The Ultimate Guide to Influencer Marketing For Ecommerce
What is Influencer Marketing?
Influencer marketing revolves around employing influencers to promote your business & its offerings.
These influencers are people who have built themselves an admirable social following. And their followers trust and follow them for their impressive expertise in their specific domain.
These can be YouTubers, Entertainers, Bloggers, Thought Leaders, Industry Experts, etc.
Brands collaborate with influencers to leverage their influence and trust-building potential. Thus, allowing brands to reach a larger audience, convince shoppers, and boost sales.
The Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report 2019 suggests:
A business wins up to $18 worth of returns for every $1 spent in influencer marketing.
Moreover, eCommerce businesses are among the highest gainers from influencer marketing.
And today, 9 out of 10 brands are already leveraging influencer marketing in one way or the other.
Social Influencers: Why Your Ecommerce Business Needs It?
1. Creating a Buzz through Influencer Generated Content
What if a celebrity like Usain Bolt shares a post wearing a pair of running spikes from your newest sports collection?
Or what if Gigi Hadid talks about a great buying experience from your e-store?
If any of these imaginations make it to reality, you can expect huge traction on your site.
Influencer marketing isn’t less than a magic wand for creating a buzz around your brand.
Social media influencers with a decent yet loyal following can help your eCommerce brand with:
- Instilling a buzz around your newest product range
- Getting consumers to learn about your upcoming sale and deals
- Attracting shoppers to keep their carts ready for the limited time deals
- Earning direct sales through influencer product recommendations
You must opt for an influencer whose followers happen to be your ideal target audience. And you must offer them all the room for creative content creation.
They are absolute wizards with influencing consumers, as they have already built their business around it.
They might love to recommend your eCommerce site on their social media platforms. Or they might show how one of your products is a part of their daily routine.
You can also request them to review your products. And they can share their genuine experience with their followers on their YouTube or Instagram channels.
2. Using Influencer Promo Codes for Growing Sales
Are you leveraging influencer marketing to get your brand’s word into the market? A great way to translate this reach into leads and sales is by using promo codes.
How about creating exclusive promo codes for your influencer friends? They can share these promo codes with their product promotion or brand promotion posts.
Nevertheless, the audience is willing to try a product recommended by their favorite influencer. Now followers also have a promo code to convince their curious hearts for the purchase.
That said, influencer marketing can be all the good for boosted eCommerce sales.
So, you can go creative with your promo codes. You may want the promo code to reflect your brand’s name, or the influencer’s name, or a collab between you both.
An influencer can share this on his feed post, story, or by doing an Insta Live session.
Moreover, consumers consume the ‘product reviews’ type of content wholeheartedly. So an influencer might love to share his exclusive promo code on his product review video.
He can also directly place his referral link in the description of his video on YouTube.
3. Selling Better through Influencer Shoppable Posts
Influencer marketing isn’t making half-baked promises. It doesn’t just help you stir a buzz but also generates real & significant sales for your business.
40% of customers made a product purchase just by noticing their favorite influencer using it.
In fact, consumers readily utilize visual search to identify products used or worn by influencers in their posts. And if they find the product online, they wouldn’t think twice before ordering their bag of happiness.
What if you club the deal by giving consumers a chance to buy these products then and there from their influencer’s post?
Sounds intriguing, right!
You can collaborate with influencers to plan Instagram Shoppable Posts. Here the influencers can tag all the products they wish to promote in that post.
And when a user clicks on these products in the Instagram post, they can find details to shop the product.
Another great platform to plan these types of posts is Pinterest. Influencers can club Shop the Look Pins on Pinterest with their impressive reach to attract stellar traction.
And this will source direct sales for your eCommerce business.
4. Increasing the Reach of Your Content and SEO
As an eCommerce brand, you might be preparing plentiful marketing content. This can be your product catalogs, offers, emailers, blogs, videos, etc.
But is your eCommerce content marketing strategy sourcing you impressive reach? If not, influencer marketing can be the secret ingredient to your marketing strategy.
Content that is shared by influencers earns 8X higher engagement than directly shared branding content.
How about an influencer sharing your new video ad on his Instagram page?
He can add a caption like –
“Just came across this thoughtful advertising and can’t wait to get my hands on this new [product-name]. With this buy, I am doing my part to bring a change in the society, are you?”
Of course, your ad should be thoughtful for such a caption. But, you got the point, right?
Or, let’s say you prepare a blog to answer some FAQs regarding your products. Now, this can be quite helpful content for consumers.
And an influencer might love to share the blog’s link as a feed post if he finds it genuine.
A caption related to “busting myths” might draw surplus attention to the influencer’s post.
5. Establishing a Strong Social Proof for Your E-commerce Brand & Products
It would be too obvious to say that social proof can make or break an eCommerce business.
In fact, 70% of consumers would trust a stranger’s review about a product. So imagine if their favorite influencer gives a positive review about your product.
Influencer marketing is one of the surest ways to weave tangible social proof for your brand.
Here is how Clear hair care, a cosmetic brand, leaps by collaborating with none other than Cristiano Ronaldo:
Another way to build authentic social proof is by collaborative content.
An influencer might like you to be a part of their content. They may plan an interview-type post to highlight your thought leadership and mission.
It wouldn’t just source your traffic but establish trust for your brand. And the loyal followers of that influencer would positively turn up as your initial customers.
6. Promoting via Influencer Instagram Stories and Reels
In 2019, 92% of influencers said that they loved Instagram as a marketing platform.
Today, it is one of the most actively utilized platforms by eCommerce businesses.
Instagram Stories is leading as a prominent feature to promote brands and products. Here Influencers can add “Shop Now” or “Swipe to Shop” links to their Stories.
Moreover, Instagram Stories are not at all intrusive. They do not take space in the feeds and dissolve after 24 hours.
Here is how a fashion influencer, Chiara Ferragni, promotes a product on Amazon.
A trending feature that has come as a game-changer for social media is Instagram Reels. It has a huge engagement rate and reflects the true success of short video content.
You might love to watch ZachKings’s Instagram Page for some quirky short video creativity. And you might want to rope him or any other influencer to promote your eCommerce brand.
7. Building Exclusive Range of Video Content
Video content works volumes when it comes to eCommerce businesses. Whether you promote short video content (less than 30 seconds) or long YouTube videos, people love videos.
70% of teens on YouTube find content from YouTubers more relevant than traditional celebrities.
And influencer marketing allows you to leverage the true power of video content.
Influencers can help you produce and promote your eCommerce brand via a large variety of video content:
Vlogs: Influencers can VLOG about their genuine experience with your products or brand.
Fashion Look Books: An influencer can don your product and reveal their look in an awe-inspiring video. They might also give styling tutorials around your brand products.
Video Ads: You may rope in popular faces in your video ad commercials. And these influencers can then further promote these ads.
Tutorial Videos: Influencers may like to produce tutorial videos on how to use your product or shop from your site.
8. Combining Paid Ads with Influencer Marketing
Let’s assume you are approaching the Holiday Season Sale. Would you mind investing in Influencer marketing, or would you stick to social media ad promotions?
A tough choice, right? Especially when both the strategies have been drawing comparable results for eCommerce.
But what if you can combine these two strategies? You will be able to leverage the influencer’s brand value and build upon it with paid ads.
So, many eCommerce brands already utilize this approach in several ways. Some of these are:
Influencers produce content to be shared on their stories, feed posts, and YouTube channels, etc. And the same post can then be promoted using paid marketing. Here you might like to exclude the influencer’s followers as they have already seen the post.
You can collaborate with the influencer to produce a creative video ad commercial. Now when he shares it with his followers, they would love to see him in this commercial. This may translate into sales.
Moreover, you can promote this ad commercial on YouTube and other social platforms. It will help you build upon the influencer’s reach.
9. Planning Influencer-backed Contests, Giveaways, and Viral Hashtags
Influencer marketing is evolving each day, and there is no rulebook to it. If you collaborate with an influencer for your eCommerce promotions, you must dare to embrace creativity.
You might like to plan certain contests and giveaways to promote an upcoming sale. Here you can boost the reach of your contest promotions via influencer marketing.
Another fruitful technique includes coining hashtags and making these hashtags go viral. So, you can create your branded hashtags to promote an exclusive product range.
Now, you can turn your followers into micro-influencers by asking them to promote this hashtag. You can also offer them giveaways or exclusive discounts for promoting these hashtags and tagging your brand.
10. Growing Your E-commerce Brand’s Social Media Popularity
Your brand’s social media popularity is crucial social proof. Moreover, it becomes your go-to platform when you wish to promote a new product or an event.
That said, you must work on building an active following and engagement on social media. These followers must reflect your target audience and must be loyal -advocates of your brand.
Here, influencer marketing can give a much-needed push to your social media popularity.
You can plan viral collaborative content with a highly relevant influencer. And his followers might like to follow your brand too.
The influencer can promote your social media profile along with your brand promotions.
You can encourage your followers to promote your business among their followers.
Four Step Process for Successful eCommerce Marketing using Influencers
1. Define Your Goals with Influencer Marketing
Akin to any other campaign, you must define clear goals for your influencer marketing strategy.
Jot down your definite goals:
You may want to increase sales for an upcoming sales event.
Or you might wish to promote your new products. Moreover, there can be goals like:
- Gaining traction and sales from your new eCommerce site
- Establishing significant online popularity and social proof
- Selling directly through social media, etc.
These goals will further have a say in your choice of influencers, strategy, and campaign budget.
Some influencers can help you with generating a buzz around your brand. At the same time, some assist you with driving sales. You need to communicate your goals with prospective influencers.
Your goals will also influence the choice of your influencer marketing platform.
For instance, Shoppable Posts or Pins on Instagram and Pinterest respectively source your direct sales.
Meanwhile, YouTubers can drive you referral traffic through product reviews and other video content.
2. Find an Influencer who Befits Your Ecommerce Marketing Goals
Every individual with a huge social following might not make a suitable influencer for your brand.
An influencer must not only understand your goals but also align with your mission. A majority of good influencers will only collaborate with you when they find value in your offerings.
Moreover, each influencer will have a different level of impact on your business. You must look out for influencers who appeal to an audience that reflects your target consumer base.
For example:
Puma ropes in the popular footballer Neymar Junior to highlight the sporty spirit of the clothing brand.
3. Skim through Your Follower List for Micro-influencers
So, while you are trying to find the right influencer, do not forget to scan your follower list.
You are most likely to have some micro-influencers following you. These micro-influencers might have a smaller follower base. But, they have a superior connection with their followers.
Moreover, they have been following your brand for quite some time now. And so, they readily transform into your brand advocates.
You can leverage these micro-influencers to promote promo codes for upcoming deals. And they can even post about their shopping experience with your brand, or branded hashtags, etc.
Also, repost their posts on your page and offer them exclusive discounts and rewards. They will appreciate these small efforts. And they are likely to add a personal touch to their brand promotion efforts.
4. Collaborate, Discuss Your Goals and, Plan Influencer Marketing Campaign
So, when your goals are sorted, here is time for a more daunting task – finding an influencer.
You can start with the simplest method, i.e., browse Google for influencer research. You can search for popular influencers in your relevant niche. And then sort them by scanning their social profiles.
However, a more promising method is to use influencer marketing tools. Tools like BuzzSumo, Heepsy, Fourtrarzz Media, etc., come in handy for influencer research.
Add filters based on your niche, influencer gender, age, and platform, etc. Moreover, you can also manage your influencer marketing campaigns through these tools.
Engage with the influencers of your choice and together discuss out your marketing strategy.
- Try creative video content with the influencer (Product reviews, tutorials, FAQs, etc.)
- Use Influencer-generated Shoppable Posts or Shop The Look Pins
- Attract sales through influencer-shared promo codes and discounts
- Boost leads with contests & giveaways (promote hashtags, tag friends, share the story, etc.). This tactic motivates your followers to turn into your brand advocates.
Ensure that you track your influencer marketing campaign analytics. And track conversions, traffic, sales, user metrics, etc.
5 Useful Influencer Marketing Tools to Increase Your Ecommerce Brand Presence Online
1. BuzzSumo
Marketers keep BuzzSumo handy when it comes to influencer marketing. The popular tool allows eCommerce businesses to research the best influencer options on the go.
Browse over to the “influencers” tab on BuzzSumo and dynamically search for the influencer cycle. Here you can search influencers for your goal-specific keywords like “product
promotion,” “eCommerce marketing,” etc.
These keywords generate a list of goal-specific influencer options for your business. You can now sort this list based on location, age, category, languages, etc.
Seamlessly export the data to Excel and sort the influencer for your eCommerce.
Pricing:
It brings value at a starting cost of $99/month.
2. Heepsy
This AI-based tool brings you access to over 7 million active influencers. Start with sorting them for your eCommerce marketing goal: product promotions, direct sales, etc.
Add filters like country, platform, gender, audience demographics, etc.
You can compare metrics like followers, engagement rate, and popularity. To assist you with your decisions, you also get the estimated collaboration costs.
Pricing:
Try your hands on the limited version at no cost. And then, you can upgrade the full potential of the tool @ $49/month.
3. Fourstarzz Media
A game-changer among influencer marketing tools is Fourstarzz Media. It earns you access to 7,50,000 influencers.
And the distinguishing feature is the Influencer Marketing Campaign feature. A dedicated campaign manager manages the influencer research, strategizing, and management for you.
He further tracks and reports the success of the campaign for you.
Pricing:
You can leverage the tool at $59/month.
4. HypeAuditor
It is an ideal tool for medium and big eCommerce brands. It helps you sort from 10 million influencers on YouTube and Instagram. Both these platforms offer plentiful eCommerce marketing features.
The tool doesn’t leave you halfway, and you can look at the popularity metrics of each influencer. For an Instagram influencer, these metrics include follower count, audience quality, engagement, etc.
You can also find influencers who have worked with your competitor brands. And the influencer marketing campaigns on this tool offer detailed reporting.
Pricing:
You can subscribe to this enterprise-level tool @ $399/month.
Some Effective Influencer Marketing Campaigns on Ecommerce
1. Allen Solly #ShootForSolly Campaign
Allen Solly strategized the #ShootForSolly campaign to stir a buzz for their chinos collection. And they wished to influence consumers into choosing chinos over jeans.
The campaign roped in 22 influencers from different locations. And they paired the chinos from the latest collection with their choice of shirts for the campaign.
Next, they hired a photographer to shoot some pictures and videos in the Allen Solly attire. And the Allen Solly team assisted the shoot remotely.
These shoot pictures and videos were hosted on a micro-site. And the influencers promoted the same on their official social channels. The #ShootForSolly campaign attracted over 7,12,200 impressions and significant sales.
2. BECCA Cosmetics
BECCA Cosmetics collaborated with Chrissy Teigen for the promotion of its custom makeup range.
Chrissy Teigen, a professional model influencer, assembled a custom makeup palette for BECCA Cosmetics. The influencer then showcased this palette in an Instagram video.
This video gained almost 5 million impressions and significant traction.
Moreover, the influencer was more invested in the campaign as she could add a personal touch to the palette.
3. Old Navy: Boys & Girls Club of America (BGCA)
Old Navy clothing company partnered with several fashion influencers to promote their new clothing range. The influencers also helped the company leverage the eCommerce-specific features of Instagram.
The brand also worked on social sentiment by leveraging influencer marketing for a cause. Old Navy collaborated with New York Yankee retiree Alex Rodriguez to raise 1 million for BGCA.
The influencer was himself an alumnus of the BGCA, and this made him readily support the brand.
This Black Friday campaign was a hit, and $1 million was added to the sales on the same day.
4. H&M Influencer Marketing Campaign
H&M has been enjoying impressive social media engagement as a clothing & fashion brand.
The brand’s official page also has a huge following. And a significant part of the credit goes to influencer collaborations with women influencers.
H&M partnered with fashion blogger Julie Sarinana to promote its fall 2017 catalog. And the engagement from this campaign translated into impressive sales.
