If you want to stay ahead of your competitors on social media platforms then influencer marketing can be your most powerful weapon. The consumers of today are smarter than they used to be. Now people do a lot of research before buying anything. However, if someone whom they trust recommends a particular product to them then they are more likely to buy the product. And that’s where influencer marketing works the best.
In a nutshell, influencer marketing is when brands collaborate with influencers for boosting their sales and brand awareness among a targeted audience. Influencer marketing has become one of the most preferred marketing strategies in recent years and so 89% say ROI from influencer marketing is comparable to or better than other marketing channels. But how to leverage influencer marketing for your e-commerce brand?
Here are some tips that you can use to leverage influencer marketing to grow your e-commerce business.
1. Have a marketing persona
Don’t just get started, first have a marketing persona. A marketing persona is a detailed report of your targeted audience. It can include demographics like location, gender, interests, etc. The more you know your audience the better you can choose the influencers. But why do you need to choose influencers as per your niche? Suppose, you own a women shoe brand and want to leverage influencer marketing. Now will hire a male influencer from the cooking niche going to help? No. You need someone who is popular among women on your targeted age otherwise it won’t help. Understand who your target audience is and create a marketing persona. Once you create it choose the influencers accordingly.
2. Choose your platform
Choosing the right platforms is as important as choosing the right influencers. While Instagram ranks number one in terms of the most effective influencer marketing channel, YouTube and Facebook are also impactful channels. Once you know your audience, it’s time for you to know where your targeted audience resides most of the time. If you deal with B2B then LinkedIn is the best for you and for B2C, Facebook and Instagram are your spots. YouTube works for both B2B and B2C. You can also try experimenting with the platforms in order to understand what works best.
3. Choose your influencers
It’s not that the bigger audience base an influencer has the better he/she is. Micro-influencers generate 7x more engagement than the average generated by macro-influencers. It’s obvious that macro-influencers have more followers than micro-influencers. However, micro-influencers generate more leads because people following them are genuinely interested in their content.
4. Monitor your competitors
Your competitors are your biggest source of knowledge. Check out your competitors and understand what worked for them and what didn’t. In this way, you can explore what strategies work the best for them and then you can easily modify those strategies to create a better marketing strategy for your brand. In order to create a better marketing strategy, understand what are their plus points and then jot down yours. Use your plus points to show people that why choosing your brand is a better option. Also, in this way, you will find the pitfalls of your brand and then can modify it. There are many tools that can help you in the process.
5. Let your influencers be creative
They are influencers for a reason and none can know their audience better than themselves. Let them be creative and promote your stuff in their own way. Don’t bombard them with loads of content outlines and CTAs. Tell them about your product or services and let them know what is your marketing goal. Your marketing goal can be anything like:
- Creating brand awareness
- Boosting leads and sales
- Increasing website traffic
- Building an audience for your brand in social media
Choose your goals wisely and then ask the influencers to add a specific CTA in their posts for telling people what should they do next. The more clear the CTA is the more are the chances of people opting it.
6. Measure results
Do you know that 76% of marketers say that measuring ROI is the biggest influencer marketing challenge? And still measuring the result is an essential part of any marketing strategy. After all, unless you measure the results you’ll not be able to understand whether it’s working or not plus if it’s working what is the ROI of the campaign. There are many software and online tools that can be used to determine the reach of your entire influencer marketing campaign. Here’s how to measure the ROI of an influencer marketing campaign:
a. Determine campaign reach
Here are the metrics that come under this category:
- Impressions – The number of impressions that an influencer’s post received
- Followers – The number of followers the influencer has for determining how many people might see the sponsored post
- Traffic – The number of people clicked on the link added to the influencer’s post
b. Determine campaign engagement
It includes metrics like:
- Likes – The number of likes the post received
- Clicks – The number of people who actually showed interest in the sponsored post
- Comments – The more a post receives comment the more engagement it receives
- Shares – The number of people who found that post interesting
c. Revenue generated
To determine the revenue check metrics like:
- Affiliate Links – The link that is added in the post can be used to track how many people clicked it
- Google Analytics – It can be used to track all the sales
- Promo Codes – You can track all the people who used the promo code provided in the post to buy the product
To conclude
Influencer marketing has completely changed the entire online marketing scenario. And that change has made brands collaborate with several influencers across various platforms. However, yet many brands are not aware of it. Now if you want to skyrocket your e-commerce business, having an influencer marketing campaign will be your winning strategy.
