In this learning series with a total of 5 episodes, we would like to introduce 5 important factors that we need to keep in mind about influencer marketing.Our 1st article will cover [Determine your Objective & Target].Many companies hope that their influencer marketing campaigns will immediately lead to the purchase of their products or services. However, this is quite challenging.We live in an age of surplus goods, and unless you have a strong competitive advantage or a technologically advanced product, there will always be competitive products with similar associated values or identities.Even if your product provides outstanding values, it might be a huge challenge to communicate its values clearly to prospective consumers.Moreover, consumers are becoming more and more cautious about purchasing products. In particular, the return rate for e-commerce purchases in Japan is reportedly less than 5% for the majority of companies. In the fashion industry, the return rate tends to be high due to size and fitting preference, but in most cases, consumers do not simply return the item but instead buy a different size, which is why the Japanese return rate is low.Influencer marketing is a way to motivate people to buy your products, but what you need to think about when conducting influencer marketing is to consider it as part of the customer's purchase path.Several typical purchasing process models are often used in marketing, but let's take the AISAS model as an example.A：Attention⇨I：Interest⇨S：Search⇨A：Action⇨S：ShareIf influencer marketing is the first touchpoint between consumers whose goal is to make a purchase and your product or service, we can skip "Interest" and "Search" as consumers will seek "Action" at once.If it is a low-cost product that is used daily, buyers may purchase it because the associated risk is low, but even so, they will probably conduct a simple comparison by searching for similar products.This example once again emphasizes the effectiveness of influencer marketing in the "Attention" and "Interest" stages of the purchasing process model. In other words, you need to get the attention and interest of people who have not yet encountered your product or service. Therefore, it is crucial to design a solid path to purchase that is well-aligned with the implementation of influencer marketing.If you are interested in how to design strategies following the purchasing process that leads to increasing sales, please look forward to our upcoming articles in this series. In addition, to increase the cost-effectiveness of influencer marketing, we recommend using videos as supplementary promotional material with the following usage:・Introduction videos on the homepage of your website・Advertising videos・Digital Signage for stores and Point of Purchase Advertising (POP)・Use on the company's SNSIn the next episode, we would love to share with you significant insights on [How to select the right social media platform].