Are Influencers Just Blowing Hot Air?

Long-standing businesses understand that to be successful, you have to be adaptable. In many cases, that flexibility starts with marketing efforts. Whether it’s new marketing channels, social media trends or changing consumer expectations, you always want to reach your ideal customers where they are.

A recent trend — influencer marketing — is gaining traction in various businesses, including home services. While influencers have been a significant play for more prominent brands and direct-to-consumer companies for years, servicebased businesses are discovering that influencers can also impact their ideal customers.

What is Influencer Marketing?

If you spend time on social media, you’ve encountered a few influencers. In the simplest form, social media influencers are people who have established trust with a following of people and use their platform to highlight products and services.

Often, their followers see them as friends or trusted sources for the latest and greatest. In a recent Scorpion consumer survey, 1 in 4 people said they discover new products and services through influencers. Scorpion also found that 56% of younger consumers (Millennials and Gen Z) indicate they are most likely to discover new home services providers on social media. And there’s likely a higher percentage of people who those creators influence without even knowing.

While referrals are still critical to businesses, social media and content creators are reaching new demographics of potential customers online.

Influential Stats

The influencer marketing industry is set to grow to approximately $22.2 billion in 2025. The bulk — 85% of survey respondents — believe influencer marketing to be an effective form of marketing, an increase from previous years TikTok (utilized by 69% of brands using influencer marketing) is by far the most popular influencer marketing channel, now well ahead of Instagram (47%), YouTube (33%) and Facebook (28%).

How to Make Influencers Work for Your Business

In its purest form, influencer marketing is a referral-based effort. It’s not drastically different from incentivizing happy customers to tell their friends and family about you. Influencers just have a more significant following to tell.

“Influencers can be a major benefit to companies, but only when done correctly,” according to influencer and social media consultant Jason Dunnigan (@themoderndad). “It’s about working with those that best fit your specific industry. It’s not going to be an overnight success. It takes time and effort to make it work. You will be blown away by the results when you do it right. Everyone trusts hearing someone share their opinion; influencers can do that for your business.”

For influencer marketing to work, you need an efficient tracking system to truly understand how many new customers each influencer sends to your business. Tracking could be through a unique URL or coupon code on your website. If booking in person, you could require the customer to tell your team the coupon code. Before you start working with an influencer, ensure you know how you will track the efforts to truly understand the return on investment (ROI).

Once you have a system, you can find people who would work for your business. You may already know local influencers who would be a good fit. When finding the right influencer to work with, you want to ensure they have a sufficient following in your communities. Just like your other marketing efforts, you want your influencer marketing strategy to be tailored to the types of customers and jobs you want.

Influence Your Audiences

If you’re not ready to work with an influencer, there are many other ways to have that same effect on potential customers online. Social media is an effective tool to reach your community — whether on your business page, your page or your employees. Each of those has engaged audiences who are looking for content. Creating content around tune-ups, FAQS and tips and tricks for an HVAC business can help you influence people to hire your company.

Influencers are effective because they create trust with their audience, and you can do the same with the people around you. Another effective way to reach new audiences is through existing, happy customers. Turn this group into microinfluencers for your business. According to Hubspot’s 2024 State of Marketing report, 47% of marketers have successfully partnered with smaller micro-creators. This is because the smaller audiences have a higher percentage of engagement.

Whether you’re using influencers or creating influential opportunities alone, it’s essential to track your efforts and truly understand the ROI. If you start working with an influencer, evaluate the success before pursuing new relationships.

Andrew S. Adams (@thegreensuitguy) is the director of partnership marketing at Scorpion, where he drives strategic initiatives and collaborates with Scorpion’s partners to provide innovative solutions to home services businesses. Scorpion’s website is www.scorpion.com