The Growing Importance of Influencer Marketing

But it’s no longer about famous personalities, edited product images and carefully crafted content. The Home Improvement audience is now looking for authentic voices, normal individuals taking on achievable projects in the real world and showcasing to everyone what can be achieved. The retailers and supplier brands that recognise this and who prioritise authenticity in their partnerships with influencers, generating unique content, will be able to deliver much greater engagement and ultimately returns on their investment.

Influencer Marketing Strategy

Before committing to work with an influencer, it’s critical that a brand considers the overall objective of the marketing strategy, whether that’s to sell a specific product, increase brand awareness or to simply promote a specific service.

If the objective is to sell more of a particular product or service, the brand can opt for a contract with a relevant YouTuber for an unboxing or review, or a promotion on Instagram showing an image of the product and maybe a before and after project.

Choosing the Right Influencer

For the best results from influencer marketing, it’s essential to select the right influencer for the brand. This can be done by researching the number of followers the prospective influencer has, which social media platforms he/she are active on, and the audience demographic. The number of followers does not always indicate the number of people that will react on any given content, which is why it’s important to study the engagement on posts that the influencer receives, and any past tie-ups with other brands.

It’s also important to study the match between the brand and their audience, for example, if the interior designing style is minimalist, considering influencers who are prominent in advocating minimalism is obviously a good match. For room decor for children, consider famous moms, or for low-cost decor options, you can approach personalities promoting budgetfriendly lifestyles or those famous for DIY.

Influencers generally have one social media platform which outshines the others in terms of pure numbers and each social media platform has an ideal form of content, whether its images on Instagram or videos on YouTube or pins on Pinterest. For example, the third most posted and viewed category on Pinterest is Home Decor, with consumers sharing pins of items they bought or would like to buy, making it a prime target for marketing for interior design.

It’s always a good idea to discuss ideas with the prospective influencer on how best to create content that will meet the company goals but will also be in line with the typical content of the influencer, so it will appeal to his or her follower-base.

Kitchen brand Splashback.co.uk recently partnered with Instagram influencer AthomewithNic to promote their Laura Ashley glass splashbacks. The influencer behind the account is Nicola Perry, who describes herself as a Digital Creator and has a growing Instagram audience of 12,800 people who avidly follow the transformation of her home in Liverpool.

In this example, she was replacing the stainless-steel splashback with one more fitting for her new kitchen and chose a Laura Ashley Mr Jones self-adhesive splashback, which she featured in a before and after reel as well as an Instagram story. With over 500 likes from the target audience of female homeowners and 45 comments, it’s a great example of a successful Influencer Marketing Strategy, raising awareness of a product, driving interest and engagement with the brand and ultimately sales.

Influencer v Ambassador – What’s the Difference?

Influencer Marketing is predominantly a transactional-based relationship between a company or brand and an online personality with a relevant audience of followers who is paid to promote the company through social media posts. The relationship tends to be relatively short-term, often focused on a specific campaign or product launch with only a handful of social posts. Brands often approach influencers who aren’t aware of their company and depending on the individual, this can become quite costly depending on the popularity of the influencer and their follower count.

Ambassador marketing, on the other hand, is more qualitative and is focused on forming a longer-term relationships between a brand and the personality that is less transactional-based and more about the personality of the individual and their career or what interests them.

With ambassador marketing, the individual who’s interested in becoming your brand ambassador often knows who you are already, and has probably supported your company’s products or services and values. They’ll sometimes approach you to apply to represent your brand on social media. This person then becomes a brand ambassador that presents your brand to their followers from a place of genuine interest and authenticity.

Husqvarna Appoints Lynne Lambourne

Leading gardening brand, GARDENA, has recently announced expert eco-designer, interiors TV presenter and warrior on waste, Lynne Lambourne, who will be supporting the brand as an ambassador for 2023. As part of the ambassadorship, Lynne will work closely with GARDENA on a wide range of marketing campaigns and activities throughout the year. This includes attending events, supporting product launches as well as sharing her valuable expertise with passionate gardeners through social media content, with the mission of inspiring their audiences to realise their garden dreams.