Without a doubt, influencer marketing is one of the biggest trends in digital marketing today.
Almost every industry can reap the benefits of influencer marketing. This includes e-commerce and dropshipping enterprises.
If you are new to this game, it is essential to know how dropshipping works. That way, you will learn how to best leverage influencer marketing for your business.
That’s precisely why this article might be helpful for you.
In this post, we will be talking about how you can use influencer marketing to leverage your dropshipping store.
What is an Influencer?
Before we start, let’s define a couple of terms first.
In a nutshell, an influencer can be anyone who has thousands of online following. They can be brands, but in the same way, they’re personality-driven.
That makes them more useful. That’s because most people trust personalities more than brands.
Types of Influencers According to Number of Followers
It is said that four different influencer types can shape influencers. Now, how we’ll categorize them will be based on the size of their following.
Here are the four different types of influencers:
- Nano Influencers – Influencers that have approximately 500-5K followers
- Micro-Influencers – 5-30K followers
- Power Influencers – 30-500K followers
- Celebrity Influencers- 500K+ followers
Ideally, the more followers a particular influencer has, the more costly it will be for their influencer campaign.
How do you get influencers to promote your dropshipping store?
Although it would be nice to have people with a large following to promote your business, how will you motivate influencers to work with you?
Here are the most common options that will motivate them to work with you:
Commissions and Affiliates
A common influencer deal that you can make is sales commissions.
For instance, they will make a post promoting your products. It can be through a blog or social media content. You can then use a specific URL that can help track where the traffic and sales are from.
And for every sale made, you can provide a 5-10% commission to the influencer. It is just a matter of finding the right influencer with a broad enough audience that fits your target market’s profile.
Commission campaign mostly work with small influencers. Most renown influencers do not collaborate with brands on commission only campaigns.
Straight Money Deal
In this type of set-up, you’ll be paying the influencer for every post or mention they’ll have of you, whether it be one-off or a couple of times.
Equity
Although this might come across as a bit scary at first, if you find a perfect influencer to work with, this is a great option.
For instance, you’re a company that sells lipstick. And you found an influencer who has ten million followers and whose makeup tutorial videos garner about millions of views.
Then, you could offer them equity and create a long-term relationship with them.
You have to be picky when choosing the influencers that you work with, though. Ideally, you need to choose people who won’t just post a couple of posts a couple of times and then forget all about you. Reserve this one for someone who is known to be an industry leader.
Now, you might be wondering why they would want to work with you instead of just putting up their store. Or why would they want to promote your products or brand in the first place?
Well, most of them most probably don’t know how to build and set-up an e-commerce store. With equity, an influencer can avoid the work that comes with setting up an online business.
All they need to do is to mention your products to their audience/ followers and then post a product link on the descriptions.
Free Product and Discounts
This offer is excellent for influencers who have a much smaller audience. Usually, these people aren’t paid a lot or offered equity to promote brands.
In this case, you might offer them a product for free, or offer them considerable discounts to promote the product. Although you might experience a small loss on your products, you’ll generate massive traffic in the long run.
Finding the Right Influencer for Your Dropshipping Store
You can work with a celebrity or a micro-influencer with a dedicated following to promote your dropshipping store. However, it is imperative to choose the right person to work with. That’s because it can impact your brand’s future over time.
It is not enough that you only look at the numbers. They must have these criteria at the very least:
- They promote products that are similar to yours.
- Their followers are the same as your target market.
So, if your preferred influencer has these, then go for it!
Ideally, you might want to stick with a single approach first and then measure your progress along the way. This is to ensure that influencer marketing is bringing desirable results for your business.