most likely continue to collaborate with your brand in the long run rather than simply engaging in one-time exchanges.
If letting the influencer design their own jewelry collection does not sound appealing to you, then make sure you discuss with them and decide together what products they feel passionate about promoting. In this way, you can guarantee that their posts seem authentic to their followers and prove that it is not all about the money at the end of the day.
We hope that you find these tips valuable for your jewelry brand and that they will help you to improve your social media presence. It is crucial to integrate influencer marketing into your marketing strategy in order to expand your target audience, boost sales, interact with customers effectively, as well as to stay competitive in the market. Otherwise, your brand risks being left behind in an increasingly growing influencer marketing industry.
Resources:
https://influencermarketinghub.com/influencer-marketing-statistics/
https://startupbonsai.com/influencer-marketing-statistics/
https://www.insiderintelligence.com/insights/influencer-marketing-report/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1275239/effectiveness-influencers-worldwide/
https://www.oberlo.com/blog/influencer-marketing-statistics
https://influencermarketinghub.com/influencer-marketing-benchmark-report-2021/
https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/blog/20-influencer-marketing-statistics-that-will-surprise-you
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-influencer-marketing-bloomed-during-pandemic-upcred
https://www.halsteadbead.com/articles/influencer-jewelry-marketing
https://findyourinfluence.com/how-are-jewelry-brands-harnessing-the-power-of-influencers/
