How to use influencer marketing to grow your ecommerce business

 

Influencer marketing has become an essential strategy for an e-commerce brand looking to take a decent share in a crowded market, by telling the brand story and sharing experiences with their products. Influencer recommendations often become the deciding factor for consumers who are unable to complete their purchase attempts, but this strategy doesn’t work for anyone.

To succeed, brands must partner with content creators who share similar values and fully share the vision by connecting with aligned influencers and their like-minded audience. What enables your e-commerce brand to create the necessary social proof to drive the purchase decision and form long-term relationships with consumers.

The importance of influencer marketing in e-commerce projects

1. 1-Precise targeting
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   Identifying and targeting the right audience is an essential part of every marketing strategy, yet it is often a difficult process that requires a thorough understanding of potential consumers. Influencer marketing lets you skip this step, because the hard work will primarily be with influencers. You just need to make sure that the influencer is relevant to your industry, and that their public persona matches your brand image. Suppose you have a clothing retail business, partnering with models and fashion bloggers will help you get close to their audience who tend to be interested in your product that you are promoting in the online store.
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4. 2-Enhancing brand awareness of the e-commerce project
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   With their massive reach, influencers have the ability to expand brand exposure and increase brand awareness. Whenever an influencer suggests your brand, or announces it, the influencer suggestion is often seen as more realistic, and you can work with influencers in the high ceiling of competition and drive their followers to your brand, it increases its visibility and helps build meaningful conversations among your audience online about the store mail.
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7. 3-Enhancing audience interaction
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   Increasing the number of likes and comments on your social media posts is a really difficult task, and in the absence of good engagement levels, gaining millions of followers will not yield any results, and this is where influencer marketing can be a good idea.

First, collaborating with influencers improves the quality of your content and makes it more user-centric, and the result is that your content is more able to attract your target audience.
Secondly, because the influencer shares your content whether on their social media profiles or ads, their followers will also engage with it, especially if they like the content, get mentioned and share it with their friends, which means greater reach and faster viral reach.

4. 4-Improving conversion rates in the online store
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   The ultimate goal of any business is to increase sales and earn more profits. However, marketing methods differ to attract consumers to your online store. Customers are becoming wary about brands and often spend hours doing internet research before making a purchase.

Influencers have the ability to attract more people towards your products or services, because customers believe in suggestions from popular influencers, as brands can use them to influence purchasing decisions and increase conversion rates, it is clear that influencer marketing is a powerful tool for customer acquisition, it helps you attract more From referrals to the e-commerce project, the result is an increase in your revenue.

5. 5-Increase trust and credibility
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   The huge power of influencers lies in the trust of followers, and this trust can help them build a loyal community for the products they market. Because the influencer writes his honest reviews about your products or services, it is a real testimonial and enhances the reputation of your brand and the credibility of the online store.

Moreover, partnering with influencers allows you to gain the trust of their audience in the long run, as it is the perfect tool to build loyalty, increase awareness of your brand, and reach potential customers.

How do you start marketing with influencers in e-commerce projects?
Influencer marketing is evolving as a powerful tool in the e-commerce industry, and to help you understand how it can be used to increase your sales we have broken down the process into a few simple and effective steps to increase your sales; Here are the most important steps:

1. 6-Define your audience
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   Before you find influencers to work with you and market your products and services, you need to have a really clear idea of your vision, mission, and goals. You will need to clearly define your brand identity and values, as this will enable you to define your current and potential audience, the values your customers believe in, and the other brands or causes they support. Look at your competitors and learn more about their customers and what makes them different from you.

Also, be sure to use your analytics to determine the demographics of your customers. What is their average age? from where they are? Look at hobbies or other interests of consumers outside of your own business. Next, think about what shares these interests with you, but is not a customer. What is different about them? You should be able to identify at least two audiences that you can target with influencer marketing.

Knowing your audience is an essential part of knowing which influencers to target in step two; The ideal influencer either shares the interests of your audience or is a part of it.

2. 7-Research potential influencers
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   You may already have an influencer promoting your online store brand without you even realizing it, it is likely that some of your customers already have a social following or a social circle that they can influence. Referring or recommending customers by word of mouth is still an important part of growing any business, and the easiest way to start influencer marketing is simply to motivate your customers.

Existing to refer their friends or leave a review on your product in the e-commerce site.

Consider using marketing automation tools to target customers with a review request after receiving their order. You can either offer a discount when they buy or loyalty rewards like exclusive access to the features you offer when your customers share your brand with a friend.

While the number of followers is important in general accounts with less followers have higher engagement rates so don’t overlook smaller influencers for your ecommerce business it means more social sales and if you have a key influencer across any platform consider Finding ways to collaborate with it too Although the return on investment for these influencers may not be as good as for smaller people, a larger audience may still lead to more social sales in general.

You’ll need to understand the audience’s relationship with the potential influencer. Do they have a loyal following, for example, how often do they post new content? High-quality, repeat content usually leads to more engaged followers. Combining these tactics should give you a comprehensive list of influencers that you can start reaching out to in the next step of the process.

3. 8-Get close to the influencer
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   The simplest way to connect with influencers is to message them individually on the platform of their choice. If you select an influencer, it is likely that he is used to receiving many messages on the Instagram application, and in the event that the influencers are customers of the online store, you will get the advantage of obtaining additional contact details, which you should definitely not hesitate to use. Send emails, or try reaching out on the phone to talk further about the opportunity.

But if you are looking to work with multiple influencers, you should consider using tools to help automate the process. Marketing automation software can allow you to email a list of influencers with just a few clicks.

When crafting your collaboration messages it is important to be clear about why you want to work with the influencer, and what they will get in return for the collaboration. Always make sure to show that you did your research, be specific and personal about why they are the ideal influencer for your brand, and if they are your online store customers thank them for their loyalty.

4. Measure your “return on investment”
   To ensure the success of your influencer campaigns you will need to measure your return on investment, as the main goals of any influencer campaign are brand awareness and conversions. To measure awareness you should look at the impressions or opinions of the influencer’s content, as well as engagement.

Even though thousands of people have seen a post, likes and comments are a better indicator of how many people took the time to read it without interacting. The times the content is shared, and if you use a hashtag the number of times it will be used.

Every online store brand awareness campaign will involve taking action, whether it’s signing up for your newsletter or visiting your online store. Make sure you measure conversions or clicks, total conversion or CTR, the best conversions are sales and these will be the best indicator of influencer success.

It may take a few campaigns before you see a return on investment, so don’t panic if your return isn’t great from the start. Just keep in mind that you’ve gained new followers or quality content that offers long-term value. Influencer marketing is always a winning strategy.