You may have heard of the word ‘influencer’ but have you heard about ‘micro-influencers’? Well, as the name suggests, it is an influencer but only with a smaller number of followers. The reason why it is so effective in terms of marketing is the fact that it is easier to reach micro-influencers. Unlike celebrity influencers that have millions of followers, micro-influencers only have a few thousand followers. These types of influencers don’t require as much as celebrity influencers when it comes to the payment and nature of promotions.
While access is easier and payment is cheaper, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it is less effective. Many business owners found that micro-influencer marketing can be quite fruitful if done with multiple micro-influencers.
Here’s the thing. Customers are more likely to trust real people who used products than a celebrity who endorses it. Customers today are wiser than before. They know what it takes to promote a product. They know that paid promotions cannot be trusted because it is paid. It is due to this nature that they are more fond of micro-influencers when it comes to referrals. They know that when a micro-influencer does it, it is their personal experience of the product or service.
What are Micro-Influencers?
From here, you probably want to know what a micro-influencer is. As mentioned, this pertains to influencers with a lower number of followers. Usually, it ranges from 1,000 to 100,000. While the number may be lower than celebrity influencers who have millions of followers, it doesn’t mean that their impact on their followers is not as strong. They are considered as experts in their niche, and their followers look up to them.
What makes micro-influencers unique is the fact that they can connect with influencers in their niche on a deeper level. Instead of just being a celebrity in their niche, their channel often thrives from highly informative and high-quality content. This is the reason why they can get thousands of followers. These followers trust them for their recommendations, and this is the reason why they can be effective marketers for your products and services.
How Can Micro-Influencers Help Your Business?
Their Followers Usually Have High Conversion Rates
As mentioned, the followers of micro-influencers are highly targeted. This means that they tend to respond more to the promotion made by the micro-influencer. Aside from this, micro-influencers usually work in really narrow niches. This means that each promotion is targeted to their niche. This makes them effective in driving up conversion rates. When you promote micro-influencer marketing, you can expect to get more traffic and sales because of the nature of their target market.
Provide You with an Affordable Advertising Method
If you have tried different types of advertising, you will find that each advertising method will require some money. While this can be quite effective, it may be hard to sustain over the long run. Because of this, you’ll need an affordable advertising option, and that’s what micro-influencer is. I have mentioned how influencer marketing can be quite costly. The cost is often quite high, especially if you are dealing with a celebrity influencer. It is a good thing that micro-influencer marketing is different. Usually, micro-influencers don’t ask for anything when they promote you. This allows you to promote your products for free. It all depends on the micro-influencer you contacted. It may be best to skip micro-influencers who charge for promotions if you are starting to promote your brand.
How to Use Micro-Influencer Marketing in Your Business?
Wondering how you can get more people to your website with micro-influencer marketing? It is more than just convincing a micro-influencer to work with you. It is also about getting them to collaborate. Here are some ideas that can help you leverage micro-influencers for your business.
Utilize User-Generated Content
User-generated content is powerful. These are the content that your customers post on social media about your brand. It can be a testimonial about your products and services or it can be a general comment on your customer service and customer experience. In any case, it allows you to get referrals to your business.
Allowing user-generated content on your website will enable you to look for micro-influencers that can promote your website. Unintentionally, you may find some people who have a thousand followers and more to promote your business. The best part is that you can get these automatically if you have the right product or service. Your customers will be excited to encourage you when they like your brand.
This is the reason why it is a good habit to check your promotions. You should make it a habit to check the content that is linking to your website. This will allow you to see if some micro influencers are already promoting your brand.
Let Them Review Your Products
The power of referring people does not only lie on the celebrity influencers. Micro-influencers can do it equally well. Getting a review for your products and services is as simple as approaching one of them and asking them to promote you. Of course, you will triple your chances of getting promotions if you study the said micro-influencer before asking. This will give you a clue about their likes and dislikes. This will help you appeal to their needs, and thus, they will be far more likely to promote you.
Create Sponsored Posts
Sometimes, you cannot get a micro-influencer to promote you by just asking. For this, there’s a strategy. You can only offer sponsored posts. This is where you will pay them in exchange for promoting your brand in their social profile or website.
Getting sponsored posts is relatively easier to get compared to organic promotions. Some influencer blogs have promotion pages. This contains the information of the blog post topics that they are particularly looking for. With this, you’ll know the topics and the formats to submit when you want a sponsored post from them.
Sign Them Up in Your Referral Program
One of the easiest ways to have micro-influencers in your business is to have a referral program. If you don’t have one, you can easily set one up with referral marketing software. The creation of a referral program ultimately depends on the platform of your website. If you are running a Shopify e-commerce website, for example, a Shopify affiliate app will help you to set up a referral program easily. This is what Best Hunting Bow labs did, which sells the most powerful crossbow, and it is quite useful.
Referral marketing is one of the most natural methods to generate leads to your business. Unlike other forms of marketing that require you to submit links manually, referral marketing leverages your prospects’ ability to promote your brand to other people. This way, you are not the only person who is manually developing your website. You are also using the power of your customers and website visitors to promote your business.
Provide Limited Time Rewards
Another way to get micro-influencers to promote you is to offer limited-time rewards. This can be a discount code that can be used for a limited time, or it can be a product that is only offered for a limited time. Since there is a limit on the implementation of the reward, there is scarcity. This scarcity encourages users to sign up. When you do this, it gives the micro-influencer a reason to promote your business. With this, they will do more than improve your products and services. They will also improve your reward, which is only implemented for a limited time.
Create Online Events
Another way to get micro-influencers in your team is to host an online event with them. This can be a contest. You may have seen several micro-influencers do this. They show their followers that they are working with a brand, and they reward them based on their engagements with the brand. Often, it involves more than likes and comments. It also requires their followers to like and follow their page. So it’s also an advantage for them. This advantage is what encourages micro-influencers to promote you. They do not only get to promote your brand. They also get to develop their name as well.
Create Influencer Meetups
Influencers love to get connected. This is also true for micro influencers. Since these influencers only have a few followers, they want to get connected with other influencers in their niche. You can make this come true by hosting a meetup. This is where you invite several micro influencers in a niche for lunch or dinner.
Here’s one of the main benefits that it can do for you. Hosting a meetup will allow you to instantly get connected to several micro influencers in a niche. When you have this connection, it is easier to promote your business. You’ll have access to several influencers with one promotion.
Create a Cause
Another way to get several influencers to come together is to create a cause to support. You can do this in line with your business. You can give a dollar to a charity organization for every sale.
If you plan to do this, it is important to choose a charity that resonates with the needs of your target influencers. Promoting products in the health niche, for example, may resonate with vegan micro-influencers. If you give some money to PETA for every sale, then the vegan influencers will have more reasons to support you.
Create Campaign Hashtags
When you are promoting a product, it is easy to dismiss the need for hashtags. But it is a strategy that should not be forgotten. It is recommended by top e-commerce podcasts to not only promote products but also give them proper hashtags.
This works exceptionally well on Facebook and Instagram. It allows your prospects to find your products and services easily. When a prospect clicks on a hashtag, they will be able to discover your post and your business. It is also important to instruct micro-influencers to do this when they promote you. This way, their followers can easily find you.
Host a Giveaway
Another strategy is to host a giveaway with a micro-influencer. This is where you give away a product or a discount code exclusively for the micro influencer’s followers. The exclusivity encourages the micro-influencer to work with you and gives them a solid reason to promote you.
Today is the Best Time to Promote to Micro-Influencers
We live in an interconnected world. Prospects and customers do not only check their friend’s and family members’ profiles. They also look for influencers that they can look up to. It is with this reason why micro-influencers are quite powerful when it comes to driving traffic and sales. It fills the need to look for a celebrity in every niche. And micro-influencers fit this quite well.
As the online world grows, the number of interests also grows. Interests become more varied, and micro-niches are born. Leading these micro-niches are micro-influencers. If you only reach out to these people, you will be quite surprised at how they can drive more traffic and sales to your business.
The first step in micro-influencer marketing is research. You first need to take a look at your niche and look for the influencers dominating it. From here, you should look for those influencers with a lower number of followers. These are your micro-influencers and you should get their contact information to get started. Once you have their contact information, you can now reach out to them with your proposal. It may be best to reach out to several micro-influencers. It is more effective that way.
Author Bio
Arlen Robinson is the co-founder and VP of Business Development at OSI Affiliate Software.
He is also the host of The Ecommerce Marketing Podcast where he discusses marketing strategies with experts from all over the world.
