Key Opinion Consumers, also known as KOC marketing, are getting popular. Most of us will be familiar with the terms, which is popular, especially among youngsters, but how many of us understand KOC marketing?
KOC marketing is a branch of KOL (influencer) marketing and is quite a new and powerful marketing strategy. It has slowly taken over the social media industry. Using KOC marketing helps brands: Connect to their customers, understand them, and reach new customers.
But how does KOC marketing exactly works for your brand? You may be confused with it if you haven’t really started with this marketing strategy and may get confused with KOL marketing.
In this article, we’ll let you know more about KOC and why it’s time for you to use this strategy for your brand. It can greatly impact your business if you use it well.
What Exactly Is KOC Marketing?
KOC (Key Opinion Consumers) marketing is a new form of social media marketing. It is based on the promotional power of pre-existing customers.
Brands can successfully promote their products, improve their products and launch new products instantly to these pre-existing customers.
KOC will be your brand’s No.1 fan, where they will be the first in line to get involved with a new product and be the first to leave a review on social media or an e-commerce site. This is why KOC marketing can be very powerful,
Customers usually believe more in real people’s reviews rather than in papers. KOCs can be an authentic and trusted way to promote your products with their reviews on social media. They can influence their audience to try out your products.
KOC isn’t just anybody who just leaves a review on the social media
It isn’t just any old consumer leaving a review. To be considered as a KOC, they need to:
- Be an avid social media user
- Have a small but strong follower (usually no more than 50,000 followers)
- Within a target market
Why Is KOC Marketing Important To Your Brand?
You may be curious why KOC marketing is getting popular and becoming a popular marketing strategy in the market. It comes to one thing, which is consumer behavior.
Consumers can be extremely savvy, especially regarding what they want. They know how to differentiate when a promotion is genuine and when it isn’t.
Let’s say celebrity and high-profile endorsement, which were once an important part of marketing strategy. But for now, they are seen for what they are – paid-for-promotions. They may not really reflect the honest opinion of the brand. KOL marketing fills an ever-expanding gap. Micro-influencers are more trusted, reliable, and authentic. They can promote the brand more efficiently. They can be a pre-existing fan of your brand.
They may not be paid to promote a product, as they can share positive reviews and mention your products on their social media profiles. Almost 90% of consumers will read an online review before they purchase a product. This is why it is so important.
It helps to build a positive reputation online for your brand and can be a way to avoid the pitfalls of KOL marketing.
How Can Brands Take Advantage Of KOC Marketing?
If you have launched a product that takes off, you are likely to grab the attention of the KOCs to help you spread the word. You will want to encourage it if you want to take advantage of the KOC marketing strategy.
Letting your KOC marketing strategy help to promote your brand effectively is all about attracting, reviewing, and working with KOCs. We will go into details one by one.
Attracting KOCs
When building your KOC marketing strategy, you will need to start attracting potential customers who want to buy your products or services.
You can always encourage customers to leave a review on your website or on your social media. Besides that, actively get engage with your fans on social media by responding to their messages and creating hashtags to get them involved. It would help if you also created advertising campaigns to target your targeted audience.
All these will help your strategy to get started. It will increase your brand awareness and the number of online reviews your consumers leave on your social media. Your amount of fans will increase and will spread the word for you.
Reviewing KOCs
Once you have successfully attracted potential KOCs, filter them and identify that they have the requirements you need. Here are some tips you can follow, such as
- Having a small but mighty social media following
- Being a genuine fan of your brand
- Being in the target market of your brand
Working With KOCs
After you have identified the KOCs you need, it is time to develop your marketing strategy and work with them to generate sales. It can be sending gifts to encourage reviews and share your social media posts, creating a marketing campaign, hosting live streams, or inviting them to focus groups.
Make sure you understand your marketing strategy, or it can quickly turn a KOC into a KOL. When working with KOCs, you should treat them as your fans instead of a business partner being paid.
Here are some ideas about KOC marketing if you intend to start one. KOC is different with KOL and you need to understand this. Working well with a KOC may generate sales which you never expect.
The KOC Live has been founded in Malaysia in 2021, we have been aiming to help our clients to reach out to their targeted audience within their social media platform and attempted to assist in influencing purchasing decisions of consumers.
We have always tried to ensure our clients in achieving their business goals and are passionate about connecting brands to the right audience and consumers. We understand that currently, businesses are struggling with their business by not being able to reach their target audience, especially now that everything is turning remote. We hope that we can help our clients in bringing the best to the world.
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