A hot topic of late: “We spend so much time and money on Influencers, and we’re not seeing the activity translate into sales.”
A good influencer marketing strategy executed well can lead to many E-commerce sales — especially for consumer-packaged goods companies.
Did you know that 80% of marketers say influencer marketing is effective, and 89% say it works just as well (if not better) than other marketing channels?
For many CPG brands, the question remains, “How can we increase sales conversion through an influencer program to deliver higher ROI?”
As brands seek to accelerate digital sales in the second half of 2021, optimizing your influencer strategy is a great place to start.
Steps to Convert Influencer activity into brand sales
1. Selecting the Right Influencer
Begin with the end in mind. When you select the right influencers, you can borrow their stage to reach your target audience. The key is to evaluate an influencer’s followers and engagement thoroughly. While macro-influencers have reach, micro-influencers may have better engagement and influence on their followers’ wallets and hearts.
To ensure a strong ROI on your influencer program, select the right influencers who share your values, creative style, and passion for the problems your products solve. The upfront work on research and building strong relationships will pay dividends and ensure sales are not sporadic.
To start the process, you can use a Google keyword search to determine the high-ranking influencers in your category. Then, here are a few questions to help you evaluate the match. AND narrow your search:
- Why would this influencer love your brand?
- Do they talk about the problems your brand solves?
- Does their personality reflect your brand’s personality and mission?
- Would the influencer’s creativity reflect your brand?
- Do you see examples of high-quality sponsored posts from the influencers that produce sales?
- How hungry is the influencer to learn about your brand?
- NINJA TIP: Who are the most engaged followers, and are they potential customers?
2. Determining Compensation for Influencer
Building a strong long-term relationship with influencers is key — as they grow their following, you grow, too. Win. Win. When you invest in ensuring your target influencers are armed with as much brand insight as possible, they are set to deliver quality brand assets and promote you to their audience.
Their ability to connect with their fans in a unique and compelling way about the key problem that you solve is critical—and worth the investment when they are able to capture the hearts and minds of their followers and move them to purchase and share.
Many brands give away samples and hope the influencer will write about them. Or deliver more followers through a giveaway. Successful brands use micro-influencers as a primary part of their influencer strategy because they can spread their budgets over more platforms and cast a wider net.
These smaller influencers may be more apt to negotiate with you and produce even better-quality content that matters. As much as a single celeb influencer may have reached, compensating smaller influencers may deliver a higher ROI because they are strongly connected to your brand values and target audience.
3. Converting Product Videos into Sales
In addition to creating a connection with your audience, the right influencer collaboration can help you deliver your unique message through video reviews. As we know, consumers are looking at reviews more than anything to help determine whether or not to buy. Smaller influencers can create a bigger impact with videos. Unboxing videos are great for product detail pages to help convert sales.
Additionally, showing your products in detail through a haul video will make customers engage more deeply and remember your brand.
A haul video is similar to an unboxing video but is much more detailed and organized. It will typically include a collection of products; the influencer analyzes them while giving an opinion and highlighting each feature. Haul videos are even more powerful when placed on the YouTube platform with a campaign. This is a great approach for CPG brands.
These are just a few ideas on increasing influencer programs and energy ROI. Be sure to share a comment below on what’s working for you.
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