Nowadays, influencer marketing is a common buzzword at Amazon tradeshows and events as sellers seek new and unique ways to grow brand awareness and sell products.
Since becoming an Amazon seller is so easy, brands have been forced to find creative ways to stand out from the competition. And since there are so many products in the same niche, it’s become difficult for buyers to settle on just one seller. So, how do you convince potential buyers to choose your brand and products over your competitors'?
How do you ensure that your products are easy to find? There are many ways to promote your products on Amazon, from optimizing your listing for SEO to sponsored ads and partnering with an Amazon marketing agency. However, there is one strategy that is often underrated - influencer marketing.
How does influencer marketing tie to your marketing strategy? How can Amazon sellers leverage influencer marketing to promote their brands and increase conversion? Let’s dive right in.
Influencer marketing has become a mainstream form of online marketing. It is a hybrid of old and new marketing tools that leverage the concept of celebrity endorsement in more modern content-driven marketing campaigns. The success of influencer marketing campaigns results from collaborations between influencers and brands. However, today’s influencer marketing doesn’t necessarily involve celebrities. Most brands use influencers who would never consider themselves celebrities in an offline setting.
An influencer is someone who:
Brands use influencers all the time to promote their products and services, but the mistake many of them make is failing to differentiate between online influencers and celebrities. Unlike celebrities who amass a following because of being famous, influencers have to build an audience systematically. So, it’s no surprise that the audience is often more enthusiastic about an influencer than the brand.
Audiences care about the opinions of influencer-generated contenders. Don’t try to impose your rules or business practices on your chosen influencer. The audience can easily walk away, taking their followers with them if you try to control the narrative too much.
There are a few different kinds of influencers, but we’ll explain – micro-influencers and macro-influencers in this article.
Macro-influencers have a larger audience and, therefore, are more expensive. When selling on Amazon, try and target micro-influencers. Why?
While macro-influencers may seem to have the numbers, micro-influencers concentrate on a specific niche in which they share their opinions, tips, and stories with an enthusiastic audience. Such influencers have followers ranging between 1000 to 100000. This is a good thing for your business because these influencers can share the same vision and passion for the brand.
Micro-influencers spend most of their time talking about their hobbies and interests within a specific niche, thus creating authentic and engaging user-generated content. They usually don’t ask for money; if they do, it’s a small percentage compared to what macro-influencers will ask. It's an effective way to promote your products and build brand awareness on a low-cost budget. Most micro-influencers will promote your product to the right person in exchange for a free product.
The main advantage of using micro-influencers is that they focus more on the market needs rather than a general audience. On the contrary, macro-influencers have to be paid and, on top of that, signal engagement within posts. Such influencers register on influencer platforms and don’t owe loyalty to one brand; they’ll post about anything as long as they get paid.
Brand awareness is a huge game changer on the e-commerce front. When someone has to decide between two products with similar features, they’ll probably choose a brand they’ve heard of rather than a new one. Your brand, therefore, makes all the difference when choosing an influencer. If you don’t build your brand, the only other factor people will use to choose is low pricing.
The truth is that no one wants to be associated with a low-cost option. Building a reputable brand is the best card to play if you’re to rise above your competition. Developing an influencer strategy to help build a community around your brand is the best way to build brand awareness and reach an audience who may one day become your customers.
So, how do you find an influencer whose vision aligns with your brand? Here’s how:
You need to know who you are targeting to find the right influencer to promote your brand and products. If you don’t clearly understand who you’ll sell to, you risk your brand falling victim to banner blindness because people don’t find value in what you are advertising. If you are to blast through the noise and reach the right people, consider certain demographics of your customers, like their age, what they look like, their gender, their pain points, and who they follow. When you define these parameters, you can create your ideal customer and attract the right influencer who will enthusiastically promote your brand and products.
Hashtags allow people to build conversations around a specific subject. If you are on social media and are already using a specific hashtag to promote your brand and products, find out who is using it and how many people are engaging with posts on their timeline using that hashtag. Likewise, there are popular hashtags around a specific niche. Find one relevant to your brand or products and the people using it, and reach out to a few about becoming your brand ambassadors.
Ideally, if someone has bought from you many times, they find value in your products. Repeat customers make for great brand ambassadors. You can see the customers who have made the most orders through Seller Central and reach out. However, you have to be careful about that. Contacting customers who’ve bought from you is going against Amazon policies and may attract drastic measures from the e-commerce giant. There are other ways to reach out to such contacts outside of Amazon.
You already have people following your brand or saying good things about it; start there. These could be people already following you on social media, liking and leaving comments on your posts. Since such individuals already engage with your content, they are perfect for promoting your brand and products. After all, such a person already knows enough about your brand and products to tell others about them. After narrowing it down to a few potentials, check their social media following to see who can be an influencer. You want to work with an influencer who has a significant following, posts consistently, and has people already engaging with their posts. Pro Tip: An Amazon marketing agency can help you find the best influencers to work with. They evaluate your needs and goals and match you with the best fit.
Product and brand promotion have come a long way, and there’s a tool for almost anything. You can use many tools to find niche influencers who can promote your products and build an audience around your brand.
You’ve already narrowed it down to an influencer you believe has the potential to take your brand to the next level. So, how do you use them to ensure they’re worth their weight in gold?
Most Amazon customers rely on recommendations to make a purchasing decision. An influencer acts as a middleman to recommend your brand to potential customers. To ensure your influencer campaign reaches its peak, you must find the right influencer. Rather than going with the influencer with the largest following, consider an influencer whose vision and content align with your brand and products. Like with brand awareness campaigns, you must create influencer programs to continue to help grow and retain market share. Once you build brand awareness, lead conversions will occur.
What are your biggest questions about influencer marketing? Drop them below.
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