A question on influencer marketing

[Pamela_Gormley]

Hi I’m keen to get started with influencer marketing.

I’m a dropshipper and I have a lot of returns that I could use to send to influencers. I’ve signed up with inzpire me. 

Im not sure how to approach these influencers, do I ask them their size and sent them a piece of clothing I would like them to wear, do they choose the clothing?

Sorry I know this is probably a silly question but I really haven’t a clue.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Regards 

[Morgan_old]

Hi, Pamela.
My name is Alissa, I am part of the Guru team at Shopify.

Influencer marketing is a great way to expand your business in new and creative ways. 

I recommend when reaching out to social media influencers to introduce yourself and your brand, as well as the culture around your company. This way you can make sure it's a good fit and the influencer has the right demographic for your niche. As well, to ensure they are interested! 

After they say they are interested this is when you can decide how you want to move forward whether you want to offer them a discount code for their fans ect. I personally would ask the influencer if they would like to choose their pieces or if they would just like to receive some of your popular picks in their size! 

If they would like to choose their own, I recommend creating a hidden collection that you can send to them with all the products you have on hand, or are willing to order for them. 

This app here will allow you to track sales generated from your influencers and pay them accordlingly! (If this is the agreement you made with them)

This should get you going in the right direction! Best of luck! 

All the best,
Alissa F | Shopify Guru 

[Morgan_old]

Also, If you haven't read this Shopify blog post I highly recommend it! It goes into detail about everything influencer related! 

Cheers,

Alissa F | Shopify Guru 

[Christian_Kletz]

Hi Pamela,

Great comments by Alissa. My suggestion would also be to look more into Micro-Influencers rather than influencers. (Ranges vary, but Micro-Influencers have typically between 1,000 and up to 50,000 followers).

Micro-Influencers often have much better engagement rate (3-7% vs 1-2%), are hyper-focused on your vertical and cheaper to engage with. For influencers, simply sending them products is usually not enough, they expect some form of payment for their posting.

Also, everyone's reaching out to influencers, so it's much harder to get them to work with you compared to reaching out to micro-influencers. If you decide to reach out, it might also make sense to use tools such as persistiq.com to reach out to them several times as the initial email is often ignored.

Additionally, you might also already have influencers among your own customers and can try to turn them into advocates for your store. Based on our experience that's much easier and generates more results than reaching out to external influencers. To identify influencers among your customers, we created a Shopify App called UserGems.

Cheers,

Christian

[Michael_Newton]

Vetting your influencers ahead of time is absolutely the most important part of working with influencers. As the blog post linked above mentiones, definitely do a check for style, aesthetic, tone, etc., but you also want to know they have an engaged audience.

This is important because influencers are only helpful if they can actually influence their audience. Look at the standard content engagement metrics for their posts (likes, RTs, shares, etc.) and consider them as a ratio versus their number of followers. Also, make sure you weight the engagements differently. Someone who shares is more valuable than someone who comments, who is more valuable than someone who just likes.

Using YouTube as an example, the number of engagements (likes and comments) with a video is a much better predictor of success than the amount of views.

Hope that helps!

[Paige3]

I actually have something to add to this conversation, as a ~micro-influencer~ myself, lmao. I do agree that micro-influencers typically have a better ROI, since we're able to have a closer personal relationship with our audience than someone with 1M subscribers, and we're likely to also have honed in on a tighter niche. If you, for example, sold clothing that only applied to a subculture (let's just say you sell gothic jewelry, as an example) then a micro-influencer who dresses in that style could potentially be really impactful for your brand. 

Coming from both the shop owner and influencer side, I'd suggest asking every potential influencer for information about their analytics (you can see audience engagement, audience growth over the last month or so, views/traffic information depending on what platform they are on) as well as examples of their past work with other brands. I would NOT hire a brand new influencer who has not done similar work to what you are expecting for other brands. Reputable influencers should have no problem giving you both piece of info, I always found it encouraging because it was a concrete way to establish both trust and expectations early on in a relationship with a new brand. 

For your direct question, I've always been given a choice--I think what Alissa suggested about a hidden collection was nice, that way you can retain control while still giving the influencer the freedom to choose what they know they can make look best. You wouldn't want to just send a pair of glitzy heels to a girl with a more relaxed, boho/hippie style, and making those choices for a person just seems like a good way to get started on the wrong foot with someone. It might also prevent them from integrating your brand into their content in a way that is natural feeling, and not spammy, which could potentially turn off their audience and would end up hurting you both. I would also really recommend doing some social media giveaways with extra stock--in my experience it's a really affordable way to clear out inventory while building up your following. 

I'm also happy to stick around and answer more questions, not many people around here are coming from both sides of the coin! 🙂

[Britt_Ashley]

Hi Pamela, I'm an Influencer Strategist and my day-to-day is developing influencer strategies for businesses, connecting brands with the most appropriate influencers, and managing influencer campaigns. 

Here’s my advice: 

1. STAND OUT! Find a way to set yourself apart from the masses. You’ve got some bold and glam styles on your site and I personally think it would be wicked if Fashion Genie sought out women (and maybe men) in a mix of sizes, colours, and identities and shaped their influencer strategy around diversity. 
2. Define your aesthetic and create a one-pager that clearly details your preferences. Are you bohemian, glam, sporty? Do you want colour photos or B&W? Flat lays, candid shots, props, background preferences, etc.  Allow for creative flexibility but guidelines are respected and helpful. 
3. Money. Free stuff is great but money talks. Some influencers charge thousands, but I’ve found that even $50 for a sponsored post gets you taken seriously and results in more professional and engaging work. 
4. Terms and conditions.  Clearly outline these and make sure it’s understood who owns the photo rights afterward and if you can recycle the photos for your own social media, website or promotions.

If you or anyone else here, is interested in getting some help with their influencer strategies, I'd love to talk with you! Please reach out: britt.novakowski@gmail.com

[Tony_Bui]

You have to know your niche really well then approach the micro influencers as suggested. The market is fragmented, so better to find the right guy. Also the good point is the conversion rate will be definitely better when your narrow your target audience.

Tony

[Bernhard_Engl]

Hi Pamela,

Alissa's tips are a great starting point! Influencer Marketing can perform really well but there's quite a bit of work involved. An App that makes everything a bit easier for you as a merchant is linkr. It allows brands to launch and execute influencer marketing campaigns of any size. It gives structure to and provides support for each step of the process chain, from campaign definition to influencer identification and selection, application of the right compensation model, sample seeding, communication, monitoring, compensation payout, invoicing and finally reporting and analytics.

Give it a try!

[Jackie_Giordan1]

Hi Pamela,

Let me begin by saying that the answer to your question isn’t to pay celebrities without achieving ROI, nor does it involve paying agencies to wrangle herds of influencers. Big influencers come with big price tags and issues of scale. The key is to turn consumers themselves into marketers, allowing their content to speak for your brand. Organic, user-generated content is the surest route to consumer attention without breaking the bank.

So, how do you get started? Sure, you could spend your time painstakingly combing through social media for organically generated content. But there are easier, more efficient ways to connect with consumer creators who best match your campaign targets. New technology platforms, such as Social Native, are using machine learning and artificial intelligence systems to proactively find naturally talented content creators and conscript them to create content for specific brand initiatives. If you would like more information, please feel free to reach out at socialnative.com.

I hope this helps!

[SarahAtCarro]

Hi Pamela, 

If you use the Carro app, influencers can request their clothing in the right size and color for them, then you can review and approve. The orders would be fulfilled within Shopify, just like a normal order. It can definitely simplify your influencer gifting program and simplify the paperwork and tracking associated with each influencer. And it's free to use!

Good luck!