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Appealing to e-Commerce influencers can be similar to network marketing without you having to do it yourself. Find out how they help engage your audience.
Influencer agency!
Is an influencer in the Amazon influencer programme!
Has worked with a lot of brands, getting traffic and traction on their products.
Connect brands to influencers that have an audience.
How eCommerce sellers use influencers
This can be similar to network marketing without you having to do it yourself.
Like an old-fashioned Tupperware party but digitally.
Brand awareness
Some people with bigger sales volume want to get bigger brand awareness. Often they don’t think about influencer marketing in this way.
“Activation events”
The established brand does a product launch – invitation only via influencers who attend and do the “step and repeat” red carpet.
It’s an opportunity for people with high interest in things to elevate their authority with e-commerce influencers.
When is it the right time to reach out to influencers?
It’s not a quick fix or quick sales channel. You have to have a strategy for that!
If you just put a few product shots up, your product may not do well.
If you’re not creating content yourself, you won’t do well. You do need some kind of customer base.
Influencers need to know that your product is good and has customers.
It’s not their job to make your product sell.
You need to be active yourself in other channels.
There are a couple of brands that said they launched with influencer marketing.
But they must have had seed capital to Saturate a market – give away product and give it to many influencers.
Those are unicorns – this is not the whole story.
Established product and brand
You need to be established in the space – influencers don’t want to lose the trust of the audience.
Photos before outreach
You have to have really good product photos in order to attract influencers!
Influencer marketing is all about images.
Good influencers get a lot of offers and you have to ‘sell” the product.
A lot of that is to do with site.
(New influencers are hungrier!)
What are the key factors we are looking at?
Decide on which channel to go
- youtube
- bloggers
Audience
First of all, make sure their audience is legitimate.
One way is to check how long they’ve been in the space eg a standalone blog, plenty of youtube videos, instagram feed full of images etc. You can verify if that’s legit.
Understand that influencers are not doing it for the sake of it
They need to be paid.
They take the job seriously – they want to do the work seriously (you get over seeing yourself quickly!)
Be clear about who your ideal audience is and who the influencers’ audience is
Influencers are the intermediary between you and your potential Audience
You need to be sure that the influencer has the audience in the right demographic
- Relationship to product
- Relationship to the right people
A lot of people want to work with someone because
- Like content
- Have 1.4M followers – they won’t be interested and or will be expensive!
An influencer with 250K followers will not be a match for a small brand
- Their followers will see you have 500 followers!
Sellers want influencers who will “blow up the =brand”.
One influencer will not do that.
It’s a strategy.
You need to have a 3-6 month project with the e-commerce influencers.
You need to put in the effort on eg: your Instagram feed.
How do we figure out who the best influencers with engaged audiences?
It’s hard to do on your own.
That’s one reason why influencer agencies exist.
Recommendation – micro-influencers
A lot of new brands have 200-2000 followers
They are more likely to have better contact with followers
You want them to have a close relationship -they need a smaller following to really know your followers – it’s just math!
Budget
A lot of sellers think influencers will work for free. They will not!
The way it works:
- Usually, charge a flat rate
- Plus take a % – maybe 10% may be more depending on brand and product cost
- A post could be under $100 to $200
- Videos are more expensive – say $400-500;
- Photos say $200+
You’re paying for
- Production of video
- Equipment depreciation
- On location, hire an assistant
- Distribution
A lot of influencers get a lot of equerries – Daisi =as an influencer gets 25+ a day and agency a lot more
The Deals
Sometimes it’s an affiliate type deal – the influencer makes money on the % of the sale weather than just getting paid to post. Revenue share model.
You might pay the influencer to create content and also (additionally) for posting on the channel.
Every influencer is different.
The agency is not the “gatekeeper”
They will approach an influencer and say here’s the offer, are you interested.
Agency does introductions and manages arrangements, but influencer is in charge of own business.
Do also do events with influencers and help them build their brands.
But it’s not like a talent agency who gate models, singers, actors, dancers.
Fashion background
In the fashion industry, Daisi is very pro influencers owning their own business
What are the first steps just getting into the space of influencers?
Influencers can get 100 contacts a day – they will prioritise the brands they already know.
It’s very helpful to have a partner who understands the norms
Know what you want out of it
Doing what everyone else is doing and what they are “expected” to do is not good.
Know your “why”. Sometimes talking to an agency owner could help
Give it at three months to work
It takes at least a month to set it up.
It could take a while to get all the influencers to
If you want to learn more about other posts by Daisi Pollard, check it out here:
Model Photography on Your Amazon Listing by Daisi Pollard
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