Introduction to CPS Influencer Marketing

Understanding consumers

People are glued to their phones every single day. Thanks to the rise of social media, today every business is visible. Since the start of influencer marketing, many have figured out how to make a living from social media. Usually, brands pay influencers to build trust, to create awareness through their blogs and social media postings. In today’s Southeast Asia, influencers get paid per posting or per video…etc. But all that is about to change pretty soon.

To understand this better, let’s take a look at how influencers in China do it.

Chinese key opinion leaders (KOL) like Becky Li (7.5 million followers) have massive selling power. Last year, she sold 100 Mini Cooper cars through her WeChat profile in just five minutes. Known as the Chinese “Goddess of Shopping”, when she launched her own fashion brand, she made 1 million of Chinese Yuan in revenue. That too in seven minutes.

Givenchy contacted Tao Liang to launch his limited-edition Mini Horizon bag for Valentine’s Day. Also addressed as Mr. Bags, the influencer pulled in a staggering amount by selling 80 bags in flat 12 minutes. These Chinese have managed to convert their followers into leads and paved a path for tremendous money power that can even pale their western peers like The Kardashians.

Yes, such capable influencers have become celebrities in their own right and totally changed the marketing game.

Ever wondered how did they do it?

As Robert B. Cialdini mentions in his book, ‘Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion,’ “The aim is to get someone to want to buy quickly, without thinking too much about it.”

With unlimited access to information and 24/7 connectivity, more and more people are reaching for their phones first thing in the morning. So, what Robert said is not impossible. Based on the six principles of persuasion like reciprocity, scarcity, authority, consistency, the principle of liking, and consensus, there are a variety of practices and trends that have started to rock the marketing industry.

The bigger question now, is how do we work with these influencers? What do they need?

To give you a better understanding, let’s dive into the current market in Southeast Asia. Did you know that Instagram doesn’t pay a single cent to the influencers? It is entirely up to the influencers to find brands who are willing to pay them directly for postings. On the other hand, when a YouTuber gets 1000 views for his/her post, YouTube pays them. Creators in different countries get paid differently. For instance, a Norway YouTuber might get $55.49 per 1000 views but a YouTuber in Indonesia might be paid as low as $5 for the same no of views.

Payment from platforms such as YouTube and other platforms is uncertain, it is no wonder influencers are asking for payment from brands. Logical right? They make the content, you pay them for their reach after all.

What about brands? What do brands want?

Digital marketing is also a big word. Beginning in the early 2000s, it soon became the latest buzzword. Any form of marketing products or services that use electronic devices falls under this category. The advertisements might be broadcasted through mobile, email, social media, internet, Applications or even digital channels.

Many brands also use a cost-per-click or pay-per-click model to generate traffic for their websites. When their ad gets clicked on a search engine or website owner, they pay the publisher. Usually, this type of marketing works well with Google Ads and Bing Ads.

According to a recent study, Google, Amazon and Facebook count for 43% of the total $129.34 billion in U.S. digital ad spend in 2019. However, with their strings in those giants’ hands, in a cut-throat competitive business world, many brands felt that these companies limit their advertising options and started to look for other options. Hence emerged the performance marketing.

Also known as pay for performance advertising, in this model the brand pays only if there are determinate results. With the latest technology and advent of the internet, it’s possible to track user actions on an advertisement. And as brands are able to pay only for results, performance-based marketing is becoming quite popular.

Alternative to traditional influencer marketing = affiliate marketing

When discussing influencer marketing, we can’t ignore affiliate marketing. As per Pat Flynn’s epic guide on Smart Passive Income, “Affiliate marketing is the method of earning a commission by endorsing the products. You find a product of your liking, recommend it to others and earn a portion of the profit for each product you sell.”

However, affiliate marketing takes time. It is not something that happens overnight. While many say affiliate marketing is the easier path to influencer marketing, building enough traffic to generate revenue is not quick or easy. The influencer doesn’t start rolling in the money at once as the commissions are quite low. In fact, for the current affiliate marketing model, the influencers get somewhere between 3 to 5 % of each click or sale (depending on the brand and the product they are advocating). How to make a decent living on affiliate marketing? that’s really hard which is why we took the time to merge that with the original influencer marketing model to bring you our own cost-per-sale model with influencers.

Introduction to Cost-per-sale Influencer Marketing with confirmpluschop.com

P.S. This is not the same as affiliate marketing. Because it’s not generic and it’s not 3–5%

When understanding consumers, especially Millennials, they are not concerned about salesmanship. They want authenticity. They follow the people whom they trust and want to copy their lifestyles. That’s how the Chinese KOLS have so much influence on their fans. Plus, an e-commerce application platform like TaoBao that lets followers watch the live streaming of the product and then click within the seconds to buy it. China’s social media and e-commerce are integrated together. The rest of the world doesn’t have the same facility to influence the consumer world in the same way.

As KOLs become more powerful and popular, they become more aware of their influence and their ability to push products. They provide quality sales, quick leads, and revenue for the respective brands. When a brand approaches the cost-per-sale model, they get Immediate Return on Investment that is visible to the company management, influencers feel empowered when people buy based on their recommendation. It’s a win-win!

How to be a seller-influencer like those China KOLs?

Becoming a great seller-influencer needs commitment and quality. A great influencer needs to be a leader. A great influencer is someone who truly cares about the product and passionate to learn everything related to it before endorsing it to his/her followers. Moreover, the followers are able to spot a fake from a mile away. An influencer can fool the audience for once or maybe twice if luck is on their side but not forever. Hence authentic influencer builds trust with their followers. Also, an influencer has to up his game and know-how and when to publish the content that will generate leads or conversions. A lot of these qualities work hand-in-hand

The cost-per-sale model lets the brand justify the worth of engaging the influencer at once. They can think about whether to hire the influencer for the next assignment or not.

In an era, when traditional marketing media channels are almost lost in the dark alleys, the marketing industry has no choice but to evolve. From having just a moment under the limelight to grab everyone’s eyeballs, influencer marketing has taken the world by storm. With the cost-per-sale model, it is sure to be more effective, more focused and deeper in engaging customers and take advantage of human connections to generate main consumer revenue.

If you’re a brand, and you’d like to talk to us about the seller-influencer model, we are currently only doing this for cosmetics, beauty, and skincare. You can check us out here or you can reach out to me anytime.

Sincerely,

Yuhwen