The Influencer Marketing Trend Suggesting Micro Influencer Rules this 2019

College of Management, Mahidol University or CMMU revealed the online market research finding that Influencer Marketing has become a more appropriate and persuasive approach to reach consumers than traditional marketing, especially “Micro Influencer” with the trend to be influential and accepted by consumers in 2019. The 5 influencer industries mostly found on the social media are tourism, food, fashion and beauty, healthcare, and finance and investment. The businesses which are likely to resort to such marketing approach are those with complex and incomprehensible products and services that require high credibility such as investment, healthcare and IT. The findings also suggested the “SEED Strategy,” a marketing strategy to help create interest, uniqueness and difference of businesses to attract consumers in the digital era.

CMMU was recently held “Such Seed Marketing: 2019 Influencer ครองเมือง,” a marketing seminar, at College of Management, Mahidol University (CMMU), Phaya Thai, Bangkok. For more information, please contact 02-206-2000 or can be reached at www.cmmu.mahidol.ac.th and www.facebook.com/suchseedmarketing

Dr. Boonying Kongarchapatara, Chair for Marketing program, College of Management, Mahidol University (CMMU), stated that Thailand is one of the countries with the highest average of internet, digital site and social media use posing challenges to all businesses and forcing them to adjust their marketing strategies to meet consumers’ lifestyle. According to the marketing research survey with 1,031 consumers, it was found that 92.8 percent could access the internet and social media via electronic devices. It was further divided into 48.5 percent of people who were online all day, 35.9 percent of those who were online in the evening and before bed-time due to inability to use communicative devices during work, and 8.4 percent of those who were online in the morning and en-route to work. According to the information, people’s behaviors have changed over time, and it is a significant change in business operations. Thus, the focus is on online marketing, especially Influencer Marketing.

Dr. Boonying further added that the online marketing trend has become widespread since 2015 which was started by celebrities, famous actors and presenters. The influencer group evolved with the emergence of bloggers, Youtubers and net idols who made accessible experience sharing or reviews on products, and they created high credibility to consumers. It is expected that the Micro Influencer group with 10,000 – 100,000 followers tends to become influential and accepted by consumers in 2019 because this particular influencer group has specific aptitude, is famous for specific groups and authentic, which allows them to reach their target groups and gain more credibility from consumers.

“Influencer Marketing has become the top trend not only because it creates perception and reaches consumers through reviews but the influencers can also create credibility to consumers and persuade them to make buying decisions after all. The 5 influencer industries with most reviews on the social media are tourism, food, fashion and beauty, healthcare and finance and investment, respectively. According to the research findings, it was found that 75 percent of consumers purchased products after reading the reviews by influencers. The famous product groups are cosmetics, food and beverage, restaurant, tourist attraction and fashionable items. It is because the influence of review photos and videos are more persuasive than advertisements.”

In addition, the business groups with complex and incomprehensible products and services that require high credibility such as investment, heath and IT tend to resort to Influencer Marketing more since it can provide in-depth information with more comprehensible communication than the traditional marketing approach and is cost-efficient.

While Influencer Marketing is trendy, a selection of appropriate and effective media and communication is the key to the online marketing, Entrepreneurs and marketers should have basic understanding about consumers in order to make decisions on appropriate marketing strategies. The suggested online marketing strategy via influences to create interest, uniqueness and difference of the business is the SEED Strategy which consists of:

S – Sincere: consumers today have various information channels and have become more aware of marketing communication. Thus, marketers should allow influencers to be their own and review the brand or products with their own opinion.

E – Expertise: successful reviews lead to the decision to buy products and services. Marketers should consider choosing influencers who do not only provide basic knowledge but also has real expertise specific to the business.

E – Engagement: a number of followers do not reflect effective marketing communication. Marketers should study the access channel of influencers by considering the number of followers, together with all engagements (Likes, Shares and Comments), which represent 5 percent of the total number of followers.

D – Difference: among a number of social media influencers, marketing communication that makes a difference to consumers is a significant advantage. It is, thus, worth considering unique and different marketing communication which matches the characteristics of the business brand.

Furthermore, contents and communication channels should be taken into consideration. The research findings revealed that review contents in the form of video are more effective than photo contents. The top 3 social media access channels are Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. In this regard, the 5-year digital marketing media spending statistics (source: Digital Association of Thailand, 2018) revealed that the online investment platform has grown 3.5 times (around 10,000 million Baht) and tends to grow continuously in 2019, according to Dr. Boonying.