Influencer marketing campaigns earn $6.50 for every $1 you spend. That’s insane.
Numbers like this attract brands to the shiny world of influencer marketing. But if you’ve never tried influencer marketing before, it can feel like you’ve landed on an alien planet.
Influencers bring more attention to your brand in an organic, natural way. But you need to choose the right brand influencers and scale your campaign to get a lot of buzz quickly.This is where some brands get overwhelmed with emails, Instagram DMs, and the sheer scale of a campaign with so many moving parts.
The thing is, you do need to scale your influencer campaigns to get more results for less spend. Everything from your choice of influencers to tools can affect your scalability.
Follow our 3 tips to scale a campaign with the most effective influencers on the block: micro-influencers.
Why micro-influencers?
If you want a campaign that goes gangbusters, you’ve got to partner with the right people. You’ll only see that $6.50 return on every dollar if you have quality influencers backing your team.
Big-name influencers can be expensive. Influencer marketing newbies are often tempted to pay thousands for brand influencers with the largest number of followers.
But just because you can hire Will Smith to promote your brand doesn’t mean you should. After all, celebrity influencers will charge you an arm, a leg, and a kidney (for good measure) to do an influencer campaign.
Preserve your budget and get more results with a micro-influencer. These influencers have just 5,000 - 100,000 followers, but they have a lot of firepower to influence consumer decisions.
Micro-influencers are better for your campaign because:
They have deeper relationships with their audience.
They specialize in more niche topics, which attract niche followers (read: better targeting for you).
People trust them. 61% of consumers find micro-influencers relatable and trustworthy.
Tiny can still be mighty. Micro-influencers deliver a one-two punch of value and engagement to your campaign for three big reasons.
1 - Small, dedicated followings
Micro-influencers aren’t full-time Instagram celebrities. They’re everyday folks who happen to manage an engaged following on social media.
That might sound like a downside at first, but because micro-influencers are still consumers themselves, they understand what people want.
Because of that, micro-influencers have a deeper connection with their followers. And in a world where shoppers are suspicious of branded messages, you want to partner with a brand influencer who understands the shopper psyche.
Although micro-influencers have a smaller following, they’re zeroed-in on a niche audience that listens to them. If you need to pursue a really specific audience, like rose gardeners, micro-influencers are for you.
2 - Better engagement
Yes, micro-influencers are small, but they have great engagement rates. It’s not unusual for a micro-influencer to have a 4% - 8% engagement rate.
To compare, big-name influencers with millions of followers average a 1% engagement rate.
Engagement equals results, and you need to get results from this campaign. Go with micro-influencers to put more cash in your bank account.
3 - ROI
Here’s a truth bomb: you can sell the same number of products with a big-name influencer as you can with a micro-influencer.
There’s just one teeny, tiny difference: the micro-influencer is way cheaper.
Micro-influencers cost an average of under $300 per promotion. Big influencers will charge $10,000 per Instagram promotion.
Some micro-influencers are happy to partner up in exchange for free products or merchandise, too, which is affordable for your brand.
Affordability aside, micro-influencers get more ROI than any other brand influencer group.
The nail brand Gelato Factory partnered with Japanese micro-influencers while launching its product line in Japan.
Gelato Factory saw a 20% increase in ROI compared to other campaigns.
It got a 29% decrease in cost per purchase and a 27% decrease in cost per person reached.
So yes, micro-influencers have a lot to offer your business.
3 steps to scale a micro-influencer campaign
The thing is, micro-influencers are small. While they’ll bring you some incredible results, you need to leverage micro-influencers at scale to really stop thumbs.
Enlist an army of micro-influencers to boost your brand. You need anywhere from dozens to hundreds of micro-influencers in your camp to get awesome results, but we promise it’s worth it.
But managing hundreds of Instagram DMs sounds daunting, and rightfully so. There’s a complex ecosystem of brand influencers to deal with, and doing it without a plan will put you in the nuthouse.
It comes down to:
Laying your campaign groundwork first.
Finding micro-influencers worth their salt.
Using the right tools so you don’t lose your mind.
Use these 3 tips to go from one influencer to hundreds with a campaign designed to scale.
1 - Lay the campaign groundwork
Laying the groundwork for your campaign is like grocery shopping without a list: you’re going to forget something important if you don’t have a plan.
Like any good marketing campaign, you’ve got to figure out your goals first.
What does your business need from this influencer campaign?
Don’t jump into influencer outreach until you have a good idea of how the campaign will work. After all, the brand influencers are going to have a bunch of questions and you need to be able to answer them.
Figure out:
A campaign goal. Why are you doing this in the first place? Do you need more sales? More branded content? Web traffic? Brand awareness?
Content format. What content will help you achieve this goal? An Instagram contest? A branded hashtag? Shoppable posts?
Timeline. When do you need to start this campaign? How long should it run? Are you looking for a one-off post or an ongoing campaign that lasts weeks?
Metrics. How will you know the campaign is successful? Lay out what results you want to achieve, and by when. That might sound like, “We will succeed if we generate 50% more sales by June 30.”
Budget. What can you afford? Always set a realistic budget so you partner with an influencer that won’t break the bank.
2 - Find micro-influencers worth their salt
Once you’ve laid the groundwork for your campaign, you’re ready to begin the hunt for micro-influencers.
Not sure where to find quality micro-influencers? Get started by:
Finding influencers that already post about your brand. They’re already fans, so why not make the relationship official?
Checking Instagram hashtags and suggestions. Check hashtags common to your niche to connect with micro-influencers. Once you’ve found one all-star micro-influencer, use Instagram Suggestions to find similar accounts.
Using an influencer platform like Trend. Well, it had to be said. You can do manual outreach in a do-it-yourself way that takes forever, or you can just get matched with relevant micro-influencers in a few minutes.
Once you’ve compiled a list of influencers, narrow it down to your favorites. You might also need to narrow folks down by your budget, the quality or number of their followers, and the quality of their content.
3 - Scale with the right technology
Even when you manage to find an A-plus brand influencer, you’ve got a problem on your hands: how in the world do you communicate, pay, and manage relationships with dozens of people?
That’s the Wild West of influencer marketing, and it will make your hair turn gray.
Time is money, and scaling a micro-influencer campaign without the right technology will put you in the poorhouse.
You need to scale quickly. Tap into a platform like Trend to go from one influencer to hundreds so you can get ROI more quickly.
Not only does our platform connect you with brand influencers that we’ve vetted personally, with real humans, but you can find influencers matching your specific criteria.
We don’t want to feed into the demons of your email inbox, so the Trend platform helps you communicate and manage every aspect of your micro-influencer campaign.
Translation: let us do the heavy lifting while you get results. This is the fastest, easiest way to scale and get the results you need, fast.
The bottom line
Micro-influencers get results, but these campaigns have a lot of moving parts. It’s easy to get overwhelmed when you’re managing hundreds of people.
Locating, managing, paying, and evaluating micro-influencers is a lot to deal with. Platforms like Trend make it easy to scale these campaigns, so you can work with just one influencer or thousands—with zero panic attacks.
Overcome logistical dread with Trend. We’ll help you scale micro-influencer campaigns that turn heads. Get a no-strings-attached demo to see what all the fuss is about.
