Why Influencer Marketing?
So, why would an eCommerce store want to engage in influencer marketing in the first place? The reason is that it works and doesn’t require a lot of extra effort or a super flashy ad campaign for there to be solid results.
In fact, 72% of surveyed retail brands believe that the quality of customers attained from influencers is better than any other marketing type. The reason behind this likely has to do with the fact that your target market trusts influencers. By associating your brand as one the influencer endorses, the customers automatically build a sense of trust with you. This is a big deal, in which brands of all sizes are using the power of Facebook and Instagram influencers to grow their following.
One of the many great things about influencers is they have already established a loyal following that trusts them. This makes the marketing funnel process (also known as a visual guide for turning leads into purchasers and first-time purchases into loyal customers) a piece of cake! If your brand is considering influencer marketing, there are several ways influencers can advance this process to grow your business, including:
• Promoting improved brand awareness and expanded reach into untapped audiences. Influencer marketing is designed to boost your brand, getting your promoted products in front of new users.
• Forging valuable partnerships and building long-term, mutually beneficial relationships.
• Increasing new customer acquisition when you work with relevant influencers to generate leads.
• Building your content repository with authentic videos and imagery that drive conversions, rather than forcing you to rely on overproduced and costly photoshoots.
• Enriching your social media marketing strategy by posting sharable content on both organic and paid channels, as well as repurposing assets on other-owned channels such as email and your website.
About Influencer Marketing Programs
When using influencer marketing for eCommerce growth, you need to have a good idea of what you want to achieve. Essentially, influencer marketing falls into two categories: campaigns that drive brand awareness and campaigns that drive conversions.
However, influencer marketing is much more of a longer play and less about making quick sales. CAKE’s influencer campaigns are tailored to capitalize on each stage of the marketing funnel. The more you work with an influencer, the further along the funnel their audience will move. For instance, we leverage influencers to spread brand awareness among top-of-funnel audiences, educate and nurture middle-of-funnel audiences to keep your brand “front of mind,” and finally convert bottom-of-funnel prospects into customers!
Brand awareness goals are native platform metrics such as likes, follows, shares, and other elements tied to getting more people to recognize an eCommerce brand and/or the specific products they sell.
Direct response campaigns are designed to entice your potential customer to take action. Direct response and conversion-based goals are tracked via transactions and revenue gained from campaigns or affiliate links, in addition to list-gathering from leads or emails.
Sweet Influencer Marketing Partnerships & Programs
Depending on your goals, there are several different influencer marketing efforts the CakeCommerce team can create for your brand, including:
• Brand awareness campaigns designed to help businesses boost user engagement and interaction among new customers.
• Content campaigns to help build a catalog of creative assets that can be used for online and offline marketing.
• Traffic campaigns that send traffic where customers can take specific actions, such as making a purchase, downloading content, or signing up for a membership or email and SMS.
• Affiliate campaigns that use partners to promote products and services while providing a commission or reward from each direct sale that comes from their channels.
A Customized Approach to Influencer Marketing for eCommerce
Needless to say, there are a ton of different marketing and business goals you can achieve with consistent influencer marketing. At CAKE, we understand that every eCommerce brand has a different objective when working with social media personalities, so we aim for a customized approach with each client.
As an experienced influencer marketing agency, we can help you find the right strategies to reach your goals. Do you want to increase sales or just improve your follower count? Does your brand need help to align your target audience with certain influencers? Our team will create the sweetest customized plan with a strategy for all different influencer types from nano- and micro-influencers to boost conversion rates to mega- and macro-influencers to increase brand awareness.
Depending on what you want your campaign to achieve, you’ll have to compensate influencers through gifts or monetary payments. However, if you find an influencer with an audience that aligns with yours, it will be that much easier to get them to work with you.
All of these aspects are taken into consideration while also tracking campaigns closely to see what is working best. Furthermore, we’ll work to find the right influencers to appropriately represent your brand and image.
In exchange for content, you should expect to compensate influencers with monetary payments and product gifts.
The secret ingredient to a successful marketing strategy: influencers. Did you know that 89% of marketers say influencer marketing works just as well as – if not better than – other popular marketing efforts? In fact, nearly half of consumers depend on influencer recommendations when deciding to purchase a product.
From the marketing experts at CAKE, we believe that influencers are a super sweet way to boost a brand’s reach, awareness, and – of course – sales. So, let’s break it down.
As an eCommerce brand, reaching out to your target market is imperative to your success. But, if you haven’t tried it out yet, the process of influencer marketing can seem a little bit daunting. What types of Instagram content should you use? How do you find influencers for eCommerce site marketing? At times, it looks easy. But when you start the process by yourself, you can get overwhelmed.
The truth is that using influencer marketing can take a considerable amount of effort mixed with a fair bit of experience to create a recipe for success. That’s where our CAKE team comes in with Instagram and TikTok marketing services. We successfully execute and handle influencer campaigns, all while shaping an optimal strategy for you to engage your target audiences. Think of it as enjoying a piece of chocolate cake without having to mess up your kitchen – and what’s not to love about that?
Choose CakeCommerce For an Influencer Strategy That's “Chef’s Kiss”
Ready to incorporate influencers into your marketing strategy? Our team of experts will meet with you to discuss your goals, understand your brand and target audience(s), and compensation budget. From there, we’ll tap into our network of influencers while leveraging your customer data through eCommerce platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, and Klaviyo to develop a customized strategy that delivers results.
Here's what our process will look like so you know what to expect:
Strategizing. We'll strategically select influencers with engaged audiences that align with your target market and goals. Our team will determine which social media channels these influencers are most active on to ensure they align with your brand.
Brainstorming. We'll brainstorm and outline the details of the partnership, tailoring it to your brand while also ensuring the opportunity is favorable for the influencer.
Creating. Our team will work to share and review all incoming content and execute the campaign.
Reporting. We'll report our findings with a custom dashboard so you can see your true return on investment. From there, we’ll provide recommendations to help your brand continue to effectively leverage influencer content.
For a top-tier influencer marketing strategy, choose the experts at CAKE! To learn more about our services and specialties, contact our team today.