I’m going to assume that the reason why you are here is that you’ve heard about Influencing Marketing.
Perhaps you are quite what exactly it is, how it works, and why this industry is making too much noise.
The truth is, it is booming for a reason.
A lot of online business owners have benefited from it…
…and many are starting to take advantage of this marketing tactic so that they can make their eCommerce business even more profitable.
In a world where everything is changing, it’s just right that you change. Meaning to say your business also needs to adapt.
Because let’s face it, who wants to be left behind in a fast-evolving digital marketing world, right?
You see, there were more than 240 new influencer marketing-focused agencies and influencer platforms established in 2019 alone.
For eCommerce brands, it can be an amazing tool to get access to highly targeted audiences that are interested in your niche.
That said, if you are here and want to make use of influencer marketing for your eCommerce business, this blog post is definitely for you!
Keep reading as we will cover:
- What exactly and How Influencer Marketing works
- The Benefits and Why it works
- How does it differ from other forms of paid advertising on social media
- Types of Influencers
- What you can do to start taking advantage of this booming industry
- Some of the Marketing Platforms
- Frequently Ask Questions about Influencer Marketing
Let’s answer this question first…
What exactly and How Influencer Marketing works
In a nutshell, Influencer Marketing is the process of working with people who have a large social media following in order to promote your brand, product, or service online.
This is a powerful way to grow an e-commerce business by tapping into the power of social media influencers.
They can take control of how they spread the word by creating content featuring your product, which will then be seen by their loyal followers who could potentially go on to buy from you as well.
This kind of exposure is positive for any business, as it allows Influencers’ followers to see their face with your brand, and with the right strategy, you can easily leverage these individuals to make your offers known by driving traffic to your landing page.
From there, they’ll be fascinated with your offers which would make them pull out their wallet and enter their credit card information!
By definition, Influencers can be anyone from a really popular celebrity to regular people like you and me for as long as they are seen as an authority on their respective niche online.
They are known as the new celebrities in the digital age who are in the position to use their influence over the audience (their fans) for good by promoting your products that they truly believe in and think will make an impact on them.
These popular online influencers have some advantages over celebrities or even traditional marketing techniques like TV commercials or billboards.
Even better, they can also build a more authentic connection with their audience and talk to them about things they care about on an intimate level.
The Benefits and Why It Works
There are so many benefits associated with Influencer Marketing. Some include the following:
Cost-effectiveness
By getting your product in front of the right audience, you can easily find new customers and generate sales that work for your brand and business goals. You won’t have to worry about compromising your ROI that much.
Authenticity
In order for influencers to truly be authentic in what they promote, you can let them experience how awesome your products are.
That way, it will be natural for them to persuade their followers and make them feel the genuineness of what they preach.
Since the influencers have a deeper relationship with their followers, it is easy for them to gain the trust of the audience towards your products.
Ability to target demographics precisely
As you know, one of the most important aspects of selling your offers online is by focusing on what your target audience wants.
Working with influencers will help you reach relevant audiences with authority at scale.
Access to a huge audience
Influencers with a huge following have an audience that you would like to promote your product/service/brand because it will help you get exposure through their channels by promoting it on their social media pages.
Those who have built their following organically are typically better suited for eCommerce influencer marketing campaigns than celebrities.
Why?
Because if they’ve managed to get so many followers without being paid for promotions then these are probably highly engaged fans who will be genuinely interested in what influencer is sharing with them.
It can help drive traffic to your website by including links, mentions, and hashtags throughout their post which means you don’t have to do any extra work – it’s all part of the service they provide.
In a nutshell, influencer marketing works really well because even science will tell you that people are more likely to buy something if they see it in an influencer’s feed than any other form of media.
It triggers the power of word of mouth which is a very effective way to increase your brand awareness which will eventually increase the chance of you getting a bunch of sales.
Five Types of Influencers
Just like a lot of things in the world of digital marketing, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. That’s why you need to understand the types and examples of Influencing Marketing so you’ll know which category you think your business fits into.
You may notice a little different variation of the different types of influencers online, but mainly you can refer to these 5 categories.
Let us break down what types of influencers are to help you build a strategy around these.
1. Mega-influencers ( more than a million followers)
The word ‘mega’ means very huge. These are the people with more than a million followers on their social media pages. So I guess you have a clue about the people you’ll expect to see from this group.
You see them everywhere because of their celebrity status so they can easily generate a highly engaged audience which makes them so expensive as well.
2. Macro-influencers (500k to 1 Million followers)
The second-highest number of followers belongs to this group. You have to remember that although they may not be a celebrity status, they are still a highly influential group of creators. They have half a million followers for a reason.
3. Mid-tier Influencers (100k to 500k followers)
Mid-tier influencers are those who have 100k to 500k followers on their social media platforms.
They usually have a niche or specific topic that the majority of their audience is interested in.
It’s an excellent choice for individuals who want to get access to a large number of people, and they are also not that expensive as far as package rates are concerned as compared to Mega and Macro influencers.
Plus, this group also has easy-to-reach representatives. You may find yourself having to go through intermediaries or agents when dealing with macro- or mega-influencers.
4. Micro-influencers (10k to 100k followers)
This group offers eCommerce brands an opportunity to gain exposure in front of engaged audiences who trust the influencer’s opinion and products.
With the number of their followers, they are usually one of the most engaged because the audience of the influencer belonging to this category follows the influencer due to his or her expertise that made them popular.
5. Nano-influencers (1k to 10k followers)
Nano-influencers are a good start when you are promoting a product. Their audience is usually the most engaged (followed by Micro) as they tend to have fewer followers.
It means they are not inundated with messages from other brands. Influencers in this bracket will also be easier to build a relationship with and can often promote your products for free or at a discounted rate because the value of the shout-out is worth it for them.
What you can do to Start Taking Advantage of this booming industry
Fortunately, influencing marketing is not reserved for brands with a huge budget to work with.
All you need is to actually do some research first to look for influencers whom you think can help you based on your needs.
So how do you choose an influencer?
While these famous digital celebrities have a high number of followers, remember that the quality of their followers is more important than quantity.
If your influencer’s audience contains a demographic that you want to target with your product, then by all means reach out to them as they most likely are a suitable candidate.
In other words, find out who their audience is and not what problems those people might want to be solved.
Another thing to consider before choosing is whether they are adding value to your message.
For example, if your Influencer’s content is of substandard quality then inevitably people will see your product as the same low-quality standard because they would tend to link it to the one promoting it.
You get what I mean, right? It’s a no-brainer.
Now, once you’re sure about who you want to work with, it’s time to find where they are exactly. That’s why you need to know the platforms being used.
Platforms for Influencer Marketing
Now If you’re decided to run an influencer marketing campaign, and say you already chose the right type of influencer who’s fit to promote your eCommerce business, it is important then that you have the ability to identify and connect with influencers as the first step.
It’s very crucial because you don’t want to try something you’re unsure if it can maximize your ROI, right?
You see, according to a recent survey conducted by Influencer Marketing Hub, finding influencers remain is indeed a significant challenge.
All the more you need to find where they are.
Having said that, here are a handful of important influencer marketing platforms you can explore:
You can utilize this to help you see influencers’ performance by checking how huge their audience is and even the level of engagement.
It does not only allow you to know the influencers but also the quality of fans they have.
This is a platform that allows you to find, hire and work with influencers who can promote your brand or products through social media channels such as Instagram and YouTube. They go by the name of Creators.
Influencers are like actual celebrities but thanks to Creator.co, these influencers come in all shapes and sizes; from movie stars to everyday people with audiences large enough to persuade your target market.
Ultimately though, Influencers are people like you and me… bloggers, vloggers, and young adults usually living in huge cities (due to their younger audience) and making their side income on the internet just like we do with our blogs too.
GRIN is a cloud-based, global e-commerce software that allows any business to build more valuable brands by leveraging creator relationships.
Frequently Ask Questions about Influencer Marketing
It’s time to answer some of the most common and burning questions from e-commerce business owners.
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“What does an influencer marketing campaign look like?”
It simply means involving an influencer in your marketing campaigns no matter what tactics you are planning to use, you just simply involve them throughout your process and make them promote your offers to their respective platforms.
Some are actually running paid ads using the influencer’s social media page to reach a large and targeted audience and make your products/services known to many!
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“How do you measure the success of Influencer Marketing?”
A lot of eCommerce businesses are running influencer marketing campaigns mainly to increase brand awareness which will lead to more traffic and sales conversion in the long run.
Influencer Marketing Hub says that 38.5% believe that you should gauge a campaign by the results in sales/conversions it brings while 32.5% are interested in engagement or clicks generated due to the campaign.
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“How to compensate influencers to work with you?”
This is one of the biggest questions of course.
The most common structure of payments as a way to compensate the influencers for endorsing your business are the following:
Pay per post
This is a traditional way of paying the influencer to publish an authentic piece of content about your brand or product, based around their personal preferences and opinions, which can range from simple photos and showing them using the product to videos telling their followers about why they love it. Each post now depends on your agreement with the influencer.
Those who belong to micro-influencers and macro-influencers may either charge set fees per post.
Licensing/rights
This may be a one-off payment or they may have to give you licensing rights so you can reuse the content in various ways.
It’s important you are aware of this before agreeing to work together because it may be useful for your brand to use the same content again.
Commission basis
You will pay a certain amount of money per number of products sold using the link Influencers would create specific to the campaign they are involved in. That way you can also track conversions or traffic source data.
When a follower purchases an item using the personalized discount code, they are credited with the commission on every sale.
The discount model has been shown to have good conversion rates as it gives more authority to Influencers’ recommendations by provoking that they are receiving higher value for less money.
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“How to come up with influencer marketing strategies?”
First things first, you have to understand what you are trying to achieve.
Ask yourself what your goal is. It has to be clearly defined just like in any marketing strategy.
By doing so, it will help you think of an idea about metrics you can track and measure at the end of the campaign.
Always go back to what is important to you. For example, your top priorities are increasing your brand awareness, generating more traffic, and increasing sales.
It means your strategies are going to be anchored to your top three goals.
At the end of the campaign, you can check if your audience has significantly increased. Were you able to get the people to know you, like you, or trust you even more? That is for the goal of brand awareness.
As for lead generation or increased web traffic, is it evident by you getting a ton of sign-ups for your lead magnets or offers?
And lastly, for Sales conversion, you check if more people purchased your offers. Did you get a bunch of cash after working with the influencer you chose to work with?
Conclusions
We hope we were able to help you understand the basics of influencer marketing and how to utilize it for your e-commerce store.
The more time and effort you put into your strategy the better results you’ll see. It is important that as an online entrepreneur you take initiative in understanding how this works.
Please feel free to leave your comment below with any questions or concerns about how we might be able to help you make a success out of your own marketing campaign.
Best,
