The Rise of Micro-Influencers: A Cost-Effective Trend in Brand Promotion
Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) have grown in popularity in recent years, and many businesses have benefited from engaging prominent KOLs for soft promotion. However, there has been an increasing tendency toward Micro-Influencers in recent years. Individuals on platforms such as Facebook or Instagram with fewer fans, often ranging from 1,000 to 20,000, yet a certain amount of power within their unique field.
Compared to KOLs, micro-influencers tend to have a less commercial focus, and their partnership costs are often smaller. As a result, finding several Micro-Influencers for marketing with a budget that would traditionally be devoted to a single KOL has become a new trend. But, what should you keep in mind while working with Micro-Influencers?
1. Define your target audience and the categories of Influencers to follow
To begin, you must identify your target audience. Unicorn Creative, for example, previously aided an online travel equipment rental firm in its hunt for relevant Influencers to cooperate with. Their offerings included baggage, GoPro cameras, and camera lens rentals, all of which were designed to assist tourists to save money while encouraging the principle of sharing. The target market was travelers, so it only made sense to look for Influencers who regularly shared information on travel to help with marketing. Although the client's business model was still in its infancy and they had yet to identify their target market, we were able to assist them in testing three different Influencers: one targeted at moms (parenting category), one in photography and design, and one appealing to "literary youth" (a category centered around arts and literature).
Engage in interactions with your current consumers to learn more about the Influencers they follow if you are confused about the categories of influencers to look for.
2. Pay attention to the number of fans and the engagement rate of Influencers
After you've established your target audience and chosen the Influencer categories, the following step is to examine the Influencers' amount of fans and interaction rate. According to 2020 statistics, accounts with more than 10,000 admirers have an average interaction rate ranging from 1.6% to 4%. This indicates that if an account has 10,000 admirers, a typical amount of likes on a post would be between 160 and 400. If there are only a few dozen likes, it is critical to determine whether the fans are genuine or if they are mainly made up of bogus accounts. After all, you'd like to watch audience reactions and comments when these Influencers promote your items.
3.Craft the Influencer's promotional messages
After selecting the right candidates, the next step is to establish some guidelines for delivering the promotional message to the influencers. It's important to remember that one of the reasons these influencers are popular is because they interact with their fans like friends, sharing personal experiences. Therefore, it's crucial not to provide them with a complete news release and demand that they follow it word for word. It's best to set the direction for the promotional message, including specific words, hashtags, and tagged accounts, and let the influencers leverage their own personal style.
Each category requires a different promotional message. The purpose is to conduct A/B testing to determine which group of potential customers responds better to which type of messaging. If you are collaborating with dozens of influencers at once, it is recommended to divide them into groups and assign different promotional messages to gain a deeper understanding of your potential customer segments.
4. Measure the effectiveness of Influencer promotion
After influencers promote your company or product, it is important to assess its effectiveness. The simplest way to do this is by asking customers who inquire or place orders how they learned about your product or the specific promotion. If you have an online sales system, you can provide each influencer with a unique promotion code. When customers enter this code during checkout, they can enjoy discounts, and you can track which influencer brings you the most business. If you have in-house IT support, you can take it a step further and create exclusive URLs (affiliate links) for each influencer. This allows you to effectively and comprehensively measure the performance of different influencers in driving sales.
Affiliate marketing is widely practiced abroad. Each individual is assigned a unique link or promotion code and earns a commission for successful sales. This incentivizes individuals to promote products or services more actively. If you regularly make purchases from platforms like iHerb or Books.com, you might be familiar with their referral programs, which are a form of affiliate marketing.
Unicorn Creative always stressed the significance of data analysis and optimization in internet marketing. Even more individualised promotions, such as working with KOLs or Micro-Influencers, fall under this umbrella. If you are working with a significant number of Micro-Influencers at once, such as 50 or 100, group testing is highly suggested to acquire a greater insight and to assure the success of your campaigns.