There’s a reason why being an “influencer” has become a legitimate career path for many people today. Influencers possess thousands to millions of followers who admire or take interest in their lifestyle, expertise, or talents. This large following is what makes influencers so valuable, especially to businesses looking to market their products.

Influencer marketing has become a key part of any business’s marketing strategy today. You’ll have a hard time finding a popular brand that isn’t working with an influencer in promoting their products in some way. Any business that can afford it can partner with the most popular influencers to boost brand exposure or use micro-influencers to reach niche areas of the market.

For eCommerce businesses, influencer marketing is also highly recommended. After all, marketing an online store isn’t that much different from marketing a physical one. 

Why influencers?

If businesses are looking for individuals with a large following to market their products, then why not just sign a contract with the biggest names in the industry you can afford? Below are several reasons why influencer marketing is a genuine option.

1. They can be more cost-effective – Running influencer campaigns is 30% cheaper than other marketing strategies. Even micro-influencers can give your businesses a significant ROI compared to investing in ad placements.
2. There’s an influencer for every business – From micro-influencers to the biggest influencers on the internet, businesses have many options. For any size and type of business, there’s an influencer to match their needs.
3. They can create more engagement – Compared to celebrity endorsements, influencer endorsements are more personal. There’s a gap between celebrities and consumers that just don’t exist between influencers and their followers.
4. Most millennials don’t trust advertisements – A study by Elite Daily has found that only 1% of millennials trust ads, but 33% of them trust blog reviews, which are mostly made by influencers.

Builds your brand’s credibility

Influencer marketing works a lot like hiring a famous actor or actress to endorse your product in a TV advertisement. Without the appearance of a celebrity, the bells and whistles you are showing your audience in the advertisement stand alone. Consumers are left deciding whether or not to trust what was said in the ad. But with a celebrity explicitly endorsing your product, testifying to its quality and value, your ad becomes so much more credible.

Replace the celebrity with an influencer. Instead of TV, put the ad on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. Now, it’s influencer marketing. The influencer you’ve chosen, who has a sizeable following, can help build your brand’s credibility in various ways.

For instance, a fitness YouTuber partnering with an online health and fitness brand may publish a video review of the brand’s new line of fitness products. Alternatively, the YouTuber can directly endorse the products by using them and testifying to their quality.

Whatever arrangement you agree on with your influencer of choice, their influence over their large following will help build trust between your brand and your audience. People trust the influencers they follow to some degree and if they trust your brand, some of their followers’ trust extends to you.

Increases your own following

Around 30% of eCommerce businesses are using social media to sell their products, and your business likely belongs to that group already. To further maximize your sales via social media, partnering with an influencer is a great move.

Social media is the domain of influencers, and if you partner with them, these platforms can be a position of strength for your brand as well. Make sure the influencer you are partnering with is not only endorsing your products but also your social media accounts, too. As influencers talk about your brand and products, they garner interest in your brand and their followers become more likely to follow your social media accounts, thereby extending your own reach.

One common practice by businesses and influencers is to run a giveaway campaign. You, with the help of your partner influencer, will ask people to follow your brand in exchange for a chance to win a prize. The influencer’s endorsement, coupled with the prospect of getting something for free, is enough to make people click on the follow button more often than not.

Increases sales

Influencers indirectly increase your sales when they help give your brand exposure and build its reputation. However, they can also have a direct impact on sales by sharing discounts and vouchers. Doing this can also help your business sell more of your high-ticket items.

Furthermore, when influencers publish content that features your product, their followers who have previously purchased your products become more likely to place a repeat order. 

Final word

Influencer marketing is the new marketing strategy that every business, including eCommerce, should consider. Compared to other marketing strategies, it offers more flexibility and oftentimes more value for money. In addition, your social media presence is important as an eCommerce company, and partnering with an influencer can help you in that regard.