The fact that your company isn’t Nike or H&M does not mean that you cannot benefit from influencer marketing. Social media influencers are great assets for small-scale businesses also.
There are a lot of influencers on the market and there are plenty of options for businesses of every size and budget. It’s just a matter of knowing where to find the right ones and what to be looking for.
It’s a bit daunting to begin influencer marketing if you’ve not been there before. In order to assist you We’ve laid out five fundamental steps for executing successful influencer campaigns for small-sized companies.
Step 1: Plan your campaign
Before you begin looking for influencers and publishing content on social networks you must outline the campaign. The first thing to do is decide on the goal of your campaign. Small-sized businesses may have goals like visibility, new followers on social media, or driving traffic to your website or store.
Create a timeline for your campaign and budget. It’s crucial to be frank with yourself about your limits here. It’s possible that you don’t have a large budget, but as long as you work with your limitations, you’ll be able to be successful in your campaign.
Next decide where you’ll be running your campaign. Do you wish to locate TikTok creators, Twitch streamers, or influencers on another platform? Pick the platform that allows you to connect with your target audience. If your offerings are designed for teens, for instance, maybe choose TikTok because over half of Gen Z consumers are using TikTok.
Create an action plan to track your performance. It’s difficult to know how well you’re doing if you do not track the data that pertains to your campaign. Make a list of your objectives and select a few performance indicators that can aid in understanding the progress you’ve made. For instance, if you’re looking to increase the creation of awareness, you may wish to track clicks and impressions.
Step 2: Locate then analyze and choose influencers
The secret to a successful influencer campaign is identifying the ideal influencer! Brands looking for influencers should keep certain points in mind when making this decision, such as the way an influencer’s content is performed. For small businesses it is particularly important to pay attention to the following aspects.
Location
Find local influencers. You need someone who is familiar with the local area and its culture. If you’ve got brick and mortar stores that will also provide the influencer the opportunity to visit.
The influencer you select doesn’t have to have an enormous number of followers. For an entrepreneur that has a budget of just a few thousand dollars it is best to choose micro or nano influencers.
Nano influencers have a following of 1-5K, and micro influencers have 5-50K followers. But, despite the small number of followers they have the most engagement and the most authentic audience.
Audience
Apart from considering the country from which the influencer is located it is important to ensure that their followers are located in an area where your brand is easily accessible.
Imagine you pick to follow an influencer located near the same location where your business is and then discover that the majority of their followers reside outside of the area in which you haven’t yet shipped your goods. You’ll miss the chance to acquire new customers.
You can make use of influencer tools to obtain the data. It is also possible to request an influencer for their media kits. Check out the geographic location of their audience and look at other demographics as well. This will help you make sure that the audience of the influencer is the audience you want to reach.
Engagement rate
Engagement rate measures the interaction between an influencer and their followers. A high engagement rate shows the audience trusts an influencer and appreciates the content. And brands can benefit from that by collaborating with the influencer.
Engagement can vary over time, so you should study your mean engagement rate on a sample of recent content by the influencer to find the most current information. Additionally, the benchmarks for engagement vary depending on the social network number of followers, the follower count, and the type of content. Don’t evaluate an influencer against their peers based on these factors.
Follower growth
As we’ve mentioned above, the influencers whom you collaborate with don’t need thousands of followers. It’s important to ensure that they’ve got a decent engagement rate, and healthy follower growth. An influencer must be growing steadily over time even if it’s not very rapid growth.
Keep an eye out for influencers who have negative growth or growth that is cyclically high and then falls. It could be that the influencer bought followers who are fake. This information can be obtained from the media kit of the influencer or via influencer advertising software.
Step 3: Reach Out
If you come across influencers you enjoy, make contact with them. As a rule of thumb, make contact with more influencers than you’ll need. It is not always possible for everyone to respond with you. Some may not be in a position to cooperate with you.
You can contact them through email or DM. If you’re inundated with messages from a variety of influencers Consider making your outreach automated. Make an email template that can be customized with a specific field for each influencer. It should contain:
- An introduction for your branding (what you do as a brand, who you are, the message of your brand)
- Information about the campaign (objectives timeline, objectives, and incentives)
- What do you like most about the profile (and the reasons you believe they’re a great fit)
If you get responses to your campaign, begin negotiating. If not, take a step back and search for additional influencers that could be a good fit for your campaign.
Step 4: Talk about incentive and content
If you’re a small-sized business the budget of your company will be lower than those of larger companies. But don’t worry. Certain influencers may collaborate with you in exchange for your service, product or experience. Be aware that the cost that an influencer is charged depends on a number of aspects:
- Performance stats (follower counts and engagement rates, principally)
- The type and amount of content (for instance, video is more expensive than photographs)
- Location (influencers who are located in New York City will charge more than those in Wisconsin)
This was mentioned previously and again: as a small company prioritize using micro and nano influencers. They’re the best option for getting the best results for your cost.
When you negotiate content, make clear the points you would like the influencer to focus on and give them the creative autonomy in their content. The influencer knows their target audience and can best convey your message.
Keep a positive attitude during discussions. If you begin in the right way it is possible to establish a long-term partnership that could be beneficial for future promotions or ambassadorship for brands.
Step 5: Start the Campaign
Before influencers create content for campaigns make sure that you make sure you have Google Analytics or your tracking tool up and running. It is important to gather every campaign’s media and as many outcomes as you can. The more information you can gather the more detailed an image you’ll get of the progress you’ve made.
It’s likely to request influencers for internal data as well. For instance, they could provide you with your Instagram Insights data about the amount of views they received on the posts they made to promote your campaign.
With this information it will be possible to assess whether you’ve accomplished your goals. Be open to change as some goals may take longer to attain and you may come across a requirement or goal that you’d never thought of prior to.
Conclusion
Even if you don’t have the same resources and resources as the global brands, your small-sized business will still be able to benefit from influencer marketing. Keep your eyes on the goal. Make sure they are present throughout the campaign. If a collaboration is successful, continue your relationships with the influencer to ensure that you are able to run the same campaign at an important time in the future.