The November election brought to light how influential influencers are within the news space, with one in 4 adults over the age of 30 reporting that they get their news information from influencers/individual creators.
While your brand might not be necessarily seeking to increase its presence in the “news space,” this number speaks to the power influencers have with the average consumer. Influencer marketing has proven itself at a national level- with brands seeing success across the country and world.
Influencers can be particularly helpful in niche market scale for local restaurant as well; it’s almost guaranteed there is a group of influencers out there that will help you to speak to your target demographic in an authentic, trusted way, no matter what your brand or franchise footprint is.
Why Integrate Influencer Marketing into Your Marketing Strategy
Influencer marketing can be a powerful addition to an integrated marketing plan. Influencers amplify your brand’s voice across multiple platforms, providing a human touch that can sometimes be missing.
Their real-life product experiences foster authenticity and trust with their audience, and their recommendations can significantly influence their followers’ purchasing decisions, making them effective during product launches and promotional campaigns. This approach typically results in higher engagement rates as compared to traditional advertising, since influencers create content that resonates with their followers, leading to increased actions like clicks and purchases.
Influencer posts remain online indefinitely, providing long-term value, and a place for other media to point back to. Influencers also produce engaging and dynamic content that can be reused across your marketing channels, adding variety and authenticity to your brand’s marketing materials. They are often at the forefront of social media trends and platform developments, quickly adapting their content to new features or emerging platforms, which helps keep your brand relevant.
Additionally, collaborations with influencers can enhance your brand’s local search engine optimization efforts, as mentions and links from influencers can improve search engine rankings and drive more organic traffic to your website. By integrating influencer marketing into your overall strategy, you can leverage these benefits to enhance brand exposure, engagement, and overall marketing effectiveness.
Why Micro-Influencers Work Wonders for Restaurants
Considering the local marketing efforts that franchisees need, micro-influencer marketing is an ideal tactic to add to a marketing plan that directly targets local consumers in a specific niche and can be extremely cost-effective. Finding a micro-influencer who resides in your restaurant’s geographic area only adds to their authenticity.
A 2024 report from Sprout Social found that 40 percent of consumers say they prefer to interact with micro and nano-influencers. Micro-influencers tend to be experts in their niche or industry, making them ideal partners for restaurants. They are known for their genuine, relatable content that resonates well with their followers, and typically have higher engagement rates than a larger scale influencer.
Big Brands That Do It Well
Many well-known brands have successfully utilized influencers in their marketing campaigns, including:
- Taco Bell uses influencer marketing to promote its limited time offers (LTO’s) and new product launches. They tend to lean towards influencers who have a significant presence on Instagram and YouTube to drive buzz around these product launches.
- Chipotle utilizes TikTok influencers ongoing to promote new products to a younger audience.
- Fast-casual, salad-focused chain Sweetgreen partners with health and wellness influencers to promote their healthy menu options, which has helped them reach health-conscious consumers in an authentic way.
- Dunkin collaborates with influencers on their seasonal menu items to help drive awareness.
How to Choose the Right Influencer for Your Campaign
Once you’ve decided that influencer marketing is the right addition to your marketing strategy, how do you go about choosing influencers that are a good fit for your brand?
- Define Your Goals: What are you looking for influencer marketing to help your brand with? Whether it’s brand awareness, driving sales, or building community interaction, clear goals will help guide your selection process.
- Know Your Target Audience: Finding an influencer that aligns with your target demographic is key. Assess at their follower make up to ensure age, gender, location and interests align with your target.
- Engagement Matters: High follower counts are a plus, however they’re not the only metric that matters. Ensuring that likes, comments, and shares are consistent, and align with follower counts helps to gauge how interactive their audience is.
- High-Quality Content: Review the influencer’s content to ensure it aligns with your brand’s voice and aesthetic. High-quality, authentic content that resonates with their audience is crucial.
- Authenticity and Values: It’s important to ensure you’re choosing influencers who share your brand’s values and are authentic in their endorsement partners. An endorsement that lacks authenticity is easily spotted by consumers and followers.
- Micro-Influencers Can Move Mountains: Don’t overlook the impact of micro-influencers, particularly for franchises looking to target niche audiences or specific geographic areas. These influencers often carry highly engaged local audiences and can deliver strong results.
Integrating influencer marketing into your marketing strategy can help with brand exposure, meaningful engagement and overall campaign effectiveness—leading to brand loyalty.
Danyelle Horrillo is Vice-President Digital and Programmatic Media for Cincinnati-based Brandience, advertising and marketing agency. Danyelle is focused on the cutting edge of leveraging media to execute results-oriented programmatic campaigns. Her knowledge of data-driven optimization has guided her work with a variety of brands including Albertsons, Del Monte, Dollar General, Famous Footwear, and General Mills, among others. To learn more about Danyelle or to connect with her, visit https://www.linkedin.com/in/danyellehorrillo/.
