User-generated content (UGC) is widely acknowledged to have tremendous potential as a marketing tool for online retailers. Instagram influencer marketing, then, is user-generated content on steroids. The most up-to-date kind of word-of-mouth marketing is social media, and you can tap into it by capitalising on the popularity and engagement of the right influencer.
But I am jumping the gun a bit. First, here are some fascinating eCommerce Instagram metrics to demonstrate the platform’s power:
- Over 400 million people use Instagram every day, and every day, they share 95 million photographs and videos, as stated by Facebook in February of this year.
- An estimated 70% of Instagrammers scour the platform in search of brands with engaging content to follow, per a report by Iconosquare.
- Pew Internet reports that 32% of teens consider Instagram to be the most significant social media platform.
- Sixty percent of Instagram users have discovered a new product or service thanks to the photo sharing service.
- Instagram influencers are popular Instagram users who have amassed significant fan bases and become de facto industry celebrities.
The best person to give you advice on where to shop is someone you already follow and whose material you enjoy.
This is why Instagram influencer marketing can be so effective for e-commerce businesses. Instagram marketing is effective on its own, but if you can identify key influencers, you may expand your reach significantly.
Influencer marketing material has the potential to generate 11 times greater ROIs than traditional marketing strategies, according to research conducted by Tapin Influence.
Determine Your Goals
Right off the bat…You should have your end goal in mind before reaching out to Instagram influencers. Do you want more people to visit your online shop, buy a certain product, or try out your brand new product line? When describing your objectives and tactics, consider these primary marketing goals and the ways in which influencer marketing might aid in achieving each one.
Keeping Your Customers
An often-overlooked advantage of Instagram influencer marketing is the positive effect on customer retention. Building lasting bonds with influencers will allow you to leverage them as a personal brand advocate for your e-commerce site. Just another representation of your company that helps bring in new customers and keep old ones coming back. Something that the Lululemon online store is well familiar with.
Expanding Your Potential Customer Base
Influencers can also assist you achieve secondary goals, such as penetrating new demographics. Marketing a new product to your existing followers won’t be very effective if they have little interest in the thing you’re introducing. To get forward, though, you need the help of influencers who are already well-liked by the people you want to reach.
Revenue creation
One of the most common reasons for implementing an influencer marketing strategy is to increase sales. Use a few influencers for a one-time push of a product or promotion of a flash sale, complete with discount codes for their followers, or have influencers review a new product line to increase sales.
Product Recognition
Brand recognition is another primary aim of influencer marketing efforts. Marketing your business with the support of influencers allows you to reach tens of thousands, and even hundreds of thousands, of individuals who have never heard of you before. If this is your primary goal, then you shouldn’t focus on creating just one strong relationship with an influencer in your industry that will help you retain customers, but rather on reaching out to as many of them as possible.
Getting More Instagram Likes
Using influencers to boost your Instagram following is a last-ditch effort to achieve your goal audience size. This is perfect for up-and-coming eCommerce business owners who are just starting to build their social media fan bases. A excellent strategy to quickly increase your following is to host a competition or promote a popular cause in which followers are encouraged by influencers to hashtag and follow your account to win or participate. The #WearYellowForSeth campaign, which won an award, is a classic illustration of this.
Discover the Best Instagram Advertisers
With a clear target in mind, you can begin your search for the most suitable Instagram influencers.
The quantity of an influencer’s followers is not as important as you may think. What matters is how engaged their audience is with various types of content they make.
You should expect the highest returns on investment (ROIs) from working with influencers whose followers also share the same lifestyle as your target market.
What to Consider When Choosing Instagram Celebrities
Spending tens of thousands of dollars on a single influential person seems wasteful to the average person. Any online retailer owner will tell you that enticing celebrity influencers, who may charge as much as $15,000 per post, is out of the question for most small firms due to restricted resources.
Fortunately, when it comes to marketing with influencers, bigger (or more expensive) isn’t always better. Our goal is to maximise impact while minimising costs.
Form Partnerships With Instagram Influencers
Your final step is to personally deliver your partnership pitch to the people you’ve selected. You should get in touch with them first to identify yourself and determine their level of interest before sending a summary of your needs. The influencers’ email addresses and phone numbers should be listed in their profiles’ bios if you’re not using a third-party platform.
Keep in mind that you’ll want to give the influencer some leeway in terms of content creation to make sure the post fits in with what their following have come to expect.