DTC brands speak to their consumers’ needs directly, and they need trust to develop strong relationships that lead to a healthy business. Online, that can include partnering with influencers and micro-influencers, whose communities are the ideal place to connect with your target audience.

Influencer marketing isn’t just for big-name brands with equally big budgets. It can be extremely advantageous to smaller businesses that are wondering how to promote a DTC brand.

Influencers’ large followings on social media make them a great asset for companies seeking to break into new market spaces. They can provide you with greater visibility and engagement rates than other forms of advertising, and, if you choose the right people, cost less than other marketing channels.

But how do you work with influencers? How do you find them?Most importantly, how do you make sure the people you’re paying to promote your brand will actually help you get new customers?

If you’re starting a brand or new to DTC marketing, this article is for you! We’ll walk you through everything there is to know about using influencer marketing to promote your business online.

We’ll start with what many consider the most difficult step:finding influencers.

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Identify the Right Influencers

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First, let’s define an influencer. They are:

●     Someone with a loyal following

●     Seen as subject matter experts or role models in their industry

●     Have significant credibility and recognition that brands want for themselves

Influencers are ranked based on their follower counts. Here are the influencer follower tiers you need to know:

●     Nano-influencers: 1,000 to 10,000followers

●     Micro-influencers: 10,000 to50,000 followers

●     Mid-tier influencers: 50,000 to500,000 followers

●     Macro-influencers: 500,000 to 1million followers

●     Mega-influencers: Over 1 million followers

An influencer’s tier will affect two things: their reach and cost. You have to choose an influencer based on 1) how much money you have to spend, and 2) how well they can engage your audience.

Paying someone thousands of dollars to mention your product and receive zero leads isn’t a great bargain, is it?

Being seen is only important if it follows up with another action. In DTC business, that’s generating leads and converting them into customers.

So, you know you want to work with influencers, or at least give it a try once. Where do you find them? Social media, especially Instagram, is the first place to start searching. Look for notable figures in your industry. See who your audience is following. This will give you a great idea of what types of people they’re most likely to respond to.

You can also run through hashtag searches closely related to your industry. The top posts will be from the top performing accounts in that hashtag.

There’s also the option of working with an influencer marketing agency, which will pair your brand with influencers in their talent pool. Or you could use online platforms like Intense, Klear, and Traackr to find potential influencers.

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How to Screen an Influencer

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Someone’s profile may look amazing, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re the best match for your business. A high follower count is irrelevant if engagement rates are extremely low. Visual appeal only goes so far as well. You need to choose influencers who have a track record of connection and engagement with their communities.

A good influencer engagement rate is around 1% to 3.5% of their audience. Anything 6% or above is considered exceptional. It’s best to aim for somewhere in the middle.

Interestingly, nano-and micro-influencers tend to boast higher engagement rates than macro- and mega-influencers. Their smaller followings allow them to cultivate greater relationships with their audience, which makes them a cost-effective marketing tool for many DTC brands.

You should also consider how relevant an influencer’s content is to your brand. Make sure that your core values align. You shouldn’t be working with anyone who posts questionable content that could offend your audience. If you do, sharing the same space online could have negative repercussions.

Instead, you should only work with influencers whose positive images will help improve your DTC brand’s reputation.

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Define the Terms of Your Partnership

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Once you’ve found influencers to work with, it’s important to set clear boundaries. Your professional relationship needs well-defined terms and conditions to be a success. Your influencer marketing contract should include:

●     The type of content you want them to produce

●     Payment structure

●     Performance metrics they must report

There are also legal considerations, like disclosure requirements. It’s not uncommon for brands to have influencers sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) or confidentiality agreements. This prevents the influencer from sharing details about their relationship with you to the public — or with your competitors.

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Create an Action Plan

Once you have all the legal details in place, it’s time to consider how your influencer marketing campaign will actually work. In theory, brands expect influencers to mention them a couple times, then see sales explode. While this can happen in some cases (such as a shoutout by a mega-influencer), it isn’t the norm.

Instead, you need to set goals and identify key performance indicators to track the success of your influencer marketing strategy. You should also have a definitive timeline that you’ll track the engagement rates, lead generations, and conversions from the campaign.

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Some key performance indicators (KPIs) you should always track with influencer marketing are:

●     Return on Investment (ROI). Your ROI is how much money you earned(or followers you gained) as a direct result of your payment to an influencer.One of the best ways to track influencer ROI is to give them specific links for their followers to use. That way, you can easily track how many people engaged with the URL and became a customer after the influencer featured your brand.

●     Cost Per Acquisition (CPA). This is how much money it costs you to earn a new customer. You can determine this by dividing the amount you paid the influencer by the number of customers you converted during the campaign. You can also set up a payment model where you pay influencers based on the number of sales they generate.

●     Brand awareness. How many followers have you gained since your influencer marketing campaign? How much has your brand’s search volume increased on Google Trends? These are two ways you can determine how much an influencer is affecting your brand awareness online.

You should also track influencer content with your products to measure reach and engagement. Reach is the number of people who saw a post in their feed; engagement is the number of people who interacted with it by liking, commenting, or sharing.

It’s possible to hammer these KPIs down further, so you’re only concentrating on engagement metrics you care most about. For example, if your goal is to increase brand sentiment (how people feel about your business),then you may focus more on comments.

You should consider your KPIs as you develop a content strategy for the influencer. We don’t advise a hands-off approach here.Consider sending them key talking points, or even an entire script, that they can use.

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Setting Your Goals

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Influencer marketing isn’t just about getting seen by more people. While brand awareness matters, it doesn’t deliver any value to your company without leading to increased profit.

Awareness itself doesn’t pay the bills. You need it to serve as a foundation, piquing interest so people take the next step toward becoming a customer.

It’s possible to use influencers as part of your lead gen strategy rather than relying on them solely for conversions. In that case, your goal for a campaign may be increasing your follower count by partnering with an influencer.

If your goal is to make more sales, then you’ll want to focus specifically on ROI, CPA, and direct conversions from influencers’ content.

Always clarify your goals, and share them with the influencer before you launch your campaign.

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Execute Your Campaign

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Throughout the marketing life cycle, you should be communicating with the influencer. Give them any resources they need to make high-quality content, whether that’s footage of your product or a few different variations of it to showcase.

You can provide them with a content timeline based on your own social media schedule. What’s important here is to consider their metrics. When is their audience most active online? What type of content do they tend to engage with the most?

Creating a bridge between your content style and the influencer’s community will help you achieve the greatest results.

An influencer marketing software can help you track the performance of posts throughout a campaign. Using custom links, discount codes, and personalized landing pages can also help you capture performance data.

Remember, the two main factors to track are cost-effectiveness and engagement.

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Analyze and Optimize

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Every campaign gives you insights you can use to make future campaigns better. For example, you might discover that IG Reels had a much higher engagement rate than Stories posts. In your next campaign, you could focus more on high-quality, short-form videos instead of product placement pictures.

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Conclusion

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Influencer marketing for DTC brands is a great way to build awareness and increase sales without running ads. Building relationships with influencers can help your brand grow its own following, and lead to much more effective campaigns in the future.

Before you get started, make sure that you set clear goals, define your budget, and have a content strategy in mind.

Throughout the influencer marketing campaign, tracking KPIs will help you refine your approach and achieve greater results in the future.

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