With growing funding and partnerships, brands are putting creator-led initiatives at the forefront of their marketing strategies.

Influencer marketing was traditionally only used in a small portion of marketers’ larger marketing campaigns. These times have passed.

Best-in-class companies use creator-led marketing as the cornerstone for their larger projects. Creator-led marketing is becoming the key differentiator of businesses with longevity since it makes use of creators in all facets of the business. In other words, marketing that is driven by creators is efficient.

Brands are changing their budgets and partnerships to increasingly put creator-led campaigns at the heart of their marketing strategies, according to CreatorIQ’s recently published Effective Marketing Report.

Here are some of the report’s highlights:

Throughout the past year, 69% of brands increased their investment in influencer marketing.

Throughout the previous year, spending on marketing in general and influencer marketing in particular has increased.

• Budgets for marketing were up “significantly” according to 27% of brands and agencies.
• 29% greatly increased their spending on influencer marketing in particular.
• 6% of marketers reported that their overall marketing spending had decreased slightly or significantly. A fall in the overall budget for more than half of those did not coincide with a decrease in the money allocated for influencer marketing. In other words, organisations that make changes to their marketing budgets continue to support creator-led marketing, even when doing so necessitates finding funding elsewhere.

Companies Are Putting More Value On Creator-Led Marketing

Generating general brand or client awareness was ranked as the most important goal by brands when asked to rate the objectives of their marketing programs in order of significance. Generating income was the second priority for marketers, closely followed by raising awareness for certain products or projects.

• 86% of respondents claimed that their brand or customers’ awareness was increased somewhat or a lot as a result of creative marketing.
• 75% of marketers said that using creator-led marketing to promote certain campaigns or initiatives was somewhat or very effective at raising awareness.
• 73% of respondents claim to be able to monitor how creator-led marketing affects sales and revenue.

Digital Advertising is outperformed by creator-led marketing.

Marketers stated that their most common marketing activity was owned social media marketing. This is hardly shocking considering how many companies use their owned platforms to inform customers about new products and changes. As the second most popular marketing strategy, email marketing and creator-led marketing were tied for second place with owned social media marketing.

• 58% of respondents said they have used email and creator-led marketing in the previous year.
• An increased budget, more staff, and better software solutions were named as the top objectives for producing more effective creator-led marketing when asked what changes are needed to raise the overall efficacy of creator-led initiatives.

What was previously a nice-to-have marketing channel is now essential for businesses trying to advance. Creator assets must be incorporated into every facet of your brand’s marketing strategy in order to take advantage of the next wave of influencer marketing.

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