Did you know 50.7% of brands that work with influencers run an eCommerce store?
Today’s customers spend most of their time on social media and follow various influencers for inspiration. They blindly believe them, and whenever they need to buy something, they look for their favorite influencers to review it. Thus, most brands utilize this opportunity and collaborate with genuine influencers to reach a wider audience.
Now, If you have an eCommerce store and haven’t yet tried influencer marketing, you should give it a try, and here’s a step-by-step guide that’d handhold you throughout the process.
Let’s go!
Why Is Influencer Marketing Important For ECommerce?
Nowadays, potential customers trust an honest consumer for product reviews more than the brand itself. And when the review comes from an expert they admire, it becomes easier for them to take the ultimate decision. It’s the reason influencer marketing reached $16.4 billion in 2022, indicating steady growth over the past few years.
And as time passes, more eCommerce brands are incorporating influencer marketing into their growth strategies and getting benefitted from various aspects:
- Builds Trust And Authority
Influencers have already built a genuine community with their expertise. Their followers believe them and get influenced by their suggestions and recommendations.
Thus, if you have a new eCommerce brand, you must collaborate with these influencers to establish your brand authority and boost visibility.
- Directly Reaches Your Target Audience
When you collaborate with relevant influencers aligned with your brand, you don’t need to invest lots of time or money in other advertisements. It directly reaches your potential customers and influences them to take the purchasing decision.
- Boosts Revenue
If a product recommendation comes from an expert influencer who has worked hard to build a loyal fan following, his followers don’t delay buying the product. That’s why influencer marketing plays a crucial role in generating higher revenue.
- Refreshes Content Strategy
When you collaborate with new influencers, you get a chance to add new faces or content to your social channels. This technique refreshes your social feeds and enriches your content marketing strategy.
- Creates A Long-Term Relationship
You might have heard about “Network is Networth.” This same applies to influencer marketing too. Connecting with the experts who are already in this game for years not only boosts your knowledge about the market but also opens various opportunities for the future.
Step-By-Step Guide To Kickstart Your ECommerce Influencer Marketing Journey
You are already familiar with influencer marketing and its power. But without a full-proof strategy in hand, all the efforts you’ll take for your influencer marketing campaign will go in vain.
Thus, here is a strategic step-by-step process to guide you throughout the journey.
1. Lay Down Your Goals
Before anything else, think about the ultimate result – what do you want from your influencer marketing campaign? Do you want to increase brand awareness and authority or direct sales?
Most of the time, brands go for an influencer marketing campaign to boost their brand authority, which indirectly increases sales. But nowadays, few brands are focusing on direct sales by offering discounts for a certain period.
So, take your time, think about the end result, and take action accordingly.
2. Define The Social Channel For Influencer Marketing
Once you are determined about your goals, it’s time to define the social channel you’ll run your campaign on. And it completely depends on your target audience. Research where they hang out and which influencers they follow.
As far as recent influencer marketing statistics are concerned, most brands choose Instagram as their primary channel for influencer marketing because of its top-notch features like creator accounts, reels, link stickers, etc.
Also, Instagram offers shoppable ads feature that lets your customers buy a product without leaving the site.
Moreover, Tiktok has grown immensely over the last few years, giving both the influencers and brands a chance to boost their reach. Its duet feature is a great opportunity for influencers to engage with their followers. Thus, if you are targeting youngsters, Tiktok can be your choice.
Like Instagram, Youtube is also a hotspot for influencer marketing. A youtube influencer puts lots of effort and dedication into building a community. So, undoubtedly, their audience is much more loyal to them, and you can take this opportunity to boost your business growth.
Thus, define your target audience and then come to a decision.
3. Find The Relevant Influencers And Reach Out To Them
Here comes the trickiest part of all – finding the best influencer aligning with your brand voice. If you choose the wrong one, your brand will tumble down. So, you have to be super strategic in this stage.
First things first, you should have a superficial idea of the different types of influencers –
- Nano influencers – 1000 to 10,000 followers
- Micro-influencers – 10,000 to 50,000 followers
- Mid-tier influencers – 50,000 to 500,000 followers
- Macro influencers – 500,000 to 1 million followers
- Mega influencers/celebrity influencers – 1m+ followers
However, research stated that nano and micro-influencers tend to have more engagement rates than most mega-influencers. Also, every newbie eCom brand can’t afford mega influencers. Thus, it’s a win-win situation for beginner e-commerce brands and small influencers if they work with each other.
Here’s an example of a micro-influencer.
However, there are 5 main ways you can consider adopting to find a suitable influencer for your business:
- Look At Your Follower List
This is one of the easiest yet most effective ways to find influencers for marketing campaigns. By searching your follower list, you’ll find tons of influencers who are tagging your brand to their posts, liking your posts, and participating in different activities. Look for those accounts and reach out to them.
For example, see how Gemaen has tagged Sergio Tacchini ( a clothing brand) in his post.
- Check Competitors’ Followers
It’s an underrated hack to find the best influencers for campaigns. Depending on your industry, you’ll have certain competitors. Visit their profiles and rake through their follower lists. Once you find suitable influencers, approach them.
- Relevant Hashtag Research
By doing thorough hashtag research, you’ll find potential influencers for your campaign. But how?
Well, there are mainly 4 types of hashtags you can pick – Industry-centric hashtags, branded hashtags, location hashtags, and celebration-related hashtags.
Select any of them, run a search on social platforms, and find posts relevant to your business. Then you can reach out to the person and ask for collaboration.
For example, when we searched for #zara, we found this fashion influencer who has decent followers and engagement on her Instagram handle.
- Google Searches
It’s the easiest one! Open your browser, and search for the top influencers related to your niche.
Once you find them, go to their social profiles. You can also take a step forward by finding similar pages of the selected influencers.
- Use Influencer Marketing Tools
Nowadays, finding relevant influencers has become easier than before. There are lots of tools/software available in the market that would help you find relevant influencers aligned with your niche, budget, and brand voice. To name a few – Buzzsumo, Upfluence, Influence. co, etc.
And the best part? Most of them are free and offer pocket-friendly pricing.
However, your work doesn’t end once you find the best influencer in your industry. Remember, their reputation is your reputation. Thus, check out their content (whether it’s offensive or not), engagement rate, and follower base, and then take the next step.
4. Create An Irresistible Offer For Influencers
You’ve already found the most suitable influencers to work with; now it’s time to approach them.
Remember, brands are fighting in their inboxes to get visibility. In such a situation, if you send the same generic offer, chances are high that they’d reject you.
Thus, be concise and send them a strategic email/DM, including –
- What your business is
- why their content resonates with your brand
- How you will collaborate
- What the influencer will get in return (gifts/discounts/paid collaboration)
- A clear CTA
It might take some days to get a reply. So, have patience, follow up, and once they agree, send them a contract to move forward.
5. Try Your Hands Out On Different Types Of Influencer Marketing Campaigns
Most of the time, brands force influencers to follow some generic scripts to promote their products. It not only sounds fake but also decreases brand authority.
To avoid this, let the influencers work their own ways. Give them ample freedom to experiment with their creativity. You can partner with them and give them different ideas to promote your brand. For example, –
- Host Brand Giveaways
You might have seen influencers conducting giveaways with their followers. You can utilize this chance and ask them to promote your brand as giveaway gifts. When done properly, the giveaway winners will tag your brand, which will increase your brand visibility.
Here’s an example of brand giveaways where Ankita Chaturvedi (@corallistablog) is promoting Hudabeauty products.
- Conduct Affiliate Program
If you have just launched your product and don’t have enough budget to invest in collaboration, you can try your hands out on affiliate programs.
This strategy is a win-win situation for both parties. One way, you’d get brand visibility and direct sales; on the other hand, the influencer will get a commission on every sale made from their recommendations.
- Create Creative Content
This is one of the most common types of influencer marketing campaigns. Here brands send their products to the influencers and ask them to create a post or video on the same.
You can consider Alina G’s Instagram video as an example where she is showcasing Marcela London’s jacket.
- Offer Exclusive Discounts
You can offer exclusive discounts for influencers and their followers to generate direct revenue for your brand.
- Host Virtual Or In-Person Events
In-person events have been trending in the influencer marketing genre. With this in mind, You can host an event and invite different influencers for product launches and demonstrations.
Let’s take the example of Mamaearth. This Indian skincare and cosmetic brand frequently conduct in-person events and invite social media influencers to increase brand awareness.
6. Track The Campaign Performance
Influencer marketing isn’t a one-time game. You have to frequently conduct influencer marketing campaigns to stay on top of your audience’s mind and set your brand apart from the crowd. And to do this, you need to have a proper analysis of previous campaigns and test what worked and what didn’t.
There are tons of tools in the market, like Modash, and Brand24, that you can use to track ROI, CPC, CTR, and direct conversion rates. Once you find a thorough breakdown of your previous campaigns, try restrategizing it for the next time.
Related Read:
Wrapping Up: Influencer Marketing For eCommerce Stores (2024)
eCommerce Influencer Marketing is a game-changing tactic to create a long-lasting impact among your targetted customers. But it works well only when you do the solid groundwork and apply full-proof strategies.
And the best part? – you don’t need a huge budget to make your influencer campaign a success story. Even if you are a newbie entrepreneur, you can reach out to small and micro-level influencers to collaborate with.
With this being said, we are wrapping up this article. Remember, you are just a DM away from starting your influencer marketing journey.
