Instagram is the most appropriate platform for both influencer marketing and ecommerce, and interestingly, you can combine both.
If you are an ecommerce business, you can work with influencers on Instagram to create strategically-targeted (ad) contents for increased engagement and sales. The platform allows businesses to reach their audience in a way that feels more realistic or genuine.
While the influencer space on Instagram is expected to become a $10 billion industry by the end of 2021, for ecommerce, the platform helps as many as 80% of users make informed purchase decisions. Incredible!
People with a bulky follower base on Instagram can be a potential influencer for your ecommerce products. As their followers idolize them for their unique views, lifestyle, likes, and dislikes, and love to engage on their updates proactively, you can consider going for a paid partnership with them for your ecommerce product marketing.
About 81% of people on Instagram research about products and services before they buy. What’s more, over 130 million users click or tap on shopping related posts on Instagram every day. And around 200 million users visit at least one brand profile on Instagram on a daily basis.
So, for an ecommerce business, there are innumerable opportunities to find prospects and boost sales on Instagram.
What is influence marketing?
In simple terms, influencer marketing is a marketing technique in which e-commerce businesses and other brands collaborate with influencers or individuals who have a large following on social media platforms. These influencers share information, reviews, feedback, and experiences related to a brand, product, or service with their followers. This helps brands increase visibility, reach their target audience, and drive more traffic and sales.
What is the best way to select influencers for a marketing campaign?
To promote your brand through influencers, you need to choose individuals who are relevant to your brand, products, and services. This is extremely important because selecting influencers from the wrong niche can prevent you from reaching your target audience.
For example, if you sell sports shoes, you should collaborate with athletes, football players, runners, fitness trainers, or other sports-related experts. Their audience is more likely to be interested in your products, which can help accelerate your marketing campaign and drive more relevant traffic, leads, and sales.
On the other hand, partnering with food bloggers or influencers from unrelated industries may not help you reach potential customers. As a result, your campaign may generate poor results and lead to a waste of your marketing budget.
How to find the Right Influencer?
If you are getting started with Instagram influencer marketing for your ecommerce, set off by finding an influencer that is right for your industry and brand. Make sure that the influencer is active and popular within the niche.
Try to answer these questions while you search for an ideal influencer –
- Is he/she a customer of your brand? Or of a similar brand?
- Have they used your products?
- Would they love to promote or advocate your brand?
- Can they create promotional content or are they a creator?
- How many followers do they have?
On the basis of follower count, we can classify influencers in five categories –
- Mega Influencers (more than 1 million followers)
- Macro Influencers (500k to 1 million followers)
- Mid-tier Influencers (50K to 500K followers)
- Micro Influencers (10K to 50K followers)
- Nano Influencers (1K to 10K followers)
Working with micro and nano influencers is more cost effective – not because they are less expensive, but because they translate better outcomes for every campaign.
Despite the fact that the number of followers is not necessarily a success-defining factor, the cost of your influencer marketing campaign goes up with the number of followers your influencer has.
But whether you need a celebrity influencer or a micro influencer will depend largely on the type of product, your expectations, and budget. Understand your product, budget, and goals before joining hands with an influencer for your ecommerce product marketing.
Pro Tip: Work with influencers who are already working as influencers and also, on the basis of their past performance.
Ecommerce & Influencer Marketing
More than 67% of brands use Instagram for influencer marketing. Over 75% of businesses on Instagram have a dedicated budget for influencer marketing and 90% of marketers strongly believe that it is an effective form of marketing.
On an average, businesses earn $5.20 for every $1 spent on influencer marketing. Surprisingly, top 13% of businesses make $20 or more for every dollar they pay. No other marketing platform or approach appears as promising as influencer marketing.
If you are an ecommerce business, and if you still do not have an Instagram influencer marketing strategy, there is no better time than this. You can polish your brand image on Instagram, connect with your prospects or audience, grow your follower base, deliver customer service, and multiply your sales. Let’s dig how –
Build Effective Relationship with Instagram Influencer
Prepare a list of potential influencers on Instagram, and start engaging with them regularly. And this would involve you acting as a follower.
Introduce your brand and products to them, along with your goals and expectations. Explain how your brand fits into their (or your target audience’s) needs.
Discuss your terms & conditions, brand message and tone, and finalize the idea and format of your influencer marketing campaign during the first few conversations.
Talk about and document everything that needs to be done, including your goals, budget, and activities to be performed. If you are working with micro or nano influencers, then you should pay a fair compensation in form of money or free gifts or both.
One of the best ways to build relationships with influencers is to share your product details and highlight its benefits. You can also offer your product as a gift or provide it for free so they can try it firsthand. This allows them to provide genuine reviews and honest feedback, which can help build trust and credibility for your brand.
Use Instagram Influencers for Product Reviews
Over 92% of people trust and follow personal recommendations when it comes to choosing brands or buying products they need.
That’s the reason why feedbacks, testimonies, recommendations, and product reviews are the most common influencer marketing contents. Brands hire influencers to review (or in other words, to say a few positive words about) their products and encourage the audience to take a desired action in your favor.
You and the influencer should brainstorm over the type or idea of Instagram post, story, or reel to be created at the beginning of each campaign.
When someone you trust recommends a product, you tend to believe his words and try that product in near or farther future. Influencer marketing works the same way. It aims to change the minds and influence the buying decision of a group of audience – following this rule of psychology.
You can ask your influencer to try and review your products by sharing a blog post detailing the features of your product, an image with your product with its features and upsides in the caption, or an explainer, review, or how-to video using your product. Campaigns like these generate views, engagement, clicks, and eventually leads and sales.
And this way, about 71% of buyers get influenced by social media influencers.
Instagram influencer marketing enables brands to find audience with the help of influencers – the people who have the potential to influence people with their strong and powerful conversational skills and unbiased opinions.
While creating or fine-tuning your influencer marketing strategy, you must keep the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) guidelines in the center. Evidently, each country has different rules and regulations for influencer marketing, and marketers and influencers should build their campaigns accordingly.
There are two kinds of influencers. The first are those who will not promote your product if they do not find it useful or valuable. The second are those who will promote your product primarily for financial compensation, regardless of their personal opinion of it.
Run Discount offers for Instagram Followers
You can also run exclusive discount offers for Instagram followers. Instagram influencers can promote your products or services through marketing campaigns that provide special discounts and deals to customers who purchase using the influencer’s referral link, code, or recommendation.
Use Instagram Live for influencer marketing
Using Instagram Live is one of the best ways to reach followers instantly and share detailed information about your products and services. This feature helps keep your audience engaged, and if they have any questions, concerns, or queries, they can ask them directly through comments. Influencers can then address these questions in real time and encourage their followers to purchase your products or services.
Use Instagram Stories
E-commerce brands can use Instagram Stories as an effective marketing tool. They can collaborate with Instagram influencers and ask them to feature their products and services in their daily Stories. Influencers can also share live videos, product demonstrations, and updates with their followers, making it easy to showcase your products and services to a wider audience. This can help increase brand awareness, reach more potential customers, and drive higher sales and revenue.
Use Relevant Hashtags
Hashtags are an effective way to increase the visibility of your Instagram posts and reach a larger audience. Ask Influencers to use, brand name, relevant and trending hashtags related to your products, services, and industry in in their posts, Stories, and Reels. A combination of popular and niche-specific hashtags can help attract both broad and targeted audiences.
Conclusion
Instagram influencer marketing has become one of the most effective ways for e-commerce businesses to build brand awareness, earn customer trust, and increase online sales. By partnering with the right influencers, creating authentic content, offering exclusive discounts, using Instagram Stories and Live sessions, and tracking campaign performance, brands can connect with their target audience and achieve better marketing results.
The key to success is choosing influencers whose audience aligns with your niche and focusing on genuine engagement rather than follower count alone. Continuously monitor your campaign performance, refine your strategy, and build long-term relationships with high-performing creators. With the right approach, Instagram influencer marketing can become a powerful channel for driving qualified traffic, improving conversions, and growing your e-commerce business.
