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# What Ecommerce Brands Need To Know About Influencer Marketing
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Your Ecommerce store is your pride and joy, built from the ground up and providing a fantastic product or service.
I know that and you know that — but do your customers know that?
Maybe you’re not seeing the sales figures you expected.
Or perhaps your marketing campaigns aren’t getting enough traction?
Either way, you want to build your online store into a successful, recognized ecommerce brand.
How?
The answer is simple: influencer marketing.
Influencer marketing is almost as old as advertising itself, albeit in various differing guises.
But today, social media has turned it into a business in itself.
It’s no longer just slapping a famous face on your product.
With the ability to reach huge audiences across a variety of platforms, influencer marketing has become a core component of any smart marketing strategy.
Ecommerce brands need influencer marketing.
Here’s what you need to know:
## Influencer marketing creates better content
Chances are, running your e-commerce store takes up a lot of your time.
Between juggling your store, your family, and even a full-time job, it can be hard to stay on top of it.
However, posting fresh, regular content to your site keeps your audience locked into your brand and .
So how do you keep on track? Here’s where your influencer comes in.
Through guest posts, video blogs, or even social media takeovers, they can generate content in their own unique style, especially for your store.
Not only will this give you some breathing space to focus on other tasks, but it gives your brand that little extra boost.
A good example of this on a larger scale can be found in DJ Khaled’s campaigns.
A successful and renowned producer and DJ, he is known as the “King of Snapchat”.
He is hugely sought after for influencer campaigns, and regularly has Snapchat takeovers of brands from  to the city of Las Vegas.
But you don’t need to pay A-list prices for A-list results.
Why not consider reaching out to a micro-influencer?
These are individuals who perhaps don’t have as many followers as a famous celebrity, but have garnered significant followings in .
For example:
If you sell fishing gear and accessories, get in touch with a fishing blogger for the occasional guest post and product review.
It’ll pay dividends, both for the influencer and for you.
Test out AI-driven social tools like  to up your social media game, and keep exploring ways to stand out from the crowd whilst streamlining production times.
## Increase your brand awareness
With the rise of user-friendly Ecommerce store builders, starting your own online store has never been easier. From setup to sales, almost all the hard work is done for you.
While this is great for making the world of business more accessible for your average Joe, it also means more competition for you.
From bespoke jewelry to high-end sportswear, people all over the world are scrambling to get a piece of that e-commerce pie.
This means you need to step up your marketing game to make your brand stand out amongst the rest.
A great example of this is the food storage company .
Not heard of them?
They teamed up with  to create an influencer marketing campaign by linking up with 36 prominent bloggers to show the various benefits of their new Quicktakes food containers.
Influencers wrote about the great features of the product, resulting in Dixie’s brand awareness shooting up.
Reaching a total of 77 million people on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and more, Dixie became a recognized household brand. With influencer marketing, this can become a vision for your brand too.
## Build trust and authenticity
People do what other people do — fact.
How many times have you seen someone wearing a cool new jacket, only to see ten other people wearing the same thing a few weeks later?
People trust other people’s choices, a phenomenon known as . And while this works on the individual level, it also works at a business level.
Influencers are the social proof masters.
They have amassed a huge body of dedicated followers, who eagerly devour everything they post, tweet, or say.
And what do the followers do when the person they follow recommends something? If done right, they’ll go out and buy it.
This is because consumers trust the person they follow.
A good influencer has a history of posting informed, engaging, and reliable content. This gives them credibility and authenticity and builds up a level of trust between them and their followers.
So when they extol the virtues of your product, it lends your brand all those qualities as well.
## Tracking and quantifying data
The above are just some of the benefits that influencer marketing can bring to your brand.
But you’re going to want to measure the actual effect that this would have for you.
Talking about it is all well and good, but you want to see some cold hard data — and you can…
There’s a variety of ways you can do this.
For example, you might want to increase your brand’s visibility — which would be measured in a different way to, say, actual sales. In this case, you might want to focus on reach, engagement, and shares.
You will want to  using a tool like Mention.com and gauge overall brand sentiment.
Can influencer marketing directly correlate with e-commerce sales?
Certainly.
In order to track (and push for) sales, you could create a unique voucher code or affiliate link for that influencer.
And you don’t need to be a tech wizard to track or create this kind of data either — creating unique codes and assigning them to channels is easy these days.
Most eCommerce sites include robust analytics functions (such as the  pictured below) to monitor your orders, sales, and referral channels.
Focus on the ‘big picture’ data visualizations to get a quick overview (like the one below).
Be sure to delve deeper into month-on-month figures to pinpoint a sales uplift:
If you want to measure audience engagement, you can run tests on click-throughs to your site, likes, comments, shares, and so on from social media.
This gives you a feel for how the influencer content is being received, and how it is impacting your eCommerce brand
Use this data to determine which certain campaigns are performing better, and try to get to the bottom of why that is.
Is your influencer partnership a strong one?
Does your influencer content have a strong enough value proposition?
Do you need to up your discounts?
Influencer marketing is fast becoming the go-to for marketers everywhere.
From big brands to little brands, the value of people-led campaigns is being utilized to great effect.
We’ve told you what you need to know about influencer marketing for your e-commerce business, so all you need to know now is — which influencer is right for you?
*Want to learn more? Join our FREE Facebook Group:* 
***Guest post by Victoria Greene.***
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### 3 thoughts on “What Ecommerce Brands Need To Know About Influencer Marketing”
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3. !!
   **** 
   Always love reading your content Tom.
   1. !!
      **Tom Augenthaler** 
      Thanks Dan!
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# How to Use Influencer Marketing to Reach Millennials
Finingmarketing channels for millennials can be challenging, but thanks to influencer , it’s gotten much easier.
Hiring in a well-known celebrity to hold a beer bottle, wear a pair of pants or take a bite of a burger has and continues to be a method of driving attention and traffic to a brand website, storefront or social media page. Its still a good way to reach target markets including millennials (age range from 22 to 37 in 2018), but you have to have deep pockets.
However, the world of endorsements has undergone a radical shift lately.
Because of Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and others, ordinary people have become micro-celebrities. Also known as influencers, these people may not be well known to the general public, but they are to the key target groups who follow them… like millennials.
Instagram models, video game commentators and those who have amassed a large following for what they say and do on social media are now influencers.
But it gets better:
Because working with influencers has become its own 
## What Does Influence Mean?
Influencers create and share content on social media platforms.  Their content is videos, pictures, blog posts, social media posts or a combination.  It all depends on what they like to create.
They may have tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions of followers and subscribers. They produce videos on YouTube, post images and stories on Instagram and provide content on other  like Snapchat and Facebook.
You can find them just about anywhere online — and millennials are often the influencers themselves.
No matter what, influencers normally focus on a niche such as beauty, fashion, health, fitness or technology.
They like to cover beauty products, clothing, video games, and technology gadgets… you name it. From time to time they might diverge from one particular topic to another, but for the most part, they stay focused.
For you, this means anyone who follows the influencer both enjoys the content they create and may follow their advice to buy something.
It’s because of this following that they have become so desirable in the world of marketing. Unlike other advertising or other strategies, influencers have their fingers on the pulse of their audience.
## Reaching Target Markets Can Be Difficult
Some target markets can be difficult to connect with, especially . Their expectations are different from previous generations, partly because they grew up when the Internet was omnipresent.
Behaviorally, they are different.  They post to social media, almost without thinking about it.
Now:
Brands marketing to millennials know this.  They know that they must emotionally connect with millennial buyers – but that’s where the challenge lies.
Advertising on Google and Facebook is complicated and getting increasingly competitive and expensive.  Unless you’re prepared to invest a lot of budget into those social platforms to locate and dial in your target market, you better look for alternatives.
This is where using influencer marketing comes into play – or in this case, influencer advertising.
## Advertising with an Influencer
When you advertise with an influencer, you directly connect your brand with your target audience.
Not only is it more direct, it’s also more cost-effective.
You don’t need to create an advertisement. By leveraging influencers, you get your product in front of their followers via content the influencer creates.  This is part of the reason why millennials trust influencers.
Even better:
Unlike other forms of advertising, working with influencers gives you many options…
You might sponsor a simple post of the influencer using your product.
For example, you could arrange for an Instagram influencer to post herself wearing your fashion product like a shirt or pair of sunglasses, or using the product in an Instagram story.  You might even arrange for the influencer to do both.
The point is, it might be limited to a single post or a series of posts. That’s up to you to arrange with the influencer.  There’s no set way to do it.
Some brands have teamed up with influencers not necessarily for a set number of posts, but for a set amount of time.
Think about how you want your campaign to work and for how long.
## Influencer Marketing Examples
Take a look at how other brands have done it.  Use their examples and come up with a campaign of your own.
 teamed up with a popular influencer with several million combined followers on YouTube, Instagram, and Snapchat.
They arranged for the influencer to share video and images of himself at the Sour Patch Kid headquarters. Sour Patch Kids also created specialty lenses and filters for Snapchat, which allowed followers to use the filters after viewing the content. Word of the campaign got shared, making it go viral for a while.
The custom filter also allowed people who didn’t follow the influencer, but who followed those who did, to find it and use it themselves. This strategy also worked on a larger scale involving professional athletes sponsored by Gatorade and Nike.
Here’s another example:
 teamed up with big-time influencers like DJ Khaled allowing subscribers to follow along with his weight loss transformation over a period of time.
Other influencers posted showing how the Weight Watchers lifestyle worked and what they could eat.
But what if you haven’t got the cash to sponsor a big name personality? That’s okay too.
You don’t need to have the advertising money of a Sour Patch Kids or Weight Watchers.
These are examples of larger, more extensive versions of influencer marketing. It’s not even necessary to find someone with hundreds of thousands or millions of subscribers.
Someone with subscribers in the tens of thousands can drive ROI and be cost-effective.
So find the social media influencers your millennials like, trust and follow. Then arrange to work with them.
## Wrapping Up
Reaching the millennial generation doesn’t require shelling out the big bucks on a big-time movie star, performer or athlete.
These are expensive marketing approaches only a handful of brands can afford.
You can find influencers who cost a fraction of the price and who connect with your ideal audience.  They’ll be more effective than any prime-time TV commercial or magazine advertisement ever could.
That is why you need to take advantage of influencer marketing in order to reach the younger demographics.
It’s straightforward, costs less and can produce the ROI you’re looking for.
*Want to learn more? Join our FREE Facebook Group:*
***Guest post by James Gorski***
In addition to being the editor at  and writing about tech, web and graphic design among other subjects,
I love to “unplug” and be outdoors hiking and enjoying nature. If you can’t reach me,
it’s probably because where I am at doesn’t have cell phone reception.
### 2 thoughts on “How to Use Influencer Marketing to Reach Millennials”
   Fantastic post James. I totally agree with you. The young of today use social media like it’s another part of their limbs. They know what people their age want to see and they have all the tools available to learn, create and to share. 👍👍👍
# Why Influencer Marketing is Hot and How You Can Use It
/ , , , , ,  / By  
Had a killer time diving deep into influencer marketing on Jon Umstead’s podcast, Business is ART on the TrueChat Network.
Cut the fluff: Why’s everyone buzzing about influencer marketing?
Simple, it’s the alternative to the ad spend burnout.
## Here’s what you’ll learn
To listen to the podcast, click the image below:
## The 411 on influencer marketing
Old-school marketing: “Hey world, look how awesome I am!”
Influencer marketing: “Hey world, listen to them tell you how awesome I am.”
Bottom line?
Peer recommendations resonate.
Your friend raving about a book has more pull than an ad, right?
People trust people.
## How influencer marketing evolved to become what it is now
It all began with the bloggers.
Simple platforms.
Powerful reach.
And when social media giants like Facebook and Twitter rolled in? Kaboom!
Suddenly, everyone’s their own media powerhouse.
The game’s changed, and the media landscape?
Well, it’s vast and varied now.
## Why every smart business needs influencers
Here are the main points to remember:
1. **Economical**: Compared to traditional PR and ads, this packs more punch dollar for dollar.
2. **Precision**: Know your ideal customer? Influencers can dial right into that sweet spot because they already have their attention.
3. **It’s Personal**: People buy from people, not ads.
## Influencer collaboration 101
The name of the game: Relationship Building.
Think of it as planting seeds for a future harvest.
Know, trust, repeat.
**Steps to ace it:**
1. Pin down your ideal customer, aka “customer avatar”.
2. Scout for influencers who resonate with your target crowd.
3. Approach and collaborate. And hey, it’s not just about some Insta stories. Co-create content, get product reviews, gain insights, and so much more. It’s versatile.
**Value Exchange**: It’s not one-sided.
Whether it’s monetary compensation or a valuable product, respect the collaboration.
And hey, think big! How about an influencer advisory board for constant insights?
Influencers are the pulse of the market. The insights do they offer?
Pure gold. Forget splurging on traditional focus groups.
With influencers, you’ve got a direct line to the pulse of your target audiences.
Ready to roll?
I’m here to guide your business to greatness through influencers. Let’s chat strategy. Any questions? You know where to find me.
 if you have any questions.
*Updated September, 20*23
### 2 thoughts on “Why Influencer Marketing is Hot and How You Can Use It”
   Overall, a fantastic read! I’ve shared this with my marketing team, and we’re excited to explore influencer marketing further. Looking forward to more informative articles like this one.