Influencer marketing may conjure up images of famous people endorsing well-known goods and services from legacy brands with hefty marketing budgets. But the truth is, anyone may use this marketing strategy, whether they are in charge of a large or small company, operating at a local or national level. Influencer marketing can (and does!) help small, local businesses succeed on a daily basis. Here is a detailed explanation of influencer marketing for small businesses.
Influencer marketing is one of the most significant trends to have emerged as a result of the significant evolution of marketing tactics in the digital era. This strategy has been extremely beneficial for small businesses that are in their growth phases. In particular, influencer marketing enables growing small businesses to compete on an equal footing with more established rivals.
Let’s discuss the idea of influencer marketing, why it is important for small businesses, what advantages it provides, and how to use it successfully. We’ll also offer some insightful advice for small companies wishing to explore the realm of influencer marketing with an end-to-end platform.
What is Influencer Marketing?
Influencer marketing is a marketing tactic that makes use of people with a sizable online following, sometimes known as influencers, to advertise goods or services. Within a certain sector or business, these influencers have developed a reputation and a devoted following. They advocate and encourage items to their audience by using their platforms, which can include social media, blogs, YouTube channels, Instagram and more.
For example, the Instagram post below showcases an influencer on Glewee creating and posting content to promote a small business
View this post on Instagram
Why is Influencer Marketing Important for Small Businesses?
Small companies struggle with a variety of marketing-related issues, such as tight marketing expenditures and low brand recognition. Luckily, influencer marketing effectively addresses each of these issues. Here are 3 of the most common issues small businesses run into with their early stages of marketing:
- Finding Cost-Effective Marketing Tactics: Influencer marketing can be less expensive than traditional advertising avenues, enabling small firms to reach a wider audience without spending a fortune.
- Reach Your Ideal Customers Directly: Influencers have devoted fan bases within particular areas, ensuring that your message reaches them. By using platforms like Glewee, small businesses can find influencers that have followers that meet the ideal customer profile that a brand and business is looking for.
- Increased legitimacy and Trust: As consumers frequently trust suggestions from people they follow online, endorsements from reputable influencers can increase the legitimacy of small businesses.
Why should local businesses partner with influencers?
For local businesses staking their claim in the creator economy, there are a ton of advantages, from increasing brand recognition in their communities to generating more income.
Stand out in your community
Creators can aid in introducing your brand to locals and showcasing the advantages of doing business with you, whether you have a lot of competition or simply have low brand awareness.
Share your brand story
Because they are skilled storytellers, creators can highlight your company in a meaningful way. According to studies, we can remember 70% of the knowledge we learn through tales but only 10% of the information we learn through data. By connecting your brand’s story with specific feelings, you may increase sales and customer satisfaction.
Boost your local SEO
For any company, landing the top spot on Google Maps and the coveted first page of Google search results is the stuff of dreams. Check out how influencers can affect certain important SEO (search engine optimization) quality signals, even though there are more than 200 elements that might affect your site’s ranking:
- Backlinks: Google will probably rank your website higher if multiple high-quality websites connect to it, as the search engine uses the links as a type of social evidence. By collaborating with regional bloggers, you can increase web traffic and gain some amazing links.
- Reviews: Organizations with a high number of favorable Google reviews are more likely to appear in the Map Pack, which is made up of the three Google My Business results that show up when you search for anything local. Working with authors to support a review campaign can be an excellent approach to obtaining a large number of genuine and reliable ratings that will improve your position.
Small businesses spend countless hours trying to make content for ads, marketing material for your website, and video content to share in your email marketing. Instead of doing all the work yourself, you can work with influencers to let them share your brand’s story and unique selling propositions to their audience. Plus, when working with an influencer marketing platform, you’ll be able to own this content to repost, repurpose, and redistribute in your marketing mix. See Glewee creator KenBunny sharing a brand’s story and showing off a piece from their new line here:
View this post on Instagram
Benefits of Influencer Marketing for Small Businesses
Here are some benefits of influencer marketing for small business:
- Increased Visibility: Partnering with influencers exposes your company to a larger audience, raising brand awareness.
- Increased Credibility: Compared to typical advertisements, endorsements from influencers convey a sense of trust and sincerity.
- Engagement of the Targeted Audience: Influencers’ followers are frequently members of your target market, ensuring that your message is heard by prospective buyers.
- Material creation: Influencers may provide excellent material that promotes your goods or services and can be used in a variety of marketing contexts.
- Cost-Effective Advertising: Influencer collaborations may be less expensive than conventional advertising strategies while achieving outcomes that are at least as good.
How to Reach Out to Influencers as a Small Business
It’s not easy to find influencers to work with as a small business. With thousands of creators filling up Instagram and TikTok feeds, finding the right creators traditionally takes time and effort. To save all the hours endlessly searching for influencers and trying to send cold emails and DM’s, sign up for an account on Glewee and launch your first influencer marketing campaign. Within minutes, you’ll start to see right-fit creators and influencers applying for your campaigns because they want to work directly with your brand.
Every step of the way from reviewing their social channels, chatting with the influencers, sending auto-generated contracts, and approving the content – Glewee’s end-to-end platform makes it so easy for small businesses to get started with influencer marketing.
Tips for Small Businesses on Influencer Marketing
Here are some tips for small businesses on influencer marketing:
- Start Little: Start by collaborating with less micro-influencers who have relevant and active audiences. A higher rate of return on investment is typically provided by them as campaign costs are $100+ for content and a post on their social media channel.
- Find the Right Influencers: Recruit influencers who genuinely appreciate your company and products. Building trust with their audience requires being authentic.
- Be Open-Minded: Make your affiliation with influencers very clear. Maintaining transparency will help you keep your consumers’ trust.
- Be Innovative: Investigate cutting-edge influencer marketing strategies to successfully grab the attention of your target audience.
Bringing it All Together
For small businesses hoping to succeed in the competitive digital marketplace, influencer marketing has become an essential strategy. It is an excellent technique for brand growth because of its low cost, focused audience, and capacity for trust-building. Small businesses may use influencer marketing to reach their objectives by choosing the proper influencers, building genuine relationships, and being innovative with their campaigns. Influencer marketing can level the playing field by enabling small businesses to compete with industry heavyweights and forge genuine connections with their ideal clients. Accept this innovative marketing technique, and you’ll see how influencer marketing can help your small business grow.
To start growing your influencer marketing efforts, create a free account on the fastest and easiest influencer marketing platform here and start finding your ideal influencers and creators in minutes!
