Can every company turn to influencer marketing?

Ever since it went mainstream, influencer marketing has long carried a very sector-specific image: the cosmetics brand sending its products to a beauty influencer, or the sportswear brand sponsoring an athlete. And that is indeed part of the job. But influencer marketing is far broader than that and reaches a great many sectors, because when you think about it, what niche does not have a clearly identified voice on social media? There are now micro-communities for every need. So can every company turn to influencer marketing, or is there a limit? Let's take stock.

This article in brief

• Influencer marketing is not reserved for the lifestyle, beauty or fashion sectors: B2B, healthcare, finance, law, industry, practically every sector now has its go-to creators and its active communities on social media.

• The question is not really whether influencer marketing is right for your sector, but how to adapt it to your sector.

• Company size is not a disqualifying factor: nano and micro-influencers have opened this lever up to reasonable budgets, and a well-supported SME can achieve real results with modest means.

• What matters most is clear objectives and rigorous creator selection, two areas where working with a specialist agency makes a real difference.

Influencer marketing explained in a few words

Influencer marketing starts from the idea that people put more faith in a recommendation from someone they trust than in an advertising message they never asked for. Put simply, it is word of mouth, amplified by social media on a scale that ordinary word of mouth would never reach.

A content creator who talks about a product, a service or a brand to their community is therefore not advertising in the classic sense of the word. They are making a recommendation in their own language, with their own sensibility, to an audience that has chosen to listen because it grants them a form of legitimacy. See the mechanism at work? It is far more powerful than an overtly commercial ad that the potential customer rejects.

What has changed is the diversity of creators available. Ten years ago, influence was concentrated around a handful of major social media figures, essentially in fashion, beauty and lifestyle. Today there are creators specializing in just about every field imaginable: accounting, employment law, sports nutrition, interior design, private equity and more. These niche creators have smaller communities than the big accounts, but those communities are far more engaged and far better qualified for what a brand in their sector is trying to reach.

What objectives can influencer marketing serve?

Before deciding whether a company can use influencer marketing, you have to ask what it is trying to achieve. Influencer marketing can serve very different objectives, so the answer to the question depends largely on how clear that objective is.

The main objective of this kind of campaign is, of course, awareness. A brand with little recognition in its market can use influence to register with new audiences by working with creators whose communities match its target precisely. That applies to a startup at launch as much as to an established player looking to open up a new segment.

But influencer marketing can also serve an objective of credibility. When a tech figure with standing on LinkedIn speaks positively about a tool they use, they transfer part of their legitimacy to that product, and far more effectively than a display ad or a blog post written by the brand itself.

Finally, you can also aim for direct conversion, in the form of leads or sales. The creator then shares a trackable link or a promo code with their community, which makes it possible to tie a post directly to sales. This mechanism works just as well for a consumer product as for SaaS software or a B2B service, provided you choose the right creator and track the results properly.

So which companies can use influencer marketing?

Put simply: the vast majority of companies can use influencer marketing. That does not mean, however, that every company should do the same thing in the same way.

Consumer brands are obviously on familiar ground. Beauty, fashion, food, sport, wellness: these sectors built influencer marketing as we know it, and the mechanics there are well established. The level of sophistication expected has changed profoundly, though, because audiences in these sectors are now heavily exposed to sponsored content and their radar for anything inauthentic has risen considerably. The quality of the brief, the selection of creators and the fit between the creator's world and the brand's matter more than ever.

Tech and digital companies can find in influence a powerful lever for acquisition and credibility. Players in the financial sector, long considered too heavily regulated to venture into it, have taken it up with convincing results.

Even the regulated professions, in law, healthcare and pharmacy, have their own go-to creators, particularly on YouTube and LinkedIn. These are experts who have chosen to share their knowledge, who have built highly qualified and highly engaged audiences in their field, and whose professional standing directly reinforces the credibility of the brands they work with.

Even in purely B2B fields, influencer marketing can be relevant. Materials manufacturers, industrial software vendors and logistics players all have niches of creators specializing in their subjects, with audiences of buyers, engineers and operational decision-makers who actively consume expert content on these themes.

The great strength of the format: adaptability

As you will have gathered, almost every company can turn to influencer marketing, and that is precisely its strength: adaptability. Influencer marketing has a real ability to bend to the constraints of each sector rather than imposing a single format.

The platform can be chosen according to the target audience. TikTok and Instagram for mainstream audiences and lifestyle sectors. LinkedIn for B2B decision-makers and professionals. YouTube for expert content that calls for depth. Each platform has its own rules, its own formats and its own audience dynamics, so the right choice always starts from where the target audience is, not from where the brand is used to communicating.

The format of the collaboration can be matched to the sector and the objective. A short product testimonial on Instagram works for a consumer brand, whereas a long demonstration video on YouTube will suit B2B software better.

The creator profile can also be calibrated to needs, because a nano-influencer with 800 highly qualified followers in an industrial niche can be worth more to a specialist equipment manufacturer than a lifestyle macro-influencer with 500,000 followers.

And all these conditions, namely clear objectives, rigorous selection, the quality of the creative framework and measurement, the ones that make the difference between an influence campaign that delivers results and one that disappoints, are not sector-specific but universal to the discipline. That is why almost every company can use influencer marketing.

At Clark Influence, we support brands in worlds as different as sport, beauty, food, entertainment, luxury and the non-profit sector. Want to find out more, or put this to work? Get in touch.

Frequently asked questions

Does influencer marketing work in B2B?

Yes, and its adoption in B2B has accelerated considerably in recent years. LinkedIn is now the go-to platform for B2B influence, with expert creators who have built highly engaged audiences of decision-makers.

Can regulated sectors such as healthcare or finance use influence?

Yes, but the regulatory constraints specific to each sector have to be respected, which is entirely feasible with a rigorous contractual framework and a well-built brief. Can a small company get started in influencer marketing on a limited budget?

Does influence work for technical or complex products?

Yes, and it is even one of the contexts where it can be particularly effective. A complex product needs to be explained, demonstrated and put in context, which advertising cannot do in 30 seconds. A specialist creator, whose authority on the subject is recognized by their community, can devote a ten-minute YouTube video to demonstrating the benefits of a piece of software or equipment with a depth and an authenticity that no conventional advertising format will reach.