You might’ve heard about the marketing strategy called Instagram influencer marketing. According to the Digital Marketing Institute influencers are trusted by millions of consumers, and marketers are paying attention. It turns out 86% of them used influencer marketing since last year, and budgets for influencer marketing are skyrocketing. Influencer marketing is a great way to drive more targeted traffic to your website.
Instagram influencer marketing is especially popular with Shopify stores or at least it’s the method that drop shippers use to generate traffic and sales. So, if you are running an online store this might be your solution. You want to use a reliable and consistent strategy which is going to help your business grow.
How does Instagram influencer marketing work?
Basically, you find an Instagram account with quite a bit of followers and then pay the influencer for a sponsored post or a story. Also, if you really don’t want to spend a lot of money you can take advantage of the sponsored stories. They might not get the same results compared to the sponsored posts but it’s an option to consider.
What is the best Instagram influencer strategy?
As we said earlier, you want to find an account with a reasonable amount of followers but you want to make sure that these followers are organic and are engaging with the content on the page. It’s also really important that the account is in the niche of your business. I work as a digital marketing consultant and the influencers that I like to work with are micro-influencers because they provide the best ROI for my clients.
Let’s say you are running a Shopify store and you are selling lion jewelry. Then you would find a page that’s inspired by lions that way you can make the most out of the promotion.
How to reach out to Instagram influencers for a promotional post?
Now that you’ve done everything it’s time for the hardest part which is to reach out to the influencer and ask for a sponsored post. Contacting via direct message is going to be your best bet. Making your intentions clear from the start is going to give the biggest chance for success because the page admin will take you seriously as a potential client.
What to say when contacting an Instagram influencer?
The general rule is to not be spammy. Also, you don’t want to just say: “How much for a post? That’s definitely not going to make the influencer interested in your offer even if you are willing to pay a lot of money. He is just going to ignore your message and that’s it. Another big part of contacting the admin of the page is the actual negotiations. You want to get the best price for a sponsored post as possible and this is where you can make the best bank for your buck.
Conclusion
Instagram influencer marketing can be a great way to drive traffic and produce customers. Depending on the type of business you have, the strategy you use will differ. This type of marketing is getting more and more popular especially with small businesses because you can generate a lot of organic traffic for a great price if everything is done the right way.
Author
Lorenzo Gutierrez is a digital marketing consultant from California. He works with small businesses up to publicly traded corporations helping them to grow their revenue online. Lorenzo is also an author and writes for a number of publications. You can find out about his digital marketing packages here.
