As social media marketing and advertising grow in popularity, it would only make sense that the influence that comes with social media is coming from particular users on our favorite social media platforms. These influential people are called Social Media Influencers and they can be a great avenue for you to grow your audience and create sales through influencer marketing.
Many small businesses are using influencer marketing for two main reasons:
- To promote their stores and create awareness/to encourage more people to visit their physical store locations
- To promote their products and to encourage the influencer’s audience to shop online. This avenue is best for online shops and physical stores
Whether the goal is to get more foot traffic or to sell out of your products, small business owners are seeing success using influencer marketing. That’s why this week we wanted to share 5 tips for using influencer marketing as a retailer:
A PCG is your Perfect Customer Group; the group of people that is most likely to buy something from your store and become a long term customer. For retailers in particular, you may want to find an influencer who often posts about your category or business (fashion/jewelry/crafting/DIY/motherhood) because their follower base will already likely be fans of this category as well.
Influencers with smaller followings generally have high engagement because their community is still small enough that they’re able to engage back with their commenters. Smaller influencers are sometimes called “Micro-influencers” meaning they have 10,000 followers or less.
Track your results (how many sales or new followers you gained from your partnership) to see if the influencer’s audience is the right size for you to see success.
Tip: Some stats you should ask for from an influencer partner before you move ahead could be:
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- Average number of post saves per month
- Number of story views (average)
- Average number of sticker taps on Stories
- Link clicks per month (average)
- Average number of post shares per month
A contract is important to make sure both parties follow through. Do not just make arrangements through DM or email. A contract should include how much you will pay them, what type of content you’d like from them, how many posts/deliverables you expect from them, and what types of content they should deliver. On top of that, you should include a timeline for when you would like these sent by.
Many influencers (especially micro-influencers) accept gifts instead of payment. Before offering monetary payment for social media posts, start the conversation off with an offer of a popular product!
This is great for retailers because you are paying for the item at wholesale, and using the item at its retail price to trade for a service from the influencer. Be sure to mark this in your contract.
If you have followers with between 5,000 – 20,000 followers, this could be a good category of influencer to look into working with. If they’re already following you, it’s likely they’re fans of your brand or products, or possibly already a customer. Someone who is already familiar with your brand may be able to create more genuine sounding ads/posts for you. The post could have a better chance to come off with real interest in your company as an advocate, rather than “sales-y” like a paid ad.
What I Want You To Take Away From This Blog:
- Smaller influencers can market to their community to drive product sales.
- Always create a contract before moving forward with an influencer.
- Using influencer marketing can be easy and produce great results for small businesses.
Okay, over to you…
Have you ever used an influencer to market your store or a product? If so, let us know about your experience in the comments below!
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