Should You Consider Influencer Marketing in 2021?

Should You Consider Influencer Marketing in 2021?

Influencer marketing has been the domain of “big” companies for the past few years. At NCN, one of the big questions we get from our small and medium-sized clients has to do with the benefits of influencer marketing for niche brands and companies. While this is a personal decision, we generally feel that influencer marketing can be very effectively scaled to meet the needs of smaller brands. Here’s a look at our big tips for bringing influencer marketing into your sales toolkit in 2021.

The Easiest Way to Find Influencers and have Influencer Marketing for Your Brand

How does a business find a perfectly “niche” influencer in the vast sea of content that is social media? There’s actually a simple hack for locating influencers that are relevant to your brand or market. Do a hashtag search on the hashtags that your brand uses! You may find that there are influencers out there creating content with the same hashtags and will be perfect for influencer marketing. In many cases, these influencers are “natural fits” for your brand. You can then browse specific influencer pages to narrow down your options before putting out feelers to gauge interest in collaborations for influencer marketing.

Embrace the “Micro-Influencer”

Don’t assume that hiring paid influencers isn’t for you just because your business doesn’t have the budget for a household name. Only a handful of companies out there can afford to partner up with megastars. Luckily, this isn’t the only way to get incredible return on investment (ROI) from influencer partnerships.

According to Adweek, “Micro-influencers are more effective with marketing campaigns than highly popular accounts.” In fact, campaigns featuring micro-influencers boast engagement rates of 60 percent! The right fit can bring a big return.

Set Very Concrete Goals for Your Influencer Marketing

One of the areas where brands can run into trouble with influencers is not having a way to measure campaign success. This is where it becomes important to have benchmarks for success. For instance, you may want to focus on measuring success through engagement. This means hitting a certain number of shares or followers. If the goal is to turn impressions into sales, you might measure success using a formula of views-to-conversions based on in-app/on-platform sales.

Ask Your Followers

This is actually a fun way to dip your toe into the influencer world! Ask your existing social media followers who they think embodies your brand’s core values. You can use those suggestions to discover the people who are already influencing your customers. Next, you can approach the influencers who get the most votes about collaborations. This is a great technique if you’d like to ensure that you’re spending money on an influencer who is already recognized and appreciated by your audience.

In 2021, the big takeaway for small businesses is that social marketing shouldn’t be intimidating! The availability of micro-influencers ensures that you can make a big impact even though a well-known “Hollywood” name isn’t in your budget. Based on data, the more approachable, accessible and relatable micro-influencers actually provide better ROI for brands!