5 Ways to Use Influencer Marketing in Your Business

If you think that influencer marketing is a product of social media platforms and social media marketing, then we have to take a trip down memory lane.

Influencer marketing can go back to the 1760s when pottery maker and entrepreneur Josiah Wedgwood managed to land royal endorsements for his pottery line.

While it is impossible to get the royal family to promote your own product line, the change in influencing power from unreachable royalties to everyday people has helped businesses to come up with solid social media marketing strategies to make their growth skyrocket.

Using influencers will not only help you deliver your messages to your target audience more efficiently but also help you build trust, improve your SEO and bring your brand awareness to bigger heights.

As influencer marketing isn’t exclusive to million-dollar-business marketers, it is a great way to power up both new eCommerce stores and established brands that want to promote their products and compete even with their greatest competitors.

So to help you stay on top of the game, here are 5 ways your eCommerce store can take advantage of influencer marketing to increase brand awareness and profit.

1. Make Influencers Part of Your Marketing Campaigns

While fleeting promotions can help you get a momentary increase in brand awareness and sales through single influencer posts, investing in long-term collaborations is the best way to leverage their influence and turn more followers into loyal supporters of your brand.

To make the most out of influencer marketing, you should drive your influencer traffic back to a post-click landing page that will help you convert more social media followers into customers.

So to create a landing page that will successfully turn them into loyal supporters of your brand, you should give your social media followers a seamless experience that will make them click on your call-to-action without feeling that your pages are too promotional.

After all, these followers trusted their favorite influencer’s recommendation and landed on your page to find out about the benefits of your products, so the best thing you can do is to give them an amazing experience that will remind them why they listened to the influencer in the first place.

To succeed, you also need to customize your pages to match the influencer’s style, make your messages coherent and make your followers feel like the influencer is part of the process and not just a means to get their money.

Here’s an amazing example from Clear and Cristiano Ronaldo’s collaboration:

And that’s what pops up when his Instagram followers visit Clear’s landing page:

By optimizing their landing page to match Cristiano Ronaldo’s Instagram post, Clear managed to give their landing page visitors more reasons to click on their CTA and help them improve their everyday life.

And if you are pressed for time, you can use a landing page builder to save valuable time and focus on other pressing matters that demand your attention.

Suggested reading: Landing Pages: 5 Tips For Higher Conversions

2. Find the Right People for Your Brand

Out there, there are hundreds of influencers, either bigger or smaller, with their own creative ideas, audiences, and niche.

Niche influencers are those who operate in a specific field like for instance tennis player Roger Federer promoting sports equipment for Nike.

While influencers can be flexible and manage to promote various products regardless of their niche, according to Fair Credit team, collaborating with those who are related to your products and niche is the best way to start.

As niche influencers will be more knowledgeable about your products, they will be able to promote your brand more authentically as opposed to influencers who will have nothing to do with your niche and their audience might find it difficult to see as authentic.

While this might not be the case with big-time celebrities whose endorsements can go beyond their niche and influence stems from their popularity and public exposure, choosing influencers who have a level of expertise in your niche is the most optimal way to increase your brand awareness as authentically as possible.

Here’s an example from Love Home and Planet using influencers Robert and Christina (@newdarlings) to promote their product:

Finding the right influencers for your brand can be the factor that will help you increase your engagement and brand awareness, as well as establish you as a reliable and approachable brand that values customers.

For Love Home and Planet, collaborating with Robert and Christina to promote their detergent was an amazing idea that increased the brand’s customer lifecycle marketing endeavors and, as you can see, turned some of the followers into customers:

3. Product Pre-Launches With Influencers

Product launches are your secret weapon to show your loyal customers, followers and potential buyers that your eCommerce store is thriving.

As new product campaigns can be costly and require time to plan and deliver, finding a way to maximize your new product visibility is the best solution to boost your revenue.

Influencers, in this case, can be an integral part of a successful product launch that will help you generate “hype” about an upcoming product, give original reactions to their followers and, overall, get their audience ready for your brand’s next big thing!

For instance, back when Samsung released the new Galaxy Note 7, the brand collaborated with Snapchatter CyreneQ to give followers a glimpse at a mysterious event that Samsung was organizing in New York.

The Snapchatter posted numerous stories of her documenting the trip, wondering what Samsung had planned for them.

As you can see in the stories, the influencer’s authentic reactions and enthusiasm made her followers watch her stories to finally see what Samsung had in store for them.

What this Snapchat campaign taught us is that influencers can help you boost your potential shopper’s purchase intention, guiding them one step further down your marketing funnel.

4. Leverage Micro- and Nano-Influencers

While big names like Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner can expose your products to a massive audience, you shouldn’t underestimate the power of influencers with smaller audiences.

To power up your influencer marketing strategy, you should focus on finding influencers who might not have the numbers but they will have built strong bonds with their followers.

Despite micro-influencers having just a couple of thousand followers, their power lies in their strong relationships and nurtured audience that makes their followers follow their lead and try the things they recommend.

Apart from micro-influencers, you can also leverage the power of the nano-influencer to make your influencer marketing a qualitative success.

Despite their smaller audiences, nano-influencers are the definition of influencers with true conversion power and solid audience bonds since the exchange between them is better, more targeted and a lot more personal.

If you think about it, these audiences see the nano-influencer as a friend who will not suggest something just for the sake of profit but for the sake of making their lives easier.

Here’s an amazing example from Pandora’s collaboration with Alexis Baker, a nano-influencer about with 3.5K followers:

Targeting both micro and nano-influencers who love your brand will give your store credibility since the influencers’ recommendations will be seen as authentic experiences that will help you increase your average order value (AOV) and grow beyond measure.

5.  Promote Amazing Giveaways

Giveaways are always amazing! 

And do you know who else thinks that?

If you thought about every social media follower out there including you, then you are absolutely right.

Giveaways work so well because they rely on the “free-stuff-for-no-price” idea that every shopper loves.

While your audience might be there for the free goodies, there are deeper reasons why giveaways can actually work miracles.

If you think about it, giving something back for free will show your audience that you value them and want to reward them for being with you.

For your brand, though, hosting giveaways is also an amazing way to increase your brand awareness and get more followers in the most cost-effective way.

So, when you combine giveaways with influencers, you can get an amazing conversion combo to enhance your lead generation efforts for a really small price.

Here’s an example from Passion Planner and Celine’s collaboration giveaway:

Takeaway

Leveraging the right influencers, micro- and nano-influencers included, will give you the chance to build bonds with their audience and turn visitors into followers and followers into loyal supporters of your eCommerce business.

Getting yourself into the world of influencer marketing will not only help you increase your brand visibility but also increase your conversion rate optimization (CRO) and revenue. And to better monitor your CRO, consider using an analytics tool like Finteza to create sales funnels.

So, what are you waiting for?

Next time you are about to use influencers to promote your eCommerce business try out these 5 tips and see your marketing strategy help you grow beyond expectations.