Ah, the art of influence. Trust with any audience is hard-won and easily lost. How do we build trust, as well as sway over someone else’s behavior, in the first place? And once we have that coveted position, how do we ethically keep it and use it to leverage business growth and success?
In this article, we’ll dive into the world of micro-influencer marketing, and how you can harness the power of trust and engagement online to grow your audience and convert more people to customers.
At Romain Berg, we’ve built our comprehensive digital marketing services on results, not hype. Your trust is paramount to our success, and we keep earning that trust with our expertise and experience in SEO, website design, PPC, social media ads, and so much more.
Fill out our contact form today, and we’ll be in touch to create a customized strategy to build your influence online and in person.
What is a micro-influencer?
If you have an Instagram account, you probably know about influencers. These are medium-to-big-name celebrities with truckloads of followers.
When you think “Influencer,” you might think “Kardashian,” “Jenner,” “Cardi B,” for beauty and fashion, or “Neil Patel” if you’re into SEO and digital marketing products. These people promote products on social media for a fee, usually starting at $75,000.00 for a single social post.
While influencers have followers in the five, six, and seven figures, their engagement and trust metrics pale in comparison to influencers with a smaller, but more engaged follower base.
Smaller circles, bigger influence
Though celebrities have expansive visibility and massive fan bases, micro-influencers know their circles and make themselves more available for connection with their followers.
Connection equals accessibility. When the people we know are accessible to us, we tend to bond with them and allow them more influence in our lives.
In micro-influencer marketing, influencers with under 10,000 followers often achieve double the audience engagement than more prominent influencers with over 1 million followers.
Micro-influencers are authentic, invested in their followers’ lives to a higher degree, less expensive to hire, and have more targeted audiences.
I’m sold on micro-influencers. How do I hire the best?
Not all micro-influencers are created equal. You should vet your options carefully before signing a promotion agreement. Here are five criteria to consider when looking for the right micro-influencer to promote your brand, products, and services.
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- Audience size: Look for IG accounts with 1,000-10,000 followers. When followership exceeds 10,000, engagement rates begin to drop. You want these followers to care about your products because the influencer loves using them. You don’t want to appear as another forgettable commercial in a sea of online ads.
- Audience type: Let’s go back to basics for a moment. Have you fleshed out several buyer personas? Do you know whom you’re trying to reach with your products? If not, you should do that, and then match your buyer persona to the type of people in a micro-influencer’s audience. If you’re trying to sell chainsaws to beauty blog followers, you won’t get very far, no matter how much engagement the influencer can boast.
- Product alignment: The influencer you choose should love your product. Let’s pretend you’re selling blenders. Try targeting an influencer in the health and wellness industry to try your blender. If she loves the way it delivers superior after-workout protein smoothie consistency and flavor, she will seem more authentic when she’s touting the product to her followers.
- Product type: Visual products that are simple to use, wear, or display make ideal micro-influencer marketing investments. When the influencer can promote your products in action, those images land more impactfully with followers. Plus, you can place a “shop now” button or website link in the influencer’s profile for easier traffic conversion. Sophisticated products that require assembly, extensive instruction, or services you can’t see may not be the best suited to micro-influencer marketing.
- Budget: Before you go looking for a micro-influencer, decide what percentage of your total marketing budget you will dedicate to this type of promotion. Some influencers will agree to trade free products for several social posts. You can expect to spend up to $500 per post. The more engagement and followers the influencer has, the more you’ll spend to work with them.
You may also want to work with more than one influencer, as they all have slightly different audience niches. Placing your product in several small circles with significant engagement means more traffic for you.
Mine your followers for micro-influencers
The best place to start your search for the right micro-influencers is in your own list of followers. Check your audience for Instagram accounts that have 1,000 followers. See what those people post, which hashtags they use, or whether they feature pictures of themselves in or with your products.
You can begin reaching out to the people you feel could be a match as an influencer, and have a free product deal or fee structure ready to go. Also, figure out how you’ll measure your success. You can define your micro-influencer ROI by:
- increased followers,
- online engagements,
- list subscribers,
- landing page clicks,
- promotional deal sales or clicks
Third-party micro-influencer search tools
You can further narrow your influencer search with third-party tools like Upfluence, Octoly, Pixlee, and Fiverr, to name a few. These services allow you to select your industry or sector, and provide influencer profiles that can assist your decision-making process.
You’ll pay a subscription service for each of these tools; however, many of them have free trials or demos. You can shop around to discover the best tools to fit your business and marketing model, making the most of your time and influencer budget.
Outsource your micro-influencer marketing with Romain Berg
At Romain Berg, we can help you create a comprehensive strategy that includes effective micro-influencer marketing. Launching a successful influencer campaign takes time you may not have as a business owner.
Outsourcing your influencer marketing frees you up to serve your customers while welcoming new audience members and clientele to your physical or online doorstep. Contact us today to begin marketing with results, not hype.
