How to use influencer marketing to boost your e-commerce 2022

How to use influencer marketing to boost your e-commerce

Several years ago, influencer marketing was limited to some celebrities with a few bloggers, but now the market is saturated with many influencers on all social media platforms who have a large fan base of followers who trust their opinions and follow their advice in all areas.

Therefore, influencer marketing has become an essential part of the marketing strategy for all brands. It can be seen as one of the most effective ways to expand the reach of your company or brand, enhance your credibility in your industry, and also emerge as a thought leader in your area of expertise.

With so many diverse strategies and tips in this field, we are with you in the next guide to put your feet on the right path with the best tips for making successful and effective influencer marketing strategies to support your marketing plan.

First: What is Influencer Marketing?

Influencer marketing can be defined as:

A marketing method in which brands can promote their products through a set of recommendations or reviews made by influencers and online content creators who have a large following and are seen as experts in their field. Social media and blogging are the primary platforms for the majority of influencers. Oftentimes, influencer marketing is part of awareness and branding campaigns, and it can also be used to support conversions and sales.

Second, the most important global influencer marketing statistics

The numbers don't lie! Only statistics and numbers prove the huge spread and development of this type of marketing, and we will now discuss with you the most important of those numbers and statistics:

• The influencer marketing industry is expected to grow to approximately $16.4 billion by the end of 2022.
• More than 75% of brand marketers say they will budget for influencer marketing in 2022.
• The global number of service offerings related to influencer marketing grew by 26% in 2021 alone, to nearly 18,900 companies that provide or specialize in influencer marketing services.
• Influencer marketing-focused platforms raised more than $800 million in funding in 2021 alone, an indication of the significant growth of the industry.
• Nearly 54% of companies that work with influencers specialize in running e-commerce stores.
• Instagram is the most used platform for influencer marketing. Around 80% of brands engage in influencer marketing via this platform.

Third, consider the benefits of influencer marketing for your e-commerce.

Influencer marketing works effectively with all types of businesses, as many major brands are now collaborating with famous influencers to promote their products and services and increase sales and conversion rates. Also, e-stores are using influencer marketing a lot lately, and this is reflected in their many features that we will discuss with you. The most important of these is that you start now:

1. Successful store promotion

The most common way to use influencer marketing in e-commerce is to promote the online store and its products and services. These influencers serve as reliable references for their followers, and when they talk about your store or products while providing a link to your store, it will save you time and tremendous effort that can be used in other marketing methods. One of the most famous ways that influencers use is to try your products themselves in front of the followers, present their personal experience, and then advise the followers to buy from your store with a direct link to go to it, which does not bear any doubt in the correct and direct guidance.

Expert advice

Create a specific code for each influencer or provide them with specific links to your page. This way, you will be able to track and see the ROI of influencer campaigns.

2. Encourage UGC (User Generated Content)

If the content is king, then I consider customer-generated content to be the king of content these days. Customer and influencer reviews of your products and services boost your brand image and boost sales and profits tremendously, which no other marketing method can do. This is where influencer marketing comes in to support this type of content tremendously. Their reviews and slides of your products will be great material to share with your customers through your brand’s personal page, which greatly boosts customers’ trust in what you offer.

Starting with the professional package, you can now with ExpandCart's "Store Ratings" application display customer reviews on your storefront and show how professional and quality your work is to support your profits and sales tremendously. Learn more in the following video:

3. Use Testimonials to Back Up Your Website Content. Influencer Testimonials

All brands need to back up their websites with testimonials and reviews, and oftentimes, customers don't even think to come back and leave a comment or share their experience. Here comes the role of influencer marketing to create testimonials and share their stories about your products and services, and put that information on the home page of your site or the product page itself. These reviews and testimonials will tremendously boost customers' confidence in your store and enhance their desire to buy.

4. Spread the word about the success of your promotions.

Nothing encourages customers to buy more than discounts and special offers, and working with influencers is a great way to do that and take advantage of those discounts in the largest possible way. In this method, a special code must be created for each influencer to measure the rate of conversions and sales made through it. There is no doubt that these transfers, even if they do not result in an immediate purchase, can inspire the consumer to enter your store when he needs to buy another product that you have. So those conversions can be a huge benefit to boosting your sales.

To further support your sales, we recommend that you review the following articles:

And now we move on to a set of strategies that you can follow to make the best use of influencer marketing.

Fourth: The Most Important Strategies and Tips for Successful Marketing Through Influencers

Now that you know the importance of integrating influencer marketing into your overall marketing plan, it's time to develop a clear strategy to work with so you can achieve the best possible results.

1. Identify the appropriate influencer to work with.

There is no doubt that the market today is saturated with many influencers in all fields, and your options are endless. But here it must be emphasized that not all of these options will be suitable for you, so how do you choose the right influencer? If you have the appropriate budget, we advise you to use an agency specializing in that. If you do not have the budget and you are a beginner in your field, the most important advice when choosing is that the rate of participation and interaction of the influencer is much more important than the number of followers.

Here are the 3 most important steps to consider when choosing:

• Analyze the influencer's posts and their cultural and environmental background, and consider whether they align well with your target audience.
• Calculate engagement rates by dividing the average number of interactions (comments or likes on posts) by the total number of followers.
• By taking into account the target geographic area when choosing, by doing good research for the best influencers for your target area, it does not make sense to choose a famous Gulf influencer to target an Egyptian audience, for example.

2. Determine the best platform to target.

Promoting through a platform like TikTok, for example, is more appropriate for millennials as well as brands that provide services that can be delivered in a funny, fast, and self-explanatory manner.

Our advice here is that if you want to focus on a platform that is highly suitable for the e-commerce audience, we will undoubtedly recommend the Instagram platform for you, as it is a great option and contains many features that support the success of your campaigns, such as stories and images, in addition to the shopping feature that makes making the purchase decision easier and faster.

3. Making use of micro-influencers

Most likely, on your way to searching for the right influencer, you will tend to choose influencers who have 10,000 followers or more to be able to benefit as much as possible, but in reality, this perception is incorrect. Many large influencers buy followers to support their pages, which makes their interaction very fake. Therefore, the advice here is to rely on small influencers with good interaction and a real customer base. Here you can find out by testing their interaction rate if it is good and real so that it is not affected much at the time by the number of followers.

4. Allow the influencer creative freedom.

Many companies and brands prefer to give influencers a guide and a clear picture of the type of content they want them to create, and here we strongly advise against doing so. You should give the influencer your creative space because they are more familiar with their target audience, their preferences, and how to best communicate with them, so give them space to create content that they know, from their point of view, will resonate with their followers.

Conclusion

Marketing through influencers is expected by all stats and experts that will increase in strength, influence, and growth in the coming period. With this great type of marketing, you can increase your follower base, boost your sales and profits, or simply spread a new story about your business or product. Regardless of how best to use influencer marketing in your business, you should start today to create your brand’s influencer marketing strategy and capitalize on that massive impact.