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Micro-influencers have become a powerful tool for engaging with younger audiences on a personal level. Their authenticity and relatability resonate with Gen Z and Millennials, fostering a connection that goes beyond traditional advertising. In the fast-casual restaurant industry, where attracting younger diners is crucial, partnering with micro-influencers has proven to be an effective strategy.
Why Micro-influencers?
Influencers now hold more sway as spokespeople than traditional celebrities. Millennials, in particular, trust influencers more for product recommendations than their favorite stars. The appeal lies in the authenticity and relatability that micro-influencers bring. Younger audiences perceive them as peers, creating a personal connection that surpasses typical advertising.
This personal connection is a potent asset, as more than 60% of consumers trust influencers they see as similar to themselves. With their peer status, influencer endorsements translate into trusted recommendations, attracting new customers. In fact, studies show that restaurants and fast food companies earn $6.50 for each dollar spent on influencer campaigns. Additionally, 86% of millennials try a new restaurant after seeing food-related content on social media. As a result, restaurants are shifting their marketing dollars away from traditional branded advertising toward influencer relationships.
Selecting the Right Partners
Effective collaboration with micro-influencers and mid-tier influencers boils down to selecting the right partners. Both independent fooderies and global restaurant chains can leverage this tactic by scaling partnerships based on budget, available market size, and existing awareness levels. There’s no magic number of influencers to partner with for a successful promotion. Each effort should engage the right partners needed to match specific campaign goals.
For example, when testing a new concept for Outsiders Pizza Company, 72 hyperlocal micro-influencers were engaged in a single market. On the flip side, Chipotle engaged just two mega foodies on TikTok when promoting a new digital menu item. Each effort successfully gained awareness and sales because they engaged the right partners needed to match specific campaign goals.
Spanning the Entire Marketing Funnel
The benefits of influencer marketing go beyond increasing brand awareness. It has become a powerful tactic for driving action across all customer journey stages. Influencers play a pivotal role in promoting limited-time offers or new menu items, generating buzz for new locations, and reaching new customer segments.
For example, when The Halal Guys released its first meatless gyro, the chain partnered with over 80 niche influencers on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube to successfully reach a new market of vegan consumers across 26 global markets. Sbarro also engaged regional influencers to build excitement for its franchise rebrand, driving sizable foot traffic to its free-standing eateries.
Leveraging Authenticity and Customer Insights
Micro-influencers and mid-tier influencers have cultivated highly engaged followers by being relatable and generating on-trend content. Restaurants can use this to their advantage by collaborating with influencers and avoiding over-dictating creative direction. Empowering influencer partners to create content that matches their typical aesthetic, while still hitting on brand and campaign goals, is the best way to achieve authenticity and connect with young customers. Sponsored posts that feel disconnected from the creator’s previous content may be offputting to followers.
In addition to authenticity, partnering with content creators provides valuable insights into how to best attract younger customers. Influencers can help shed light on demographic wants, needs, trends, and preferences. Furthermore, influencer-generated content can be used to quickly test and verify what resonates most with the target audience.
Maximizing Return on Investment
Restaurants can purchase rights to influencer-generated content for use beyond the influencers’ channels and allotted campaign period. Repurposing top-performing posts on brand-owned channels or as digital ads can extend reach and maximize ROI. One of the most successful strategies for maximizing the value of influencer-generated content is “allowlisting.” This process involves running social ads through an influencer’s social profile instead of the brand account.
According to a 2023 report from CreatorIQ, brand marketers find sponsored digital ads featuring creators to be their most impactful marketing strategy. This strategy is more effective than other creator-driven tactics like affiliate marketing and user-generated content. Allowlisting is impactful because ads that run through a creator’s account appear more relatable and trustworthy than brand-owned ads. Additionally, promoting influencer-generated content that has already shown high organic performance removes risk from the equation, as the content is known to resonate with the target audience and generate results.
Harnessing the Power of Influencer Marketing
The shift toward influencers as trusted spokespeople reflects the changing preferences of younger generations. The authenticity and relatability of micro and mid-tier influencers resonate with younger audiences on a personal level, fostering a connection that transcends traditional advertising. In the fast-casual restaurant industry, partnering with micro-influencers has proven to be an effective strategy for attracting younger diners.
To navigate influencer partnerships successfully, it is crucial to choose the right collaborators and leverage high-performing content across the marketing funnel. This tactic is adaptable to various budgets and market sizes and can deliver a substantial return on investment while building brand affinity with young diners. So, if fast-casual restaurants want to engage their target audience effectively, they should consider leveraging the power of micro-influencers.
