Influencer marketing can bring exponential growth to your eCommerce.
The same way you like to look up at reviews and videos about the products you want to purchase, many others do the same.
In fact, Twitter made a quick study and found that nearly 50% of the respondents will rely on what influencers say about certain products.
When working with influencers, you’re actively paying a (sort of) small celebrity to showcase your products and introduce them to all their fans.
Partnering with influencers will affect your eCommerce in multiple good ways.
However, remember that a coin has two sides, and these partnerships can also harm your business if not thought through.
What are influencers?
A brief explanation is that influencers are online celebrities.
Everyone has heard of Leonardo DiCapio and his famous movies, or Brian Adams and his timeless songs.
But not everyone is familiar with Benedict Cumberbatch or the guy who plays great music in the subway.
Influencers are people who have gained their voice and spotlight in social media and people look up to them to choose the best make-up products, the best dresses, the cutest wedding venues, etc.
They literally influence their followers into buying certain products, hence their names.
How can influencers damage your brand’s reputation
As we’re mentioned before, these online celebrities influence other people so they buy certain products.
Now, let’s say a certain influencer is actively defending animal rights. How would it look if he/she promoted fur coats?
This would backlash on the influencer and also on your brand, because the target audience wasn’t chosen properly.
When partnering with influencers, you need to be aware of the person you’ll be working with:
- Is his/her audience a fit for your product?
- Do you share the same values?
- Is his/her audience ready to buy your product?
If you partner with the right influencer, you can notice a huge increase in sales.
On the other hand, if you don’t partner with the right one, you can be facing many headaches in the future.
Partnering with influencers
We’ll share some tips on how to partner with the right influencers when looking to increase your eCommerce’s ROI and sales.
Before we go ahead, please be advised that these are only recommendations and that you should always adapt these to your line of business.
Where to find them
To find the best influencers, you also need to know who your target audience is.
Instagram, Tik-Tok and YouTube are among the best platforms to work with influencers in 2021, so if you’re just starting we’d recommend looking into these.
Then, you can use a tool like Upfluence to look-up some influencers inside your niche.
It’s very important that you choose a person that works with your niche so you can achieve better and faster results.
Define KPI’s
This is actually a mistake many eCommerce owners make: they don’t talk numbers with their influencers.
They simply assume every party knows what the goals are and when the campaign isn’t as successful as the business owner predicted, it just feels like it was money poorly spent.
Be sure to define KPI’s with your influencer so you can measure the success or failure of the campaign.
Some KPI’s may include:
- Sales made using the affiliate link;
- Website visitors;
- Engagement with certain hashtags;
- New leads;
- Etc.
Again: be sure to adapt these to your business and your goals.
Agree on the payment
Depending on the influencer the payment may vary a lot.
Nano influencers (up to 10k followers) can cost between 100$-500$ and they should be a good starting point.
We suggest you check this Influencer Marketing Hub post to find out more about influencer rates.
Of course, payment must always be discussed between you and the influencer, so don’t take the post’s rates as a benchmark.
Some influencers (especially smaller ones) may even prefer discount codes or free products instead of actual money.
Here’s an example: you can pay 300$ + ensure a 50% discount on all products for the following 6 months.
If the influencer is an active user of your products this may even become a better deal for him/her.
How will it help you sell your eCommerce faster
Influencers can really help you reach higher if you partner with the right one.
And the better your numbers are, the faster you’ll sell, right?
When you partner with influencers and your numbers rise, this will become your perfect selling strategy.
Moreover, you can even sell your business for a higher valuation.
You can contact us and we’ll help you find the best strategy to sell your business.
