
KOLs: What Are They & Why Are They Key to Your Marketing Strategy
If you are planning to penetrate into China’s Market, I would recommend KOL Marketing. It is a soft selling strategy where influencers act as a middle person to help communication between your brand and the target audience. It leverages on the word of mouth to achieve promotional effects.
In recent years, influencer marketing has become a popular marketing strategy
as brands are able to reach their target audience on social media. The term KOL which refers to ‘Key Opinion Leaders’ differs greatly from Influencers. A KOL might seem similar to Influencer but has a more targeted audience.
KOLs are considered experts as they specialised in that particular industry and often regarded by their fans as trustworthy and authentic. KOLs’ authenticity enables them to have a huge influence on the opinions and preferences of their audiences. Thus, working with KOLs will benefit you greatly for your brand
marketing strategy. An example of a KOL is a Youtuber called Jaclyn Hill mainly focusing on beauty trends and products. Let’s say if she were to post a cooking video, it might not be well received by the community. The Three Major Benefits that brand uses KOLs for Marketing strategy are :
1) Target your ideal audience If you want to raise your brand awareness or generate leads, do it with the help
of KOL as they are able to quickly identify and reach your ideal audience. This means that the KOL has already completed the hard work for you by engaging their specific, niche audience that has grown into a community centred round a specific interest. Thus, your ideal target audience is successful achieved
2) Generate Sales KOL can help you generate higher sales whereby engaging with their community to attract or raise your brand awareness. According to a study research, at least 49% consumers’ mentioned that they would follow the recommendation of an influencer. This tell us that KOL have a huge impact on the bottom line which results in consumer purchasing decision to purchase.
Besides that, you can consider creating an exclusive product by collaborating with KOL to generate higher sales as KOLs are well-adverse of the industry and uniquely engage with the consumer market as they are more likely able to identify and pinpoint areas for improvement in your current product or overall marketing strategy. For example, Youtuber Damon Fryer (DailyDrivenExotics) collaborates with the Tire Company (X-COMP) to test for abuse, reliability and long lasting so that he can provide feedbacks to the company for future improvement of the tire.
3)Increase your own Reach By working with a KOL, it is a guarantee that you can reach your ideal target market and a much larger percentage of potential customers that you might not have otherwise reach. The traditional method consumers a hefty amount budget if you want to be successful to reach out to as many people as possible and it does not target a specific group that you want. KOL on the other hand is worth every penny spent as they are specifically in your industry and well adverse. It
is more effective, quicker and cheaper compare to traditional advertising methods. Thus, you should collaborate with KOL to see why it is the key to your marketing strategy.