Episode 62 | 3 Reasons Why You Should Use Influencer Marketing To Sell More

Sophia Noreen: Hello, everyone. Welcome to another fantastic episode of the Boss It Podcast. I hope you're doing well. So I'm going to be talking today about influencer marketing. We're going to talk about this concept of influencer marketing because it's such a powerful tool for your business. And specifically for anybody who is in business and selling a product or even a service, influencer marketing is extremely important, and it's an extremely important tool that business owners can use at a higher ROI. And the reason I say that is because if you're investing in ads or if you're investing in Google ads or Facebook ads, you likely need to put hundreds of dollars into your account before you see any ROI, return on your investment. Versus with influencer marketing, you can use PR packages and you'd be surprised at how fast you can get your brand name out there. And that's the reason why I feel like influencer marketing is not as highly valued especially amongst starting businesses. I feel like they really missed the mark when they are trying to get their brand name out there. Because as you know in business, there are a ton of copycats out there. And in most things, you don't want to trademark and copyright all of your items. But if you can make yourself that go-to brand, they will be less likely to copycat.  

A great example is the Chanel bags. So if you know Coco Chanel's story, and if you don't, I highly suggest you go out there and you listen to her story and read her biographies. She essentially was doing social media marketing without the media back in the day when she would go around and spray her perfume, her Nº5 perfume. That's the reason why Coco Chanel started getting more viral because she'd go out there and she'd use these social influencing cues on how to spread her word about her product and her service. And I'm going to share three tips on how, you, as a business owner can start using influencer marketing, and why you should start using influencer marketing. So we'll go through and do the three tips.  

The first, reason we already spoke about it using Coco Chanel's example is social proof. If you are able to get your products in a consumer's hand, and it is somebody who has a lot of influence in the community, you're more likely to have social proof. All of us know that if you are shopping on anything like Amazon, Walmart, if you're shopping at any store, customer reviews are so important. You feel even more confident when you see somebody else has purchased the product. And these media channels like TikTok and YouTube and Instagram are fantastic. It really levels the playing field. You no longer need the millions of dollars in campaign budgets to get your product in an influencer's hand. So once you do that, and if you're very strategic and you say, yes, this influencer really aligns with my customer, then it's a win-win. Your customer will see the product, hopefully, your influencer will love it and they'll go on and on and on about it. The best part about it is it's showing that your product is, you can use, it's functional, people like it. It's not just something that's popping up on an ad, like for example, on a Facebook ad or Instagram ad. You're getting that social proof. And so that's one of the main reasons why I feel that influencer marketing, you can't beat it. When you get that social proof, it starts that rolling momentum for your product, then somebody else will purchase it. There are other vehicles for collecting reviews after that. And so I feel like if anything, social proof should be your number one reason for even considering influencer marketing campaigns within your company. 

The next reason I feel that is extremely important is because of the customer feedback, and the feedback from your influencer team. So you are going to end up getting a team. The more influencers that you will be bringing on into your campaign, they become a little team and they will help you then get the feedback that you need for the products that you are making. So I'm trying to think of an example from our Also Sophia product line where an influencer would have said, the positive feedback I've gotten from many of them is the sign. They liked the size of the signs. So by the influencer of having that social clout and saying that these signs are great. They're a great size. They fit my mantle, and I can think of a few off the top of my head. They loved them. And so that was great customer feedback.  

So for example now, if I'm going to make something else for another community like we did for Diwali, we made the signs the same size. We didn't go ahead and change the size because we knew it was working for one community, so we kept it the same. So getting that feedback is extremely important. And in constructive feedback, I'm trying to think if there's anything, we did the conscious kitchen and home bags and people were like, they're good but... and they need some improvement. So they're hard to open. They didn't like the fact that it was more difficult to open. But that constructive feedback coming from an influencer is great because now you know that they're part of your team. They're giving you that constructive feedback because they also want to see you succeed with the product line. And I feel like it just really expands your team. It makes you feel like, my team is there for me. And they're going to help me make the best product possible, or the best service. talking about social media and influencer marketing. This conversation is extremely important. And as Mariam knows, we've had quite a number of campaigns and it is the way we grew Also Sophia. It wouldn't have been able to get the reach it did if we had not used influencers. So we absolutely had to use influencer marketing to be able to grow to the size that we did as fast as we did especially during the pandemic. So social proof is one. Your feedback from your influencer team is another. And correct me if I'm wrong, influencers don't like being called influencers although it's the most popular term I feel in the marketing world. I feel that they like to be called content creators. So whatever jargon you want to use, the point is they have a community behind them. And by you, tapping into their community, they are able to influence. It's I guess the way it's perceived. They can say, I like this product. I highly suggest you buy this product. And likely, they'll convert sales. If the community behind them is actually the customers, your customer avatar, your ideal customer.  

Now, we talk about this thoroughly in a program that we have coming out in a few months, or even by next month, we'll have it happen for you guys. We opened it last year, but one of the main things that people miss is that they don't align their ideal customer with the ideal community of the influencer. So a good example is Mariam, she's part of our community. Her following is really ideal for Also Sophia's Eid and Ramadan community. So, people who celebrate Eid and Ramadan, I would say Mariam, The Mamma Diaries has a great community that really aligns with our ideal customer for that community. Whereas another influencer or another content creator who is more into gym wear or into gym like into the gym and working in fitness and workout, they may not have the most ideal community. And so, if I was to enroll that type of influencer into my campaign, then I wouldn't expect the ROI to be that great. So again, that's one of the things we talk about in the program. And I'll talk more about that later. But we were going through social proof being one of the main reasons that you should consider. Adding influencer marketing to your business and into your marketing campaign, and also feedback. Getting feedback from a solid body of individuals who really want to see you succeed.  

Now the third reason why you should be considering having an influencer campaign as part of your marketing is that it is a lower ad spend, I would say, especially if you're doing PR packages. And I do suggest people start with PR packages because, basically, it does cost money. And I see a question come in. So do you target influencers with a certain number of followers? We do. And there's a full calculation that we actually do. We don't just look at the followers, it's a vanity metric. We don't just look at followers because we never know if the followers are part of the community. I don't want to say bought, but influenced by different bots in the background. So we really need to go through and do a few other calculations and be a bit more thorough.  

We also say that if the followers are active and engaged, and the real followers, the follower account is less important. And we go through a whole calculation using engagement rates, and then what the cost is for that influencer. And like what I was alluding to just now is we can spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on Facebook ads, with an influencer campaign, if you're able to get a PR package out to them, that could work. If they have a high engagement rate, and I have a few success stories like that where we had, basically, an influencer who had about 5K at the time, 5,000 followers. She took a PR package, and she made the most ROI for us. Because she didn't take an amount for her post, she just took the products. And I think that's very, very, very lucky for our company because that won't always happen. So that's why I say, you can't just use followers. It's a vanity metric. You have to go through the calculation and see what it could potentially be. 

And so we do go through that in the program. It's a bit more complicated, so I don't want to get too much into it now. I do use spreadsheets. You do put in information, and then you do get the output of what you should predict as your outcome or your predicted return on investment. I feel like this is a very important topic that many of us ignore when it comes to marketing our businesses, which is influencer marketing. And so the top three reasons I feel and I think that many businesses feel, influencer marketing works is that you get social proof, you get feedback from individuals who really want to see you succeed, and then you also spend less money in the beginning if you're doing PR packages compared to alternative methods like Facebook ads and Google ads, and all that.  

So those are the three ones I'm talking about today. I will jump back on here maybe next week or the week after. There are many, many more reasons why influencer marketing works. And again, if you're new to us, Also Sophia grew using influencer marketing. We weren't really on the map before 2020. I don't think anybody knew who we were. We had just started the year before really. And basically, by using a heavy influencer marketing campaign, having giveaways with influencers on a weekly basis during our selling season, doing a scheduled post, having contracts, being very strategic, we were able to move the company along. And getting viral. Like I would say, at one point, we didn't need the influencers so much because we had so many of the customers sharing the products during that season.  

So if you are planning to have some type of marketing campaign especially we go into Black Friday, we go into the Christmas selling season. And then from any of the people in our community, we sell for Eid and Ramadan, you should be looking at influencer marketing and you should be starting to plan now because before you know it, it's going to be February. Time goes by so quickly, and you don't have time to sit there and think, who am I going to ask to do my influencing and my campaign now? Who can I get PR packages to? Because many people plan two to three months in advance. And on top of that, it takes you time to find out the best-qualified influencers for your campaign.  

So those are the three things that I'm talking about. Those are the three reasons I'm going to give today. I will come back on here probably next week and the week after. So if you are interested in more juicy topics like this for business, or even just like basic career advice, I do last week. Two weeks ago, I talked about returning back to work after COVID because many people are shell-shocked to go back into the office. And I work as a manager, part-time, in a clinic so we're dealing with a lot of that shell-shock, how to go back and integrate back into the office. So that's more for anybody. You don't have to be a business owner to really get some juicy tips out of the podcast. 

So if you want to listen more to the podcast, you can go to Boss It Club. And we also have a website, bossitclub.com. And then you can search for Boss It Podcast on any of the listening platforms for podcasts. So that's all for today, guys. I really hope this information was helpful. Again, time goes quickly so don't wait. I assure you before you know it it's going to be the New Year and you'll be running. We don't want you to run in business. We want you to be able to really have that good vantage point and be like, I want to do this at this time. And so, how am I going to get there? And it's good to plan early and get things done early. So if there are delays, you're not struggling at the last minute. And I know many of us do have those last-minute delays, especially now with the supply chain, if you're somebody who's selling a product and it's offshore, you do need to consider the supply chain and the time it's taking to cross the sea. Air transit is not recommended if you want to get a good return on your investment.  

And that's all for today. And again, I hope you were able to take away some information regarding influencer marketing. I will come back and share even more juicy details about influencer marketing and why it's so important for your business. And remember, make a plan and take action. And yes, you can have it all. I'll talk to you guys later. Bye for now.