How To Win At Influencer Marketing On Instagram

What are influencers?

Influencers are individuals who typically have a large following in a particular niche on social media. Their power to affect the purchasing decisions of their followers make them a highly attractive marketing tool for many companies.

Why use influencers on Instagram?

One of the main reasons why you would want to use Instagram is because of the higher user engagement and interaction rate compared to Facebook and Twitter. As of 2019, 65% of top-performing Instagram posts feature products. Instagram has also been rolling out their Shopping and Checkout function, making it more seamless for users to purchase directly on the platform.

Setting key objectives

This is a no brainer, but like any marketing campaign, you'll need to set up your goal and objectives before planning and implementing your strategies. Do you want to grow awareness of your brand, increase traffic, leads, or make sales? Once you have established your goal, then you need to set aside a budget, a time frame, and the type of partnership you want to develop. Here's a quick checklist to get you started:

1) What would you like them to promote?  

📷This could be your products, services or even your brand or Instagram account.

2) How do you want them to promote? And how long for?

• Image(s) on their feed

• Video on their feed

• Instagram Story

• IGTV 

3) What can you offer them in return? 

• Your product or service for free

• Shoutout (where you promote them on your IG feed)

• Payment 

These questions will form the basis of your influencer campaign and allow you to better plan your strategy. 

So how do you find, and reach out to influencers?

One simple but effective way to find influencers in your niche is to use #hashtags that represent your brand personality or products. Search for the top-performing posts of the hashtags that you have used (ideally with over 100k posts) and skim through the IG accounts to see if they are an influencer. Usually, a good indicator would be when 1) they include their email contact information on their bio description, and 2) they have worked with previous brands before - which you can find by exploring their feed. 

Another hack is to click on the arrow pointing down next to the email button on their profile, and that will suggest you similar accounts to follow.

Finding the influencers is probably the most tedious part, but once you have identified your key influencers, you can start contacting them. There are three main ways to do so; 1) Email 2) Direct Message or 3) Call/text them if they share their phone number

When approaching influencers, try not to be too 'salesy' or pushy. Since influencers are constantly contacted by many other brands, try and craft a compelling message that will grab their attention and convince them to work with you. Also, show that you appreciate and understand their account/niche, and explain to them why your product/service/brand would benefit them and their followers. This will not only make them more inclined to work with you, but it would also allow you to better negotiate your proposal with them. 

Start with your Offer

When pitching influencers, try and start with your offer and use that as a basis to negotiate with them. Why? Influencers are usually very busy people who spend time planning, managing, and posting on their accounts. Moreover, some may not even have a pricing plan of their own yet. Thus, if you propose an offer that resonates with them and that can potentially benefit their community of followers, they will be likely to accept it without hesitation. Here’s one example of how I pitch to influencers for my clients:

" Hey [name of Influencer],

My name is [your name] from [company] on Instagram. I’m reaching out to you because we sell [your product] that we think you and your audience would appreciate!

Did you know that [your product] has many benefits for [target audience of the influencer] including:

• [list one way your product will benefit them and their followers - ideally in bullet points]

• [list one way your product will benefit them and their followers - ideally in bullet points]

• [list one way your product will benefit them and their followers - ideally in bullet points]

I can provide a free sample for you to review; and in return, would you be able to help post it on your IG account feed as an image to your audience? 

Our IG account is [your Instagram page url]

Thanks for your time!

[your name] "

Don't worry if you don't get any replies. Sometimes, influencers may probably miss your message. So if they don’t reply to you after 7 days, try and send another follow-up email!

Finally, always ask influencers to add a call to action in their posts and have them tag and @mention your product and Instagram account. Doing this will help drive more of their followers to visit your account or website.

Overall, with dedication, persistence, and hard work, you will begin to see results! If you enjoyed reading this article, you could also read two of the previous articles that I have written about Instagram marketing:

• How to find your future customers on Instagram, even if you’re not an expert

• Instagram experts don’t want you to know these 8 hashtag secrets

Need help growing your Instagram account? Feel free to reach out to me or via my website at www.naivedigital.com for a free 30-minute consultation today.

Thanks again for reading!