As your eCommerce business starts to gain exposure and win market share, you’re going to start getting a new type of solicitation.  It comes from people who are (or aspire to be) online influencers.  Here are some tips on how to handle these contacts.

Recently, we had an eCommerce client who got an explosion of sales as the result of an influencer on Instagram.  Read this interesting case study.

This was the best case scenario for an influencer marketing campaign.  A popular singer with a million Instagram followers approached the business and offered to promote their clothes – just because she likes them.

However, most online influencers are not this generous.  Instead, they are self-promoters who want free products and often charge big fees to “influence” their audience to try your product.

Influencer marketing can be a valid, effective channel.  However, not every influencer who contacts will be a fit for your product, and many of them may not actually be that influential.  Here are some tips to help you identify influencers that might work for your brand.

Are they really that influential?

Influencer marketing is still a burgeoning industry.  That means there are a lot of people who are just getting started.

The first thing you want to check about a potential influencer is their platform.  How big are they?  How many followers do they have on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Snapchat?  Do they have an established, professional blog?  How many YouTube subscribers?

For influencer marketing to work, the influencer needs a sizable audience.  You won’t get branding exposure with any impact unless they have tens of thousands of followers – at least.  Better yet, several hundred thousand.  The heavy hitters will be in the millions.

It is useful to differentiate influencers as macro and micro.  Macro-influencers are in the realm of celebrity – something like the Kardashians.  They may have millions of followers and can have a huge influence on their audience.

Needless to say, if Justin Bieber approaches you wanting to wear your line of t-shirts, do it.

But as a smaller business, you’re more likely to deal with micro-influencers.  These are people with a substantial platform, but with a niche audience.  Ideally, you would work with a micro-influencer whose niche relates to your product.

Someone who wants to be a marketing influencer as a profession will build up their platform before they start contacting businesses with proposals.  However, you’re likely to get solicitations from people who say they are just starting out.  We’ve seen businesses get hit up by “influencers” who only have a few hundred Facebook followers.

Don’t waste your time with someone who has no platform.  It’s not your responsibility to provide them with content to build their audience.

Is their audience your audience?

This is vital.  Only work with influencers whose audience is a match with yours.

Most influencers who solicit your business will have researched you enough to recognize the match.  Still, you’ll want to look at their content to find out what their story is, then decide if your product fits into it.

It’s not enough that the influencer simply endorses you.  They need to use your product and be an advocate.

For example, if you sell custom guitar picks, you’d want to look at an influencer with a guitar tutorial series who also does guitar/product reviews.  A positive review from someone with a big following could deliver a lot of sales.

Or say you sell some type of nutritional energy bar.  You want an athlete like a professional cyclist eating your bar while they’re out on a ride.

In a way what you’re looking for is kind of a hero shot.   The influencer should be a reflection of your customers.  They are putting your product into context of use and sharing that experience on social media.

What is their proposal?

How you choose to work with influencers will also be determined by their proposal.

You might get someone with a questionable platform who only wants a free sample or demo.  Use your judgment.  If they look professional and fit your niche, a free sample might be worth it.

Micro-influencers with substantial platforms usually charge a fee.  Price ranges are vast, with some only asking for a few hundred dollars, other’s asking thousands.  Bigger players probably have a marketing company representing them.

Influencer marketing ROI can be tough to assess upfront.  It has the potential to explode into direct sales, like in our case study example.  But more often it’s essentially brand advertising, where the goal is exposure tied to long-term sales growth.

Also, remember that social media content has a short shelf life.  Even exposure from a macro-influencer will be short-lived if all they do is one post for you.  Part of negotiations need to include the terms of your relationship, including how many posts will be done on what platforms within a defined time-frame.

If your product is growing in popularity, you’ll start getting emails from influencers.  Look them over carefully.

As you better understand what works, you may also identify and reach out to influencers you think would be perfect for your product.

It’s a hot marketing channel right now because it’s so effective creating advertisements that don’t look like advertisements.

Since before the internet, we’ve known that those are the most influential ads of all.