Is Influencer Marketing Worth Investing in for Small Businesses?

Is Influencer Marketing Worth Investing in for Small Businesses?
Influencer Marketing. Image source: Pixabay

Influencer marketing is one of the most effective ways to grow a business. 

The good part is that it isn’t only for big brands. It’s a tactic that even small businesses can leverage to scale up quickly.

While it may seem difficult, it is possible to run an influencer marketing campaign without a big budget. If done correctly, it can help you build brand awareness, get more engagement, and boost your sales.

Of course, it is a lot of hard work. 

You need to invest time in finding the right influencers. Then, you need to set clear goals and execute your campaigns. Lastly, you also need to measure your campaign performance and keep tabs on your ROI.

That brings us to the questions:

Is the payoff worth the effort? Should you invest in influencer marketing?

The short answer to that would be a definitive yes. 

In this post, let’s delve deeper into how influencer marketing can be beneficial for your small business.

9 Reasons Why Influencer Marketing is an Effective Strategy

If you are a small business owner who is on the fence about influencer marketing, you need to learn the benefits of influencer marketing and what it can do for your business. 

Influencer marketing can help you:

1. Boost Brand Awareness

For all small businesses, one of the biggest challenges is to make their brand more recognizable. Influencer marketing can help you spread the word about your brand organically.

When influencers post a photo or video related to your product, it makes people aware of what you have to offer. They can help you amplify your brand message and help you reach your target audience.

Here’s an example of an influencer introducing a brand to her followers.

Image via Instagram

2. Reach a Targeted Audience

If you want a good ROI, you need to ensure that your small business is able to reach the right target audience. By partnering with influencers who cater to a similar target audience, you can get in touch with them.

In fact, micro-influencers may be a great choice for small businesses. They usually have a small, but engaged audience.

When you collaborate with such niche influencers, you can reach a targeted audience who are interested in a particular niche. 

3. Get More Social Proof

Whenever people want to make a purchase, they are likely to check out online customer reviews. That’s because they want to ensure that they are investing in the right products. 

When an influencer vouches for your product, it adds to the social proof available online. 

What’s more, most influencers have built a good reputation in their niche. Because of this, their followers are likely to look up to them to recommend the best products or services. 

Why does that matter?

When a trusted influencer promotes your brand, they help you win the trust of their audience and improve your brand image. They also convince their followers to try your products by telling them their own experience with those products.

Here is an example of how you can provide social proof by reposting influencer content:

Image via Instagram

4. Boost Your SEO

For small businesses with a new website, it may not be possible to get their posts to rank on the first page of SERPs immediately. That’s where influencer marketing comes in handy. 

If you can get featured in an influencer’s blog, preferably one with high domain authority, you can boost your online visibility. 

By getting a backlink from an authoritative website, you can improve your website authority as well. Overall, it can help you take your SEO efforts to the next level.

5. Boost Engagement and Website Traffic

If you look at it closely, influencer marketing helps you put your brand in front of your audience. Influencers’ posts, videos, stories, and other promotional content can get the conversation started. Plus, they can boost your visibility using trending hashtags as well.

When influencers tag your brand in posts, they send their followers to your profile and you can direct them to your website from there. So, they can help increase your social media followers, drive engagement, and even direct traffic to your site. 

6. Boost Your Revenue

Influencers can boost your revenue by promoting your ongoing offers, sharing discount codes, and becoming your affiliates. 

Influencer posts that share discount codes along with effective call-to-action buttons can be particularly useful in driving revenue. You can also leverage influencers to promote your newly-launched products or inform them about seasonal promotions.

Take inspiration from some of the good affiliate marketing programs and create one for your brand. Influencers can become your affiliates, promote your products, and earn commissions on each sale that they help generate.

Here’s an example of an influencer promoting a brand’s limited-time special offer.

Image via Instagram

7. Gain More Credibility

Social media influencers put in a lot of effort to gain the trust of their followers and forge a genuine connection. This is one of the biggest differentiating factors between traditional marketing and influencer marketing.

By partnering with them, you can piggyback on their credibility and reputation. Think of it as a shortcut to win audience trust. 

If you think about it, brands can take years to gain credibility. However, when influencers vouch for your brand, it makes the process quicker. 

Of course, you need to maintain that image by consistently providing exceptional customer experiences. Use live chat software to deliver prompt customer service and create referral programs to foster brand loyalty.

8. Run a Cost-Effective Campaign

Even if you don’t have thousands of dollars to invest in marketing your products, you can still run an influencer marketing campaign. That’s a big plus for small businesses that are on a shoestring budget. 

Don’t shy away from exploring creative ways to compensate influencers if you don’t have a big budget for the campaign. 

Some micro and macro-influencers are even open to promoting your brand if they get access to free products, event passes, and other such perks. The key is to work out an arrangement that works for both you and the influencers. 

9. Generate More Content

It can be exhausting to think of new content ideas every day even for the best content marketers. It requires time and effort, but also a whole lot of creativity. 

Through influencer marketing, you can generate high-quality content to promote your business. 

The best part is that you can repurpose content and publish it on multiple social media channels and your website. 

In Closing

Influencer marketing has a lot to offer, especially for small businesses. 

A quick boost in brand awareness, credibility, revenue, engagement, and traffic are just some of the benefits of influencer marketing. 

Additionally, it helps you get more content and social proof. If you are smart about it, you won’t even have to spend a lot of money on influencer campaigns. 

Now that you know its benefits, are you ready to start investing in influencer marketing?

Author Bio – Gaurav Sharma

Gaurav Sharma
Gaurav Sharma

Gaurav Sharma is the founder and CEO of Attrock, a results-driven digital marketing company. Grew an agency from 5-figure to 7-figure revenue in just two years | 10X leads | 2.8X conversions | 300K organic monthly traffic. He also contributes to top publications like HuffPost, Adweek, Business 2 Community, TechCrunch, and more.

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