When marketers think about the benefits of influencer marketing, most think of the exposure that comes with a social media star or celebrity sharing content about their brand. It’s the publicity and attention that immediately comes to mind.

But influencer marketing brings more than just extra exposure. Here are seven often-overlooked benefits of influencer marketing.

7 Benefits of Influencer Marketing You Should Know
Influencer Marketing Benefit #1: Builds Trust and Shows Authority
When a celebrity, industry expert, or social media personality shares content about a brand, it adds instant credibility to the mentioned company. Because the company can get an authoritative person to notice and recognize their brand, it shows the brand is an industry leader and trustworthy company. The recognition is even more powerful in niche marketing when an authority in your industry shares your content.

Influencer Marketing Benefit #2: Turns Your Brand Into a Hot Topic
Influencers are often the driving force behind new trends and movements. They frequently expose audiences to new ideas, brands, and products. So one of the benefits of influencer marketing is being seen as a hot new concept. By aligning your brand with a trendsetting influencer, you show your company as an innovative leader.

Influencer Marketing Benefit #3: Drives Purchasing Decisions
Among the advantages of online influencers mentioning your brand is that it can actually drive sales. Consumers frequently look to influencers for advice on what products and services to buy. In a study, roughly 40 percent of respondents said they made a purchase after seeing a social media influencer use the product or service. Another study found that over 85 percent of Gen Zersuse social media to learn about new products. So if one of your marketing objectives is increasing sales, influencer marketing might be able to help you accomplish that goal.

Influencer Marketing Benefit #4: Beats Advertising Blindness
One of the benefits of influencer marketing is that the strategy far outweighs other advertising options. Banner ads were once a tool that marketers used to promote their products and services. But audiences have become blind to this advertising method. The average click-through rate for display ads is only 0.06 percent. Influencer marketing cuts through banner ad blindness by placing your brand where audiences notice it – in natural, native content.

Influencer Marketing Benefit #5: Connects With Audiences Where They Spend the Most Time
Audiences spend a lot of time on social media, and that amount of time continues to increase. Many people spend hours a day on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. The data shows how influencers help brands. When influencers mention or feature a brand on one of these social media platforms, they allow the company to connect with audiences on the sites where they spend the most time.

Influencer Marketing Benefit #6: Possibility for Extremely High ROI
Research has shown that the benefits of influencer outreach outweigh the costs and that the return on investment in influencer marketing can be very high. A survey from Burst Mediareported that, on average, brands with an influencer marketing program received $6.85 in earned media value for every $1 of paid media. Using influencer outreach in your marketing strategiesoften pays off.

Influencer Marketing Benefit #7: Unlimited Sharing Potential
One of the reasons why influencer marketing can have such a high ROI is because campaigns have unlimited potential. With most paid advertising tactics, there is a limit to your reach. You pay for a certain number of impressions. But with influencer marketing, a campaign has the potential to be shared and even go viral, giving your message more reach than you paid for. Shareable content promoted by an influencer can quickly grow brand awareness and attract attention over and over again.

Get the Benefits of Influencer Marketing
As you consider the advantages and disadvantages of influencer marketing, consider this. When you partner with the right influencer (someone who as a connection with your target market), you reap benefits of influencer marketing almost immediately. Influencers with a lot of followers allow your campaign to gain traction right away. And those benefits can continue to compound over time. Shares, reposts, and retweets give your campaign lasting, scalable power that helps your content get more and more exposure.

The benefits of influencer marketing typically outweigh the costs as long as you launch a strategic campaign by targeting the right audience with the right content.  

To get help with launching a successful, informed influencer marketing campaign, check out our recent post, Influencer Marketing Examples (That Don’t Require Celebrities). And sign up for a free 7-day trial of Alexa’s Advanced Plan to access tools that help you learn about your target audience and identify top influencers in your industry so that you can set your campaign up for success.