Influencer Marketing: An investigation to Determine the Degree of Efficacy in Promoting Goods and Services

Abstract

In this digital era, rapid growth of social media user gives rise to the social media influencer marketing as a recent marketing tool to word-of-mouth promotion. Even organizations have also realized the power of influencers to create trustful relation between the brand and their potential customer to build brand identity using engaging marketing content to affect purchase decision. The current study brings to light the various aspects of influencer marketing and its degree of effectiveness in building trustful relation using creative marketing content to promote products and services in India. To meet the purpose exploratory research design followed by conclusive research design were used. Structured questionnaire has been developed and responses from 107 respondents were collected through online survey using convenience sampling technique. The study shown that Passion, knowledge of domain area, credibility, trust and care for followers are the attributes proven to be significant to cultivate positive attitude for influencers. Influencers play significant role in recognition of the need, information search and evaluation of the alternative in purchase making process. Influencers keep one up to date and increase the niche knowledge. The contents shared by influencer are perceived appealing and stimulating audience to take action (purchase decisions). Perceived associated risk is also low. This indicates favorable impact of influencer on the mind of the customer. Influencer marketing is overall effective in attracting potential customers and promoting a brand, conversion rate (audience to consumer) is high especially for beauty and fashion niche. Influencer marketing a brand engagement strategy has the potential to multiply the product sales by choosing right influencer to convey target audience with well- designed creative content.