If you Google influencer marketing, you’ll find a lot of inflated statistics and empty promises.

The truth is, influencer marketing can generate sales but requires a dedicated and strategic approach. You might not get $10 for every $1 spent but with the right influencer program, there is no reason why you can’t achieve $5 for every $1 spent. And that’s not bad!

If you’ve never experimented with influencer  marketing, now is a great time. If you’ve implemented influencer marketing and were disappointed with the results, you’re not alone and that’s where this post can help you out.

The following post won’t just help you with influencer marketing in general, it will help you design the type of strategy that actually brings in sales.

Influencer Marketing in 2022

Consumers are ad-blind and have been for a while. As brands scramble to reach new audiences and generate sales, influencer marketing has become a fruitful way to generate the sales that ads used to do. 

However, consumers are also starting to be turned off by influencers who shamelessly sell. 

So what to do? When partnering with influencers, you need to make an authentic connection. Only activate influencers who sincerely love your product or service. Also, marketers need to vet influencer posts to make sure they’re not all sponsored. An influencer with a healthy balance of sponsored and organic content is going to be your sweet spot. Influencers with too many sponsored posts aren’t very credible to the audience you’re trying to reach.

With 46% of consumers purchasing a product because of an influencer’s recommendation, this is a strategy that you can’t afford to pass up. 

Best Practices to Generate Sales With Influencers

I’ve had brands come to me and tell me that influencer marketing didn’t work for them. After digging into their strategy, a lot of times the brand didn’t initiate a campaign theme or seed their influencers with the right assets to produce posts that actually convert.

In order to generate actual sales via influencer marketing, you must follow the best practices.

• Work with mid-level influencers. They have a reach of about 50,000 on any given platform. The average price for a mid-level influencer to post is $200. Read all about mid-level influencers here.
• Establish long-term partnerships. Research shows that when an influencer mentions a brand 3 or more times, conversion rates go way up.
• Seed influencers with the brand assets and campaign themes needed so that they can produce engaging posts that make consumers want to purchase.
• Incentivise influencers with a commission in addition to their post fees to drive more sales.
• Give influencers a unique discount code that they can give their audience for a certain percentage off when their audience purchases online. This creates a sense of urgency to purchase from your brand.

Identifying the Right Influencers to Gain a Strong ROI

I’ve seen so many brands get hung up on an influencer’s reach and not their contextual fit with their brand.

If an influencer has curated an audience who expects to read posts about home decor but you sell tech gadgets, the brand fit is not there. So even if they have a million followers, the conversion rates will be low.

Determine the type of influencers your target audience follows and which platforms they’re most active on so that you recruit the influencers who will actually drive sales for your brand.

Once you know the criteria for influencers to drive sales, it’s time to search for them. Here are a few influencer identification strategies to keep in mind:

• Google for your influencer niche with “keyword of niche” and “list of influencers”
• Use an influencer identification platform (prices vary but they almost always offer free trials so you can find the tool that works well for you)
• Search for influencers on each specific social channel

Influencer Marketing Tips According to Each Platform

Once you’ve identified your influencer criteria and are ready to activate the influencers you searched for, put together an omnichannel plan. 

Each platform is different. Different tones, demographics, etc. Therefore, your influencers will need to craft specific messaging for each channel.

Blog: Blogs are great for showcasing a thorough brand experience with the nature of the long-form content. They also help with SEO if you give influencers the anchor text in which to link back to your brand. So do your keyword research and equip your influencers strategically.

Facebook: Facebook is very community-oriented. Target influencers who run or are part of large Facebook groups that align with your brand.

Instagram: Video on Instagram gets twice the engagement of a static post. When activating influencers, equip them with a creative theme that works well for video posts.

TikTok: TikTok is laid back and fun. It’s also its own cultural phenomenon. When partnering with TikTok influencers, give them creative freedom because they will be experts on how to engage their audience. 

YouTube: YouTube should make up at least part of your influencer campaigns. YouTube influencers tend to cost more than other platforms but the ROI is also better. Focus on quality content over number of subscribers. 

LinkedIn: B2B brands should pay special attention to LinkedIn. Recruit influencers on this platform that are comfortable with writing long-form content. Unlike the other social platforms, content should be thought leadership and professional.

Twitter: I think Twitter is one of those channels where it is just nice to have. Conversions aren’t super high but sending out a tweet, on the other hand, is super easy. So I recommend asking your influencers to tweet but not to prioritize this channel. 

How to Get the Most Out of Your Influencer Partnerships

I think a lot of brands drop the ball by only relying on an influencer’s organic reach to drive sales.

In reality, there is a lot more that can be done with your influencer-generated content that adds to your revenue stream. 

Repurpose influencer generated content and dice it down into assets you can use for paid social ads. This is an effective use of your paid ad spend because influencer generated content performs better than branded content as it demonstrates social proof. These types of ads get more leverage out of your earned media and bring in sales.

How to Get Started Generating Sales With Influencer Marketing

If you’re ready to power your influencer marketing strategy and start landing actual sales you have to make a decision. 

Do you have enough time and manpower to do influencer marketing in house? Or do you need to partner with an agency like Rossman Media who has relationships in place and can execute your influencer marketing for you?

Does your brand work with influencers? Would you consider influencer partnerships fruitful? We’d love to read all about your experience in the comments below!