When selling on Amazon, it’s often not enough for businesses to use the right keywords, flood product pages with stellar reviews, and use high-resolution product images. Competition is cutthroat and retailers are boosting their marketing efforts to catch the attention of Amazon shoppers.
Although Amazon already did the heavy lifting of getting customers, retailers potentially miss out on shoppers who conduct product searches outside the platform. 75% of internet users research products on social media. Partnering with influencers on different channels or influencer marketing can help retailers reach out to these customers.
What is influencer marketing?
Influencer marketing is a form of advertising that uses content creators to promote a specific product on popular social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and more. Typically, influencers create short video content for brands, then share it with their followers via social media channels. Influencers can be a powerful tool for your brand. Influencer marketing is effective because 61% of consumers trust influencers’ recommendations, and over 38% trust branded content. If you identify and collaborate with the influencers your target customers follow, you’ll raise brand awareness, generate website traffic and see positive impacts on your bottom line.
Amazon Influencer Program
Amazon acknowledges the power of social influence that it created its influencer program, which is an extension of its affiliate program. Amazon’s Influencer program allows influencers to earn money by recommending products to their followers. They can set up their personalized storefront on Amazon to upload product photos, live streams, and other social media elements that link to their recommended products. A stunning storefront improves your chances of being featured across the platform – more visibility and profit.
Brands can partner with well-established influencers who can share their products with an engaged following. Amazon also launched a celebrity store that shows shoppers top celebrities’ favorite products.
Influencers maximize word-of-mouth advertising through their large following. They can help retailers reach new audiences using top-quality content customized to their needs.
Amazon retailers and brands must dedicate a portion of their advertising budget to influencers because:
Expanded reach
Influencers can connect with their audiences in ways that traditional advertising can’t. An influencer’s following trusts their judgment, which means they won’t be bombarded with ads. Brands can benefit most from this type of marketing because the content is more relevant to their target audience and, therefore, more effective. By partnering with influencers with a similar target audience, retailers can increase their exposure to potential customers who may have yet to be aware of their products. In 2022, Statista revealed 302 million social media users in the US alone and predicted to increase by 20 million after five years. Younger audiences, which can be more challenging to reach with traditional advertising, are among the most avid social media users. Approximately 90% of US adults in the 18-29 age category are on social media.
Influencers aren’t limited to their followers. Social media users can bump into products through content discovery tools. This allows brands to reach more potential consumers interested in their products.
Establish Trust and credibility.
Nearly two-thirds of consumers trust product recommendations from influencers. Meanwhile, only 38 percent trust branded social media content. Influencers spend years gaining respect from their followers, making them ideal advocates for your brand. The Trust that is built from influencers is automatically transferred to your brand. When an influencer promotes your brand, you can control which links they include in their promotions, ensuring shoppers are directed to your listings on Amazon.
Social media followers most likely agree with the values, respect the opinion, or like the personality of the influencers they follow. They trust their recommendations compared to branded content, with 70% of teenagers admitting they trust influencers compared to the usual celebrities. Additionally, 86% of women shared they turn to social media for shopping recommendations. Retailers can leverage social proof and build trust by partnering with these influencers.. These partnerships allow influencers to introduce their product to people who trust them. This is why finding the right influencers that align with your branding is important.
Increase sales
The ultimate goal of any influencer marketing campaign is to increase sales of the advertised product. In their content, influencers will mention the product and brand name and provide links to where it can be purchased, giving interested individuals all they need to search for and buy the product. The size of an influencer’s network and their ability to create unique content are critical factors in determining the effectiveness of an influencer marketing campaign.
Practical Product demonstration and authentic reviews
Influencers can create content that demonstrates the features and benefits of your product in a way that is engaging and relatable to their audience. This can help potential customers better understand your product and its value. Influencer marketing on Amazon can help provide authentic product reviews. When influencers promote a product on their Amazon listing, they often provide detailed reviews that are honest and genuine, which can help potential customers make informed decisions about the product.
Improved SEO
More traffic to your product pages signals Amazon that your brand is popular, which will improve your search ranking and drive up organic traffic from other sources.
Social proof
Around 40% of gen Z are using Tiktok as a search engine instead of Google. The interactive nature of social media for product search makes it more appealing to younger audience.
Incorporating influencer content into your existing marketing spreads your brand messaging and products to these social media users. Influencer content can serve as social proof for your product. When an influencer promotes your product and shares positive feedback from their followers, it can help build confidence in potential customers and increase the likelihood of a purchase. Influencer content on your Amazon listing can give you a competitive advantage over other sellers. If a potential customer is considering multiple products, the influencer’s endorsement may be the deciding factor in their purchase decision.
Cost-effective
E-commerce websites with influencers have reported 30% increase in conversions, which is ten times higher compared to the typical eCommerce results. Influencer marketing on Amazon can be a cost-effective way to promote products. Compared to traditional advertising methods, influencer marketing on Amazon can be less expensive and often has a higher return on investment.
Influencer marketing can be a valuable strategy to increase visibility, build Trust and credibility, demonstrate product features and benefits, provide social proof, and gain a competitive advantage.
Brands use influencer marketing to achieve various objectives, from increasing brand awareness to encouraging sales. Some campaigns are designed to increase brand awareness rather than encourage sales because some customers are more lucrative for a business than others.
Before reaching out to influencers, consider these first:
Define your target audience.
You need to know whom you want to reach and what kind of influencers they follow.
Once you have defined your target audience, you need to pinpoint relevant influencers who can help you reach them. Look for influencers with a similar target audience relevant to your product or niche.
Reach out to influencers.
After identifying relevant influencers, you must contact them and propose a partnership. You can either directly contact them or use a third-party platform that connects brands with influencers. You can submit a collaboration, such as a product review or a sponsored post, in exchange for a fee or a free product. Finding the right influencers who speak your brand language, and resonate with your brand messaging can be tedious. Velocity Influencers can help you find the right influencers who can represent your brand so you can focus on growing your eCommerce site while we help widen your reach.
Provide clear guidelines
When working with influencers, providing them with clear guidelines and expectations for collaboration is essential. This includes the content they must create, the messaging, and legal requirements, such as FTC disclosure.
Monitor and track results
Once the influencer content is live on your Amazon listing, monitoring and tracking the results is essential. You can use Amazon’s advertising platform or third-party tools to track the performance of your influencer content, such as clicks, conversions, and sales.
Evaluate and adjust
After monitoring the results, evaluate the success of the influencer marketing campaign and adjust as necessary. You can use the insights gained to improve future campaigns and optimize your influencer marketing strategy on Amazon.
Maximizing Amazon Listings with Influencers
Optimizing your Amazon Listings can help you stand out from the competition. Here are ways to do it:
Pay attention to your listing photos
This area is the first place that people notice. Make sure to use plain white photos – explainer photos are really helpful. To connect with your target audience and earn their trust, make sure to incorporate User Generated Content (UGC) images and videos.
Incorporate Videos on Enhanced Brand Content
An influencer video explaining the benefits and features of your products will help persuade your potential buyers. The competition is already cutthroat and you’re an influencer away from winning your audience. Incorporate explainer videos from influencers sharing the amazing benefits and features of your products.
Personalize your Inspiration Post
While stock images are great, adding UGC images adds a personal touch to your brand. It makes your brand more genuine and authentic. Real lifestyle photos and videos from content creators can make a big difference.
Customers’ Q and A
One way to make the most of your influencer marketing campaign is to let your chosen influencer do the Q and A part of your product. The influencers can respond to frequently asked questions with videos. This type of content can get the most helpful votes from fans and followers which can bump your content to the top.
With people spending most of their time on social media doing their product research, it’s more critical for brands to include influencer marketing in their Amazon marketing strategy. Unlike paid ads, influencers add authenticity and organic social proof, widen the customer base, and establish Trust, credibility, and brand awareness. Retailers can capitalize on influencers’ large following, authenticity, and creativity to drive traffic and sales.