Influenced

[rookieforever33]

Hating on influencers is a waste of time. It is no different buying hunting gear because you saw an influencer use it, or buy a certain brand of car because you like the race car driver. Or sucumbing to any other advertisement you see while being entertained. We all learn about products through advertising.
I learned the hard way when I was wearing a speedo I saw Michael Phelps win in and the pictures came out of him smoking pot.

 

[Long_roof_94]

I'd say I'm more influenced by what I see at the range and at competitions. Styles, equipment, philosophy, etc. - I'm always intrigued by what guys are shooting, but I admit I'm often taking a step back and looking at their approach for stuff I like and want to mimic. But, I'm also pretty new to competitive shooting sports so I have no experience to base my decisions on other than what I see guys using.

Also, don't really use social media other than forums, Reddit, and FB (mostly just the classifieds). So, without stuff like IG I see very little influencer stuff. I do watch shooting content on YouTube, but mostly technical stuff, not really influencer oriented.

 

[dieselchessy]

I liked it better when we just called them “salesmen” and the stuff they did “advertising”.

 

[TheTone]

I’ve often wondered how much less some of these products would cost if the companies weren’t sending out tons of free products and paying people to use their stuff? I was blown away how many people I saw on IG promoting the new magnetic closure sevr broadheads this week. It looks like they were sending them to every micro influencer in the hunting space

 

[Poser]

I’ve often wondered how much less some of these products would cost if the companies weren’t sending out tons of free products and paying people to use their stuff? I was blown away how many people I saw on IG promoting the new magnetic closure sevr broadheads this week. It looks like they were sending them to every micro influencer in the hunting space

It would probably be the same profit margins these types of brands have always had regardless of the existence of influencers as, in the rare case that influencers are paid a flat rate, it’s just part of the marketing budget. The same money that used to be spent on advertisements for the Outdoor or Sportsman’s channel is now dedicated to influencing.

For the most, though, influencers make money from dishing out discount codes to their followers, the followers use the code for 10% off and the influencer is paid a % of the sale which is tracked by the discount codes. It doesn’t add anything to the bottom line because that 10% discount the brand takes a hit on is the amount of money it would have taken to sell the same item through other marketing channels. Influencers, for the most part, are marketing channels, the same way a brand spend money on IG ads, paid search or SEO to sell a product. Every item you sell cost something to sell it.

There are some cases where big time influencers are bought outright. I remember a few years back it was leaked that Donnie Vincent was paid $40,000 to use a certain pack brand, for example. Usually though, the brand view discount codes as costing them basically nothing unless you actually influence consumers to make purchases. In some cases at least, it s likely even cheaper to do that than to spend money on full funnel marketing.