The Step-by-Step Guide to Influencer Marketing for eCommerce | by Health A Plenty | Apr, 2023

This Article was first published in Mayple.com

Want to 5X Your ROI? Here’s how to find the best influencers and set up a top notch campaign. We cover tools, platforms, agencies, and strategies.

“Today, there is nothing more valuable than an audience” — Joel Robinson, CEO @InfluenceLogic

Influencer marketing is the most powerful form of marketing you can use to grow your brand, especially if you are an eCommerce company. Instagram usage grew 10X over the last 5 years and the platform has more than 1 billion users.

The number of influencer agencies grew 10X to more than 1,120 in 2019. Influencer marketing platform size is expected to grow from $5.5B in 2019 to $9.7B, and over $22.3B in 2024.

Businesses are making $5.20 for every $1 spent on influencer marketing, and that was in 2019. The 2020 survey is out and it’s now $5.78.

That’s a killer ROI.

According to the most recent study done by the Influencer Marketing Hub, 91% of marketers think that influencer marketing is effective, 78% of marketers are planning to dedicate a budget to influencer marketing, and 66% plan on increasing their spending on influencers.

If you’re not launching and optimizing influencer marketing campaigns, you should be. And if you don’t know where to start then this guide is just for you.

Here’s a detailed breakdown of how to set up an influencer marketing strategy, from start to finish.

Let’s dive in.

But first, let ‘s define some terms.

Influencer marketing is a form of social media marketing involving endorsements and product placement from influencers, people, and organizations who have an expert level of knowledge or social influence in their field.

Influencer marketing content could include Instagram posts, YouTube videos, blog posts, guest posts, and other forms of sponsored content.

An influencer is someone who has: the power to affect the purchasing decisions of others because of his or her authority, knowledge, position, or relationship with his or her audience. a following in a distinct niche, with whom he or she actively engages.

There are 4 main types of influencers.

Choosing one type over the other depends on your budget, goals, and the type of product you’re trying to sell.

Nano influencers

These are people with 1k-10k followers and are an emerging group of influencers that companies work with. Until very recently, it was recommended to work with influencers that have 10k followers minimum but this has changed. The new algorithms promote authenticity and organic growth so you could find a ton of nano influencers that will get you really high engagement and good conversions.

Micro-influencers

These are people with 10k-50k followers. They are considered micro-influencers and have smaller audiences. The advantage of working with these is that their audiences are much more engaged, with levels of engagement around 8–10%. That means that if they have 10k followers they’re going to have around 1,000 likes and comments, which is pretty powerful.

Macro-influencers

These are the traditional influencers that people think of. They have around 50k-1M followers and have a lot of clout. The problem is that their audiences are much less engaged and are much more varied and less targeted.

On the other hand, they often have the most impact on thought leadership. This is the best group to reach out to if you are running a B2B campaign for example, and want to get the most influential names in your industry to share something. Macro influencers would be your best group of candidates.

Celebrities

Celebrity influencers (also known as mega-influencers) are the group that everyone wants to reach but they are often way too expensive. They usually have more than a million followers and a very low engagement rate at around 1% and their audience is so varied that the 1% doesn’t often help a brand.

The most effective influencer strategy is to use micro-influencers to create images and videos of the product. Their high engagement rates and low cost definitely outweigh the use of the macro-influencers or celebs.

The popularity of social media channels has changed dramatically over the last few years. Research shows that 68% of all influencer campaigns use Instagram, 45% use TikTok, 43% are on Facebook, and 36% are on YouTube.

The trend shows that influencer posts tend to favor video content and that’s what really works for eCommerce brands.

This is a great question and there are many many ways to find social media influencers. We’re going to cover all of them.

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