You don’t need to work in marketing to know that influencer marketing is having its moment—it only takes a quick scroll through your Instagram feed. But, there are right and wrong ways to implement an influencer marketing campaign. If executed correctly, the tactic can drive a significant amount of traffic to your eCommerce website. If executed poorly, however, influencer marketing can have the opposite effect.
If you want to reap the benefits of influencer marketing but don’t know where to start, today’s blog post is for you. Keep reading to learn important influencer marketing best practices as well as our favourite types of influencer marketing campaigns. Let’s get into it.
Key Considerations and Best Practices for Influencer Marketing
For those who aren’t totally familiar with influencer marketing, here’s a quick overview. Influencer marketing is a strategy in which companies or brands leverage the following influence of industry experts or thought leaders to further important brand initiatives.
An effective influencer marketing campaign hinges on your ability to identify and work with influencers who have a trusting audience of individuals that match your target audience—thus amplifying your marketing efforts. Here are a few key considerations to make before you get started:
- Audience: Influencer marketing only works if the influencer has an audience that is similar to your best buyers. So, we recommend evaluating your buyer personas and your best customers to get a feel for the types of influencers you may potentially work with.
- Identification: 67.6% of marketers consider finding relevant influencers their biggest influencer marketing challenge (source). If you’re in the same boat and not sure how to identify relevant influencers, try tracking hashtags, setting up Google Alerts, or even working with an influencer marketing platform to identify important conversations and people within your space.
- Outreach: Always remember, influencers are people, not marketing campaigns. Be considerate and careful with your influencer outreach. Just as quickly as an influencer can elevate your brand, they can also do real damage to it if you burn the wrong people.
7 Influencer Marketing Campaigns to Drive Traffic to Your Ecommerce Website
Influencer marketing is an excellent tactic to generate traffic and sales for your e-commerce business. Consider these statistics:
- Businesses are making $6.50 for every $1.00 spent on influencer marketing (source).
- 72% of consumers will take action after reading a positive review (source).
- Nearly 40% of Twitter users say they’ve made a purchase as a direct result of a Tweet from an influencer (source).
But, it’s not enough to send a mass email to your favorite influencers with no real game plan or strategy. So, let’s take a look at a few different types of influencer marketing campaigns you can use to generate the best results:
1. Product reviews
Let’s start simple: The best way to generate buzz about your products is to get key influencers talking about them. Now, there are many ways to facilitate this. You can develop a list of key influencers and send them free products to try, in hopes that they use the product and then recommend them to their audience. Or you can reach out to individual influencers and inquire about a partnership.
Product reviews work best when you partner with bloggers, YouTube personalities, or content creators simply because they already have the outlet and resources they need to generate a piece of content about your company.
2. Content opportunities
When an influencer creates and publishes content about your brand, the benefits are obvious. But, many marketers don’t consider the benefits of creating content about influencers.
Think about it, many influencers build their careers using self-promotion. So, if your brand writes a blog post about an influencer or features their content in some way, they will likely share that content with their audience—generating traffic back to your blog or website.
3. Instagram-able opportunities
Generate influencer buzz around your brand by using out-of-the-box, quirky, visually-appealing marketing stunts. Think inspirational quotes, colorful artwork, or clever humor. The point is – if the way you present your products, marketing materials, or outreach is attention-grabbing, influencers and customers will want to share photos.
4. In-person events
Just as influencers are likely to share photos of engaging content or marketing tactics, they’re also likely to share content about in-person events. So, if your budget allows, try hosting events for the sole purpose of introducing influencers to your brand. Be sure to keep your venue, speakers, and attractions eye-catching and sharable.
5. Competitions and giveaways
Another great way to drive traffic to your website is through a competition or giveaway. Although there are many ways to execute this type of strategy, we recommend that you provide or sponsor the prize and then work with the influencer to determine the entry rules. This way you can ask people to visit your site, follow you on social media, or sign up for a free trial of your product in order to enter.
6. Social media takeover
If you’re not ready to throw big events or invest in elaborate marketing schemes, an easy way to leverage an industry expert or influencer is to host a takeover of your social media accounts. Whether the takeover lasts all day or just a few hours, the influencer can use that time to promote content, answer questions, live stream, and more.
Using this tactic brings the influencer’s loyal following over to your social media profiles—and when you partner with the right influencers, these people will likely be interested in and qualified to buy your products. As a result, the benefits are two-fold, you increase social engagement and generate new marketing leads.
7. Affiliate links and discount codes
Lastly, perhaps the most tried and true influencer marketing tactic: Affiliate links and discount codes. Create a unique discount code or affiliate link for each influencer you work with. Then, ask them to share it with their followers to generate leads and drive sales. Depending on your particular goal, you can pay influencers by click, impression, or purchase.
This works for two reasons: Everyone loves a discount and influencers are typically excited to give back to their followers.
Key Takeaways
And there you have it — a quick primer on influencer marketing and the tactics we recommend to drive traffic back to your e-commerce website. Remember – a successful influencer marketing strategy relies on your understanding of your audience and your ability to partner with influencers who have a similar audience.
As with all business partnerships, you must nurture your relationships with industry experts and influencers—and this takes time. But, if you put the effort in, your business will certainly reap the benefits of influencer marketing.
