Elevating Your Brand’s Impact: 5 Reasons and Tips to Collaborate with an Influencer
Hey! It’s 2024, and it’s high time to partner with influencers.
Why? Because all brands do it?
No, not only because practically every brand does it.
In fact, 39% of companies have already worked with up to ten influencers, whereas 12% collaborated with over a thousand influential content creators. As for 2024, influencer marketing spending is projected to reach $7.14 billion from only $2.42 billion in 2019.
There are some serious reasons for influencer collaborations to have taken off. See them all below and then grab the best tips to work with influencers for eCommerce branding and marketing.
5 Killer Reasons to Partner with Influencers
Consider how collaborations with influencers can enhance your brand and business.
Reason #1. Making your brand more visible and credible in the public eye
Picture this.
You break into the room with partying people who don’t know you. You introduce yourself (tell your brand name), but nobody seems to listen or care. You still remain a “no-name.”
Instead, you could collaborate with an influencer, the most charming and magnetic figure at the party, who will show you around and bring you into contact with everyone. You automatically turn from “unrecognizable” to “easily identifiable” or even immensely popular.
It’s also worth knowing that customers may have trust issues with brands, especially lesser-known ones. According to Prove’s report, 81% of consumers worry about possible fraud when they are shopping online. That’s when influencers may become the conductors of your authenticity and credibility. They are trustworthy figures in their circles of influence. Thanks to this, your brand also looks authentic in the eyes of consumers.
Reason #2. Projecting your unique brand values to stand out
When helping you create a strong brand identity, influencers highlight your unique brand mission and values. Notably, it produces an exceptional effect when their values perfectly align with yours.
What can these values be?
To name a few:
- Sustainability
- Dignity and human rights
- Peace
- Creativity
- Fun and inspiration
- Simplicity
- Innovation, etc.
Let’s take Nike as an example.
The company’s core values are innovation, creativity, and inspiration. So, Nike joined forces with football content creator Ben Black (@ben) in an effective influencer campaign on TikTok. Black shared inspiring videos to represent the creative concept of the “magic power” in football driven by Nike’s boots.
The campaign resulted in 317M+ video views and 215K+ new followers.
Reason #3. Enhancing your emotional connection with customers
“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
These words belong to Maya Angelou, and they are 100% true.
Successful influencer collaborations reshape emotional bonds between companies and customers, contributing to emotional branding. In this case, the influencers’ human touch generates a more profound connection, making messages more impactful. An influencer weaves an exciting and compelling narrative around the product so that consumers associate this excitement or fascination with a brand and feel an emotional bond with it.
But why is it crucial?
Consider this. 76% of people will pick a company they feel emotionally connected to over a competitor.
Reason #4. Achieving personalization and providing tailored offers
Every influencer knows their followers’ needs and preferences perfectly well. So, brands in partnerships with influencers use this information to tailor offers to those tastes. Each influencer-promoted product or service feels like a personalized recommendation, converting people to buy.
As many as 58% of Gen Zers and 56% of Millennials purchased products endorsed by social media content creators. And 60% of shoppers become repeat customers if they get personalized offers. The above facts predetermine another reason to collaborate with influencers. 
Reason #5. Skyrocketing sales
Influencers possess an inherent capacity to build trust with the audience. Their authentic brand storytelling methods are powerful drivers of consumer behavior. An endorsement from an influencer draws higher user engagement and encourages a considerable boost in purchases.
Here’s some evidence to pinpoint that. 82% of brands believe the lead’s quality from influencer campaigns is better than in any other promotion, and 75% notice direct sales from influencer partnerships.
For example, brands like Daniel Wellington, Gymshark, and HiSmile have made millions via influencer marketing.
“If you work alone developing a small business and hesitate on how to start collaborating with influencers, you might need to find a manager, SMM person or content creator,” says Robert Kaskel, Chief People Officer at Checkr. “Delegate the task to set a direction but not to get lost in operational tasks”
5 Best Practices for Influencer Partnerships
Below are the surefire tactics to try when working with influencers.
Collaborate with influencers from your niche
Most influencers tend to work within a particular niche: fitness, beauty, lifestyle, or tech. Their content consistently focuses on their expertise, making them authoritative voices in their respective domains.
That is why, when associating with an influencer within your brand’s niche, you achieve consistency, leverage their expert standing, and, by extension, gain credibility.
A pro tip comes from Jerry Han, CMO at PrizeRebel, who advises brands to encourage influencers to test and review their products or services. He says, “Influencers specializing in your niche can provide detailed reviews or tutorials. These honest insights help people understand the product/service better. Such content diminishes doubts or apprehensions, nudging followers closer to your brand.”
PrizeRebel, for instance, engages with niche influencers through the referral program. YouTube content creators such as Vinsane (118K subscribers) and Mr. Money (228K subscribers), who share online money-making tips and passive income ideas, demonstrate PrizeRebel in action and invite their audiences to follow their referral links.
Pick different channels for influencer marketing
Let’s look at these top three places where you can run influencer campaigns:
- Website
- Social media
Website
Bombas featured the Sophia Roe collection on the e-store’s homepage after successful cooperation with award-winning chef Sophia Roe, a food influencer.
Social media
Take a glimpse of influencer marketing campaigns on Facebook (now Meta), TikTok, and Instagram.
- Meta
MySwitzerland partnered with Roger Federer and Trevor Noah to promote the Grand Train Tour of Switzerland on Meta.
- TikTok
A comedian and social media influencer, Daniel Labelle, helped OnePlus promote the OnePlus Open with a hilarious video on TikTok.
Episoft picked Hema Rawat (@that_pahadi_girl_) for an influencer partnership on Instagram. The nano-influencer (<10,000 followers) leveraged video content to enhance the brand’s identity.
Let’s look at this email of Sigma Beauty collaborating with an influencer in the beauty industry, Alexandra Anele.
The brand also instantly grabs the customer’s attention with the influencer’s name in the subject line (NEW! Alexandra Anele Favorites Set) and uses a persuasive email call-to-action, Shop Now.
Try out influencer giveaways
Even without influencers, giveaways work like a charm. Mainly, it’s noticeable on Instagram. An Instagram account running a giveaway or content increases the follower base by 70% faster in three months.
Influencer-driven giveaways have a double effect on followers. On the one hand, they give the perspective of winning a prize, and on the other, they use the influencer’s authority to the fullest. This way, such content stimulates user engagement more effectively on Instagram or any other social media.
Take a glimpse of several examples.
The Instagram reel below is a giveaway organized by Orange Fashion Village, a fashionable clothing company working with influencer and Canadian TV host Carrie Olver. It was dedicated to Mother’s Day.
Another example:
This time, it’s an influencer giveaway on TikTok. True Gum entered into an influencer collaboration with Kelly Louise Killjoy, a Danish TikTok creator, and launched a TikTok giveaway together.
Catch up with trends – strike while the iron is hot
Trends are the phenomena that grab and hold people’s attention and typically ignite a hurricane of emotions.
Max Wesman, Founder & COO of GoodHire points out that “They can be based on movies, cultural phenomena, social movements and events in the world. They can be about overcoming injustice, supporting self-confidence, helping nature and people. From the point of view of online presence, those are topics that cause discussions in society, make them write comments and choose their favourites. It is crucial to choose the values you stand for.”
And while this whirlwind lasts, businesses can easily ride on the trends’ coattails when dealing with influencers.
A superb example would be Joybird, a home décor business. After the Barbie movie, the company hopped on the all-pink trend and enrolled in a paid influencer partnership to boost the brand’s impact on Instagram. Joybird collaborated with @ChrissaSparkles, a performer and clothing designer, to showcase the Barbie-style furniture.
But how do you know what is trending on which platform? How to analyze the market and spot trendy topics?
The following trend-tracking tools can help you stay on top of trends:
- Google Trends
- TrendHunter
- Talkwalker
- TrendWatchers
- SparkToro
- Trends.co
- BuzzSumo or similar social media analytics tools.
Create scarcity and FOMO with a limited edition endorsed by an influencer
The sense of scarcity and the fear of missing out (aka FOMO) are the two most powerful psychological drivers in marketing.
When telling consumers there’s a limited supply, you immediately evoke the feeling of scarcity. People feel the lack of goods and want to stock up with them. Regarding FOMO, it is the state that makes people seize the opportunity or offer before somebody else does.
These two work successfully in duet. That is why brands use them in combination when engaging with influencers.
And that is what TABASCO did when collaborating with an influencer. The brand released a limited edition of hot sauce dressing with Christina Najjar, better known as Tinx, a TikTok creator.
Tinx has already collaborated with Chipotle, one of the world’s most famous restaurant names. They created the “Tinx bowl” together. And this is another excellent example of scarcity and FOMO reinforced by influencer marketing. Tinx’s signature on the bowl was available only when ordering online for a limited time, between April 28 and April 30, 2023.
Ready to Work with an Influencer and Elevate Your Brand?
As you strive to win customers in today’s highly competitive environment, an influencer partnership is a perfect solution to boost your brand’s visibility, emphasize your specific values, strengthen the emotional connection with your target audience, personalize offers, and, ultimately, generate sales.
This guide has demonstrated how to collaborate with influencers and maximize your brand’s impact on the web. Now, it’s time to craft a winning influencer marketing strategy, incorporating the ideas we have suggested.
So, have you rolled up your sleeves yet?
