Influencer marketing is exploding in popularity, and for good reason. It‘s an incredibly effective way for brands to reach new audiences, drive engagement and boost sales by partnering with popular content creators.
In fact, businesses are making $5.20 for every $1 spent on influencer marketing, according to a report by the Influencer Marketing Hub. And 90% of survey respondents believe influencer marketing to be an effective form of marketing.
But what exactly is influencer marketing, and how can you get started with it the right way as a beginner? In this comprehensive guide, we‘ll equip you with everything you need to know to drive real results for your business.
What is Influencer Marketing?
At the most basic level, influencer marketing is a type of social media marketing that uses endorsements and product mentions from influencers to drive brand awareness and sales. Rather than marketing directly to your target audience, you hire an influencer to promote your products or services for you.
An influencer is someone who has:
- The power to affect the purchasing decisions of others because of their authority, knowledge, position, or relationship with their audience
- A following in a distinct niche, with whom they actively engage. The size of the following depends on the size of the topic niche.
So it could be a popular fashion photographer on Instagram, a well-read cybersecurity blogger who tweets, or a respected marketing executive on LinkedIn. Within any industry, there are influential people who have cultivated dedicated and engaged followings by sharing valuable content.
The key is that an influencer‘s opinions carry a special weight with their fans. Their audience trusts them and values their perspectives. So when an influencer positively talks about your brand, their followers listen and take action.
As a result, influencer marketing enables you to:
- Reach new potential customers who follow and trust the influencer
- Boost your brand‘s credibility through an influencer‘s endorsement
- Drive high engagement on your marketing messages
- Convert more sales thanks to the influencer‘s powerful social proof
The proof is in the results that top brands are seeing. For example:
- Bigelow Tea used influencer marketing to drive an 18.5% increase in sales
- Lagavulin Whisky sales increased 1500% after an influencer endorsement
- Hubspot drove a 71% increase in website traffic with influencer content
When executed strategically, influencer marketing is one of the most impactful ways to grow your online presence and drive serious business results. And thanks to platforms like Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and Snapchat, it‘s never been more accessible.
The Different Types of Influencers
As you build an influencer marketing strategy, it‘s helpful to know the different tiers of influencers so you can determine the best mix for your brand based on your goals and budget.
While there are no universal tiers, here is a general breakdown of influencer types based on audience size:
Celebrities/Mega-Influencers (1M+ followers)
As the name implies, these are the major celebrities, actors, musicians, athletes and social media stars with massive audiences, usually over 1 million followers. Partnering with them will get you the widest reach, but also come with the highest price tag. Examples include Selena Gomez, The Rock, Kim Kardashian.
Macro-Influencers (100K-1M followers)
Macro-influencers are one tier below celebrities in terms of audience size. They are often internet famous personalities who have risen to fame thanks to their vlogging, podcasting, or social media presence. While not traditional celebs, they still have very large followings between 100K-1M and significant influence. Examples include Joanna Gaines, Pat Flynn, Joe Rogan.
Mid-Tier Influencers (50K-100K followers)
In the 50K-100K follower range are more niche content creators who cover specific topics and categories. While they have sizable audiences, they are much more focused than the broad appeal of macro-influencers. That means they have strong relevance and resonance with their fans. Examples include beauty guru Desi Perkins, marketer Neil Patel.
Micro-Influencers (10K-50K followers)
Micro-influencers have smaller but often very loyal and engaged audiences, usually under 50,000 followers. They tend to specialize in very specific niches like a particular hobby, profession or interest area. Their fans view them as credible experts. Examples include LA foodie @eatingwithkirby, Boston lifestyle blogger @dosaygive.
Nano-Influencers (1K-10K followers)
Nano-influencers are the smallest tier in terms of raw audience size. But their opinions are often seen as the most authentic and trustworthy by their fans. They feel like recommendations from a peer. Nano-influencers may be customers who are simply enthusiastic about a brand. Examples include eco-conscious @almostzerowaste, crafter @madebychrissied.
The right mix of influencers depends on your specific goals:
- If wide reach is your top priority, then focus on macro-influencers and celebs. But expect higher costs.
- If generating engagement is your main goal, then micro and nano influencers may be better for sparking conversations.
- If driving clicks and conversions is key, mid-tier and micro-influencers tend to get the best results.
Many brands see the most success by partnering with a diverse portfolio of influencers across tiers to cover the whole marketing funnel.
How to Find the Right Influencers
The key to successful influencer marketing is identifying and partnering with the right influencers who are the best fit for your specific brand, products, and campaign goals. You want to collaborate with influencers who have:
Relevance – Their content and audience aligns with your target market. They should cover topics related to your industry.
Reach – Their follower count is high enough to help you achieve your goals in terms of impressions, traffic or conversions.
Engagement – They have strong engagement rates, with an audience that actively likes, comments and shares their posts.
Quality – They produce high-quality, original content. Their feed should look professional and mesh with your brand image.
Authenticity – They have genuine, authentic interactions with their fans. Avoid influencers with lots of fake followers.
To find influencers who check all those boxes, follow these steps:
1. Develop Buyer Personas
Create detailed buyer personas for your ideal customers that cover their demographics, interests, pain points, goals and content preferences. Then seek out influencers whose audiences match those personas.
2. Research Relevant Hashtags
Search relevant hashtags related to your industry on Instagram and Twitter. Look for influencers using them who have strong engagement.
3. Analyze Your Competitors
Use tools to analyze what influencers your competitors are working with. While you don‘t want to copy them exactly, this reveals good potential targets.
4. Ask for Referrals
Put the word out to your professional network that you‘re looking for influencers in your niche. Ask for referrals to creators they‘ve successfully worked with.
5. Use Influencer Databases
Manually searching for influencers can be very time consuming. Speed up the process by using an influencer marketing platform with extensive databases of vetted influencers that you can filter by reach, engagement rates, audience demographics and more. Examples of influencer tools include:
- Upfluence – Access over 3M+ influencers across major social networks
- Klear – Discover over 900M influencers, bloggers and content creators
- Aspire – Search through 100K+ influencers with audience insights
- Heepsy – Dig into data on over 7M influencers across the world
6. Set a Budget
Prices for influencers vary widely based on their tier/reach, what you ask them to do, and length of the partnership. Know your budget upfront so you can shortlist affordable options. Some benchmarks for a single sponsored Instagram post:
- Nano-influencers: $10-$100
- Micro-influencers: $100-$500
- Mid-tier influencers: $500-$5,000
- Macro-influencers: $5000-$10,000
- Mega/Celeb influencers: $10,000+
With this criteria in mind, develop a prospect list of your top influencer targets that you want to pitch. Aim for a mix that helps you get the reach, relevance and engagement you need for your specific goals and budget.
Influencer Marketing Campaign Best Practices
Once you‘ve identified your ideal influencer partners, it‘s time to reach out to them and pitch your offer. But first, determine what exactly you want them to do.
Influencer campaigns can take many forms, such as:
Sponsored Content – Pay the influencer to create original content that features your brand/products in an authentic way that resonates with their audience. Could be an Instagram post, YouTube video, tweet, Facebook post, etc.
Gifting – Send the influencer your product for free. They mention you organically if they like it. Lower cost but less control than sponsored content.
Contests/Giveaways – Partner with an influencer to co-host a giveaway or contest that requires their followers to engage with your brand (follow, like, tag friends) for a chance to win.
Guest Posting – Hire the influencer to create content for your own blog, website or social channels as an expert in their field.
Affiliate Marketing – Give influencers a unique link or promo code for your products that they promote to their audience. Pay them a commission on any referred sales.
Takeovers – Have the influencer temporarily "take over" your social media accounts for a period of time to create and share content with your audience.
With your campaign idea in mind, craft a compelling pitch. Demonstrate that you understand the influencer‘s unique style, tone and audience. Clearly explain what you want them to do, your goals, timeline, and compensation.
The more relevant and buttoned up your proposal is, the better your chances of getting a positive response. Check if they have a business email or contact form for inquiries in their bio. Keep your initial message brief but be ready to follow up with more details if they express interest.
Some best practices for influencer outreach include:
- Make it personal – Mention specifics about why you like their content
- Get to the point – Clearly state why you‘re reaching out and what you want
- Provide options – Offer a few different ways to potentially collaborate
- Focus on them – Speak to how your offer benefits them and brings value to their fans
- Be professional – Treat it like any business deal (because it is!). No informal DMs.
As you iron out specifics, get all the details documented in a contract, such as:
Specifics – Clearly outline the scope of work, timeline, and all deadlines and deliverables the influencer is responsible for.
Approval Process – Clarify how involved you‘ll be in providing feedback. Do they need to send drafts for approval? How many rounds of revisions?
Content Rights – Specify who owns the rights to the content and how it can be used by either party during or after the partnership.
Exclusivity – Can they work with your competitors at the same time? For how long are they exclusive to your brand?
Disclosure – Require that they follow FTC rules for disclosing the sponsored relationship. Must include #ad, #sponsored or similar.
Compensation – Spell out exactly how much, how and when they will be paid. Most brands pay 50% upfront and 50% upon successful completion.
Document everything so both parties have clear expectations and a plan for resolving any potential issues. Be very specific on the deliverables and scope to ensure a smooth, successful engagement.
Measuring Influencer Marketing Results
To prove the ROI of your influencer marketing efforts, you have to track the right metrics based on your initial goals. Some of the most common key performance indicators for influencer campaigns include:
Reach – How many people saw the influencer‘s posts about your brand. Ask them for a report with total impressions.
Engagement – How many likes, comments, shares and saves did the posts featuring your brand get compared to the influencer‘s average post.
Referral Traffic – How many people came to your website from the influencer‘s unique tracking link. Set these up with UTM parameters.
Follower Growth – Track how many new followers you gained during and after the influencer‘s posts went live.
Conversions/Sales – Give the influencer a unique promo code to share with their audience. Track how many times it was used to make a purchase.
Revenue – Measure how much revenue was driven by the campaign, based on tracked promo codes, affiliate link clicks or traffic from their unique link.
Content Pieces – Keep a tally of how many posts or pieces of content the influencer created about your brand. Those are valuable owned assets.
Media Value – Assign a dollar amount to each piece of content by assessing how much it would cost to create something similar yourself or with an agency.
Set up your analytics and tracking before the campaign starts. Watch the data roll in once the influencer‘s posts go live to see how they‘re performing against your targets. Share regular updates with the influencer too so they understand their impact.
Also track qualitative metrics like sentiment in the comments. Are people responding positively and seeming interested in your brand? Social listening is key to gauging big picture impact.
The final piece is to get screenshots and media files of all the content created by the influencer. You can reshare their posts (with credit) on your own channels for extra mileage. Add them to a library of influencer content that you can reference in the future.
Conclusion
As this guide has shown, influencer marketing is a highly effective way to build trust, grow your audience and drive conversions with the help of credible content creators. When you find the right influencer partners, the payoff in brand awareness and sales can be substantial.
Focus on creating authentic partnerships that are a genuine fit. Look beyond follower counts to engagement rates, content quality, and audience relevance. Be professional and transparent in your outreach. And measure results so you can continually improve your efforts.
With the right approach and influencer mix, you can gain a major competitive edge. Endorsements from trusted influencers are one of the most powerful tools in your arsenal. And now you have the insights and steps needed to get started on the right foot.
