Small businesses all over the United States wrestle with the problem of how to increase their brand awareness and grow their customer base. The goal of all business owners is to make their company the topic in the local barber shops and job sites, but reaching your target audience requires a well-rounded approach. Digital marketing has indeed leveled the playing field for small businesses, but word-of-mouth marketing is still the most effective tactic, which is why large corporations fork over millions of dollars to celebrities for their endorsements. While some influencers have massive followings and charge premium rates, micro influencers provide more affordable options and high engagement rates. By contacting an influencer marketing agency, you can find the right micro influencer for your brand.
Even though most small businesses can’t afford celebrity endorsements, many have found success with influencer campaigns on social media platforms. These days, you can draw a direct correlation between a business’s number of followers online and their brand awareness. The best way to grow your online follower count is by using influencer marketing to draw attention to your brand and to online content such as blogs and podcasts. Influencer marketing tools like Grin, Humanz, and Upfluence launch multiple features and filters that help brands put together a list of potential influencers in a particular niche. You can filter based on gender, age, location, interests, etc. Humanz even has the option to generate and run whole campaigns right on its platform. If you want to grow your target audience and start trending on social media feeds, it’s time to start leveraging the power of influencer marketing. Continue reading to learn some reasons that using a micro-influencer could be the best way to enhance your marketing strategy.
1. A micro-influencer costs less than nationwide and global influencers.
It’s elementary that celebrity endorsements are one of the greatest ways to increase your brand visibility. People associate the success of their favorite celebrities with the brands they endorse, which means serious profits for the corporations in the U.S. that have the money to pay athletes, musicians, and actors. However, micro influencers are a much more feasible and affordable option
A micro-influencer is an influencer whose following numbers between 1,000 and 100,000 followers. Finding the right micro-influencer for your marketing goals, target audience, and budget is much more cost-efficient than trying to contract celebrities or mega-influencers.
Depending on how many followers the micro-influencer has, you may even be able to get them to post selfies of themselves wearing or using your products for the price of discounted or free products. The fewer followers an influencer has, the better the chances are that you can negotiate and barter to get what you need.
You must keep in mind that more followers mean more money for social media influencers. The catch is that having more followers doesn’t guarantee a higher engagement rate. The best way to increase your online profile without exceeding your budget for marketing campaigns is to hire a micro-influencer to use, review, or endorse your products.
2. A micro-influencer campaign can help you find your target audience.
Finding a niche brand is one of the hardest parts of developing a digital marketing campaign. Social media and blog posts have to have a target audience to be effective, and if your brand doesn’t have a persona or a niche on the internet, connecting with your target audience can be difficult.
The right influencer can open the door to your ideal buyers. A micro-influencer is someone who’s already built a sizeable following on one or more social networks, and if the right influencer uses your product in a video or reviews your product online, your brand awareness could skyrocket seemingly overnight.
For instance, if you sell custom barber chairs and were trying to enhance your brand awareness, you could get a barber who’s also a social media influencer to give a haircut to a customer in one of your chairs. Every barber who follows that Instagram influencer will get an opportunity to see your product in live-action. If all goes well, the influencer’s Instagram followers will become yours as well.
The important part of finding a micro-influencer who can help you connect with your target market is to look for an influencer whose online persona lines up with your brand’s values. It’s also critical that the influencer is someone who would have a use for the product.
Gatorade wanted Michael Jordan to endorse their product because they sell sports drinks and Michael Jordan was the most well-known athlete in the world during his prime. You may not have the same budget as Gatorade, but you can still find an influencer whose image and niche are relevant to the products or services you sell.
3. Influencers can help your products go viral.
Believe it or not, even an influencer with fewer followers can help your company and products to go viral. Any micro-influencer could be well on his way to becoming a mega-influencer, and your product could benefit from their meteoric rise.
People are selling everything from new cars to refurbished Samsung tablets online, and the secret to their success lies in their brand awareness. There’s no better way to increase your visibility than to go viral, and there’s no better person to stage a viral moment for your business than a micro-influencer who’s on the rise.
The best product videos are the unscripted ones. The reason people on social networks trust social media influencers is that influencers are real people using products in real-time and giving their real reactions. A positive reaction to your products on an unscripted video could help your company’s profile soar.
4. A micro-influencer campaign is a great way to encourage brand loyalty.
Customers value authenticity almost as much as high-quality products. A micro-influencer may have a smaller audience than a macro influencer, but the good news is that a smaller audience could mean a higher engagement rate. Additionally, since people tend to see a micro-influencer more like other real people than celebrities, they carry an aura of authenticity.
Endorsements are all about gaining credibility by association with another credible source or person or entity. The average micro-influencer has fewer followers than a mega influencer, but their followers tend to be loyal because they buy the authenticity of the influencer. By working with a micro-influencer, you can borrow their authenticity, and brand loyalty could be the return on investment.
We live in a new world where regular people can become celebrities and influencers thanks to social media. The good news is that these “new school” influencers can work that same magic for your small business.
Founder Dinis Guarda
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