So you’ve heard about Instagram influencer marketing but don’t really understand it? You want to start marketing on Instagram but you are not sure how to begin?
If that’s the case, you have arrived at the right place. In this article, I’ll share the key knowledge you must have to leverage influencer marketing successfully.
Be sure to stick around as Instagram influencer marketing has become the focus of many major brands. It might help you big as well. So continue reading to learn why 17% of companies spend over half of their budget on influencer marketing.
Table of Contents
Why Should Shop Owners Go for Instagram Influencer Marketing?
Many benefits come with influencer marketing on Instagram. Let’s take a look at the top five.
Build Trust with Customers
When people choose to follow someone’s life on any social media platform, it’s generally because they like that person and find them inspiring and trustworthy.
And that’s one of the biggest advantages that come with using influencer marketing – people will quickly begin to have trust in your company because they already trust the influencer that markets it.
The great thing about influencers, especially nano and micro ones (those below 500K followers) is that they feel authentic, like normal people and not celebrities.
This helps them build real trust with their audience and that’s the key for getting sales.
Marketing to the right audience
SEO marketing, ads on Google, and YouTube – all three are based on algorithms and keywords. That’s not the case with Instagram influencers. On Instagram, you choose the correct type of person who can market your product to the specific audience you’re targeting.
Let’s take an example here: Let’s suppose you have a supplement store and you somehow find a relevant fitness influencer to promote your brand. In this case, what they’re gonna do is directly presenting your product to the people that are most likely to buy it in the first place – the gym-rats.
Although there is no guarantee of conversion in marketing, the probability of getting sales increases with this tactic because we’re targeting the right people.
Improves Your Content
Bringing in an influencer to your marketing team is like getting a new co-worker. They will surely bring their own ideas & creativity and that will only boost the potential of your team.
Having many people working on creating new content, you can be certain that there will always be something ready to be posted on social media.
Provides Value to Your Future Customers
Having someone to review your products or services and presenting their opinion to the world, provides value to you and your customers.
As a business owner, it can give a different perspective on how your product is perceived and how it can be improved.
At the same time, customers will feel like getting the real information and not being tricked into buying something.
Believe it or not, it builds your brand because it shows that you’re willing to get better and have an ear to hear out the public opinion.
Along with that, your clients develop trust with your company, as they feel you’re authentic and honest. Something that people value a lot.
Good for any business, regardless of the size
One of the great things about marketing on Instagram is the ability to scale. Brands that are already popular continue to use celebrities and athletes as their main ‘influencers.’
However, if you are a small business that’s just starting out, you don’t really need Cristiano Ronaldo to promote your brand. Even smaller influencers with around 10K followers will do a great job, given that you choose the right ones.
Some of the smaller influencers on Instagram work pro bono or for free products, it can prove to be a great money-saving investment for your business.
How Much Will Instagram Influencer Marketing Cost You?
Of course, I can’t give you the price of every influencer on the planet. That’s why in the below points, I will give you a general idea of what the price depends on and how you can use that knowledge to negotiate with influencers.
Number of people you can reach
The more popular the person you want to hire is, the more it’s going to cost. Instagram influencers fall into 5 categories based on the number of followers they have:
- Nano influencers: 1K – 10K followers
- Micro influencers: 10K – 50K followers
- Mid-tier influencers: 50K – 500Kfollowers
- Macro influencers: 500K– 1M followers
- Mega influencers: above 1M followers
Engagement rates
The fact that you have a big follower count doesn’t mean that they generate a lot of engagement. Before you decide to hire someone, check the engagement rate on their original content and on their sponsored posts.
Statistics show that accounts with a following below 500K generate more engagement than the larger ones.
So before you spend a lot of cash on an influencer just because they have a lot of followers, keep a check on engagement.
Engagement is crucial for turning content into sales, as it shows whether the influencer can keep his audience hooked or not.
Industry You’re Interested in Also Matters
Rates for influencers vary depending on their niche. The most popular industries like beauty and fitness have a lot more people working in them, which lowers the price.
Use specific tools to track down the industries in which the influencer advertises. If you want to go a step further, you can find how much they’re likely to charge per post.
By doing your research, you will be able to make a budget correctly, which is really crucial for a successful business.
Type of Content and Content Schedule
Another determining factor in the price is the number of posts you will want to have created and their frequency. It’s easy to figure out that the more content you want to be created, the more expensive it will be for your company.
Additionally, the various types of content have different price tags and it depends on the estimated effort that the influencer will have to put into creating the content.
Videos usually cost the most, followed by posts and stories. Therefore, you will have to come up with a clear strategy on what you want from an influencer so that you can negotiate the correct terms.
Additional Contracts Increase the Price
If you want the influencer to sign a non-compete contract, that will be an additional cost. Influencers earn their living off advertisements and cutting potential clients is not something they would do for free.
Furthermore, if you want to own the content created for your business specifically, that will add some additional dollars to the bill as well.
Types of Instagram Influencers
As already mentioned, there are different types of Instagram influencers based on what they bring to the table. Let’s take an in-depth look at them.
Mega influencer
Usually these are celebrities like – movie stars, singers, rappers, and athletes. People who have a following of over 1M. This makes them highly visible on social media and they have enormous reach – something that is great enough to generate buzz around your brand.
One downside to them is the low engagement rate, which is measured at below 2% for accounts with more than 10M followers.
The price tag for working with mega influencers is very high and that makes them unsuitable for smaller and mid-tier businesses. Only huge corporations like Nike and Zara can hire someone like that as an influencer for promotion.
Macro influencers
These are accounts with 500K to 1M followers and are likely ones of up-and-coming artists or athletes. Much like mega influencers, they also have a hefty price tag.
Believe me, when I tell you, you will have to start throwing dollars into the air if you want to hire someone of that rank.
Of course, they still give you a terrific reach, the only bad thing is that the reach gets smaller in comparison with mega influencers but the engagement somehow remains relatively the same.
Mid-tier influencers
Here we’re starting to get some more authentic reach and better engagement rates. However, these are still big accounts. These types of influencers have between 50K and 500K followers.
They can be great to work with as they’re extremely professional and offer well-made content, while still remaining closer to their audience. They offer a good blend of reach and real engagement, which can be great for growing businesses.
Micro influencers
Micro Influencers are widely considered as the most effective influencer group for Instagram marketing. Their followers vary from 10K to 50K and they are usually more niche-focused.
Along with that, most of these people are a lot closer and more personal with their audience than accounts with a bigger reach. As they feel more like a real person and less like a celebrity, the public is more likely to trust them – 82% of people state that they’re likely to buy a product recommended by a micro-influencer.
Additionally, their ROI is higher than all other groups and they have a great engagement rate.
Nano influencers
These are accounts that have between 1K and 10K followers. They offer the best engagement rate at an average of 8.8% and they’re very authentic and close to their followers.
Because most of those influencers are just starting out, they offer a lot of value to their followers sharing good information.
They’re great for brands with limited resources. By starting early, the influencer and the company can grow together and build a strong partnership for the future. Take a look at Gymshark, for example.
Working with nano influence can be very cost-effective as they often work pro bono or for the free product.
Finding the Perfect Instagram Influencer for Your Business
For your Instagram marketing to be effective, you have to choose the right influencers for your brand. I already know what you have to look into, so let me take you through it.
Brand fit
One of the most important things to look for in an influencer is their niche. It’s common sense that they must fit in with your brand style. For example, you can’t choose a beauty influencer to promote your fitness bands. It just doesn’t feel authentic and relevant.
You want people to believe that the influencer will buy and use that product, even if they are not sponsored. That’s what’s meant by “feeling authentic”.
No matter how good someone is with their audience or how much reach and engagement they offer, if their personality and niche don’t fit in with your company’s idea and style, that sort of partnership won’t work.
Look for people that would be potential buyers of your product and make them your advertisers.
Engagement rate
Don’t be fooled by follower count. A lot of smaller accounts pay money to get followed by bots and one way to catch that is by looking at their engagement rate.
Seeing it can help you identify the people that have a genuine following that’s responsive to the content. Usually, those are nano and micro-influencers and they are proven to be the best in maximizing your ROI.
Take a look at their content
Check out their IG page – is their content in line with your brand’s messaging? How does the public respond to it? Is the influencer able to start conversations and keep the audience interested?
Those are very important questions whose answers will give you an idea of how good the influencer is at their job.
You want someone who keeps people interested and inspired and offers them value as those are the key elements that build trust between the influencer and their followers.
Another trick I can offer you is looking into their past sponsorships. Have they worked with a competitor of yours? If yes, what were the results of their partnership? Look at how those campaigns performed to get an idea of what may come out of your collaboration.
Good Communication is Vital
One of the most important things in any business relationship is having good communication.
When you approach an influencer for a partnership, take a good look at how they lead the conversation. Do they respond quickly? Are they able to deliver on deadlines? Are they ready to have an open talk about your brand? What’s their attitude towards the job – do they just care about money or are they really interested in their work?
By communicating actively with the influencer at the beginning of your business relationship, you will be able to get a sense of what kind of professional they are. Something that’s very important when it comes to working with someone.
Captions length is important
Something that you may have not paid attention to before is the length of the captions on IG posts. Research has shown that the longer the captions of an influencer are, the more engagement they generate.
By writing longer posts, influencers are able to start conversations with their followers or to provide them with quality information, which creates engagement.
So keep that in the back of your mind – look for people that deliver value to their audience and not just pretty faces that write one-word captions.
How to Compensate Pricing with Instagram Influencers
As a business owner, you always want to cut down on costs. Influencer marketing can be expensive if you start paying everyone you work with in cash.
However, as I want to help you as much as I can, below I will share my top tips for compensating influencers without spending too much.
Free products
Offering your free product in return for a promotion such as a dedicated post, a story can be used in two situations. Either when you have already worked with the influencer for some time now or when you already pay a specific amount of cash to them.
You can also give free products instead of money, when working with nano influencers, below the 5K follower mark. It’s likely that those people don’t make their living from marketing on Instagram and if they really like your product, they will jump at the chance to get it for free.
Free products can be very useful in contract negotiations. But still, you must be careful with whom you’re offering them. While smaller influencers may jump at the idea and love it, big influencers can take it as an insult and refuse to work with your company.
Paid compensation
Sometimes you can’t avoid paying the person you want to work with. Especially if they’re already a brand on their own. Influencers that earn their living through their work on Instagram offer professional content and have a wide reach, so they can charge quite a bit for a partnership.
It’s important to note that most of these individuals have set rates – per post, story, or video. You can negotiate rates for longer partnerships or campaigns.
Some of them work with agencies as well. So it’s vital that you look into them before approaching with a price and contract.
Affiliate compensation
This is a very popular way of compensating influencers and it works for both nano, micro, and mid-tier accounts. Affiliate compensation is when influencers get a percentage for each sale they generate.
This is tracked either by affiliate links or codes. It’s a method that many companies use and they usually combine it with either free products or with paid compensation.
In any way, it’s a great tool for negotiation as it can be used no matter how big your brand is and influencers always find value in it as they get rewarded for each sale they drive.
Instagram Influencer Marketing Examples That Might Blow Your Mind!
Daniel Wellington
This Swedish watchmaker forgot traditional marketing tactics altogether and focused all its efforts on Instagram influencer marketing. They used people in the fashion and lifestyle niche, who posted quality photos with branded hashtags in order to promote the brand.
Through this campaign, the company encouraged customers and followers to post original content and using this strategy they generated up to 900K posts on Instagram.
By 2015, Daniel Wellington had earned a revenue of $220 million, using only influencer marketing to popularize their brand.
Gymshark
This sports brand was one of the first companies to use the power of influencers to promote itself. The owner began sponsoring some of the most prominent names in the fitness industry. This helped in nurturing long-term partnerships and collaborations that skyrocketed Gymshark’s global success.
Currently, the UK brand is the biggest athletic wear company that doesn’t follow the traditional business model of having stores and instead works 90% online. And in 2020, it had an estimated value of over one billion dollars.
McDonalds & Travis Scott
One of the biggest influencer campaigns last year was a collaboration between Travis Scott and McDonalds. The famous rapper and the fast-food chain came together to promote his favorite meal from the chain, which they named “Cactus Jack”, after his personal brand. Scott also released merchandise for this endeavor in order to further popularize the campaign.
It had a positive effect on McDonald’s sales, as well as on their market value amongst the Gen Z population. As Travis is one of the most popular hip-hop artists in the world, he was able to generate a lot of hype and the term “Cactus Jack” earned over 124K posts and 426 million impressions in the second half of September 2020.
Yeah, this is the power of a mega influencer.
Does Instagram Influencer Marketing Work In 2021?
Even though TikTok is on the rise and could potentially overtake Instagram soon, we’re still far away from that moment.
IG is still the most popular social media network and the trend seems to continue in 2021. And guess what? More and more businesses are willing to invest in digital and social media marketing because that’s where the trend is flowing at the moment.
The ROI from Instagram influencer marketing is incredibly high and new influencers are emerging every day. So as long as IG remains the number one platform for online content creation, the marketing that’s done there will continue to be effective.
