How to Create and Sell Online Courses as an Influencer@2x-8

What is Influencer Marketing? Strategy, Tools and Examples

12 min read

Influencer marketing is a type of social media marketing that leverages trusted, credible individuals, known as influencers, to advertise products and services for brands.

Influencers build loyal audiences and communities by sharing their lives and interests with followers. As influencers grow, they can endorse products, make recommendations, and partner with brands and companies to promote those goods to their followers.

At the root of influencer marketing is the idea of social proof. Consumers trust the people they follow and interact with and are more likely to make purchases based on recommendations from these individuals.

This post explores influencer marketing and its value in ecommerce, social media, and how we consume content.

Influencer Marketing Statistics Worth Noting

Influencer marketing is here to stay, and the industry is experiencing massive annual growth. The proof is in the numbers; here’s how we know.

61% of consumers trust influencers’ recommendations more than branded social media content.
In 2023, the influencer marketing industry is worth an estimated $21.1 billion dollars.
90% of brands believe influencer marketing to be highly effective and profitable for their campaigns

The Value of Influencer Marketing for Ecommerce

For ecommerce companies, influencers can offer something unique — an engaged audience. One that is interested in your niche, possibly even shopping in this realm, and ready to buy.

For small ecommerce shops, one influencer campaign can make a massive impact on brand awareness and sales in the short and long term. Here’s why influencer marketing is a valuable tactic to use in the ecommerce landscape.

Cost-effective spend

Working with a micro-influencer can mean spending a couple hundred dollars to promote your product and potentially hitting your sales goals out of the park. You’ll also gain new followers and loyal customers and build brand awareness along the way.

Targeted campaigns

If you’ve run paid ads on social media, you likely know the struggle of drilling down on targeting to serve ads to the right audience. Influencers are like walking targeted advertisements, serving new customers on a silver platter.

You know their niche is relevant because you chose to work with them based on their audience. It’s pretty foolproof!

Creating an Influencer Marketing Strategy

Creating an influencer marketing strategy for brands and online stores is the first step in working with influencers.

You need to determine your goals when working with an influencer, your budget for the campaign, your audience, and much more. Let’s break down how to create an influencer marketing strategy here.

1. Campaign goals and KPIs

Before you find influencers, determine the goals of your campaign and how you’ll track them.

Key performance indicators (KPIs) for a brand campaign may include units sold, new followers on your social media profiles, views or comments on a TikTok video or Instagram Reel, referral and website traffic, or social reach/engagement.

Determining your campaign’s valuable metrics and goals is essential because it makes it much easier to track success. If you set goals before the campaign, you can prove your campaign’s success and justify working with influencers to drive sales.

2. Research your ideal customer

You should already know a fair amount about your ideal customer because you’re selling products or merchandise online. Perhaps this campaign is tailored to a specific demographic within your customer base, like new moms or dog owners.

Knowing the customer you’d like to reach within an influencer marketing campaign will make it easier to find an influencer whose audience checks those boxes.

3. Determine the campaign budget

Whether you’re a one-person show or have a marketing team behind you, knowing the budget is critical as you research influencers in your market. Without a budget, you won’t get far in conversations with potential influencers you’d like to hire. This is their job, after all — they will want to know your campaign budget up front to decide if it’s a good fit for them.

Be upfront and transparent about the campaign budget so you don’t waste anyone’s time. Some ecommerce brands offer free merchandise or products to be featured on an influencer’s Stories. If this is your approach, be sure to state that clearly so they know there won’t be any financial compensation besides receiving free items.

4. Find the ideal influencer

Finding the right influencers for a campaign can take serious time and effort. This is one of the drawbacks of such an oversaturated market; it makes finding what you’re looking for a little more challenging.

Some more prominent companies use influencer marketing tools and platforms to help them find the type of influencer they are looking for in the appropriate price range. This type of tool includes platforms like Grin, CreatorIQ, and Upfluence.

If you don’t have the budget for marketing tools, you can do your research the old-fashioned way… manual search! Search relevant hashtags related to your industry or market trends, and create a list of influencers you find there. You can also research if your competitors are working with influencers and find relevant individuals there.

5. Create a contract

Once you’ve chosen the perfect influencer for your ecommerce promotion, creating a contract is next. This step is critical to protect your business and ensure you get what you pay for from the influencer. This contract should include important details, including:

Deadlines and expectations
Compensation structure
What types of content will be delivered
The content approval process
Ownership of content

Creating a contract protects both you and the influencer throughout the process. After you’ve both signed, the influencer can get to work!

6. Launch the campaign

Throughout the campaign, check in periodically with the influencer to ensure they are posting approved content on the dates you agreed on. Ensure your social media profiles are adequately manned to interact with new followers, answer questions about products, and create a solid presence for your ecommerce shop.

You should also re-share the influencer’s content on your social profiles to boost reach and keep the conversation going with your followers. In turn, you’re solidifying your brand’s social proof — an established influencer is partnering with your company, incentivizing their followers to purchase.

7. Accurately track your results

You’ll never know the success of your campaign without accurately tracking results. This is why we highly recommend creating goals before hiring an influencer so you can keep tabs on what you want to achieve.

Your end goal may be to increase sales, grow your social media profiles, improve engagement, or increase website traffic. Whatever it is, use the tools within your ecommerce platform to measure site performance and units sold.

Types of Influencers

Not all influencers are created equal. Some celebrities are considered influencers with millions of followers and can charge astronomical fees to partner with brands and promote their products.

Aside from celebrities, here are the types of influencers that you most likely interact with when using social media platforms.

Nano-influencers. Nano influencers have less than 1,000 followers.
Micro-influencers. Micro-influencers typically have anywhere from 1,000 to 100,000 followers.
Macro-influencers. Macro influencers have between 100,000 to 1 million followers.
Mega-influencers. Mega influencers have over 1 million followers.

Influencer Marketing Software

Many brands and businesses use influencer marketing software to help streamline and manage their campaign and find new influencers to work with.

This type of software can also help connect brands to influencers in their niche, where they can discuss:

Potential influencer marketing campaigns
Budgets and fees
Campaign goals
Collaborations with other influencers

Small and large businesses can use an influencer marketing platform to find relevant influencers to promote products.

Influencer Marketing Examples in 2023

Influencer marketing has been a part of social media since the dawn of time, even if we didn’t know what we were witnessing at the time. Here are some of the best social media influencer marketing examples to use as inspiration for your brand.

Sugar Cosmetics’ “Be Your Own Muse” campaign to celebrate International Women’s Day. In March 2023, the campaign generated over 1 million engagements via social media by highlighting women worldwide and the things that make them diverse, unique, and worth celebrating.

Highlights for Children launched the “Do Great Things” product line on Amazon. Highlights partnered with various parent influencers who promoted the products (backpacks, lunch boxes, water bottles, etc) across their social profiles during back-to-school shopping. This campaign earned over 170,000 organic impressions, 39,000 engagements, 270 clicks to Amazon, and a 23% engagement rate.

Is Influencer Marketing Effective for Ecommerce?

Influencer marketing is an incredibly effective tool whether you’re a brand-new ecommerce shop experiencing massive growth or somewhere in the middle.

Influencers in your niche can promote your products to their audience, drive sales, and even create long-term customers for your online store. All it takes is one influencer marketing campaign, and you’ll gain tons of exposure and brand awareness.

Final Thoughts on Influencer Marketing

Building a successful ecommerce store takes hard work, dedication, and creativity. Influencers are a fantastic resource to help give your brand the boost it needs during certain seasons, product launches, and more.

As more and more consumers commit to shopping small, ecommerce stores can leverage influencers even with smaller budgets.

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Jul 25, 2023

About the author

Max has been working in the ecommerce industry for the last six years helping brands to establish and level-up content marketing and SEO. Despite that, he has experience with entrepreneurship. He is a fiction writer in his free time.