Whether you’re an aspiring online entrepreneur or an established brand, you know that trust equals credibility. The more consumers trust your brand, the more they will share positive experiences with others. Nano-influencer marketing is one trust-building strategy you should explore.
Nano influencer marketing offers a fresh and effective approach to enhancing brand awareness and audience engagement. In this article, we will explain how effective nano influencer marketing is, the methods it involves, and best practices for a successful campaign.
At the end of this article, you will have a better understanding of how it differs from other influencer marketing strategies. You will also learn practical strategies for identifying and collaborating with nano influencers. Let’s begin.
Is Nano Influencer Marketing Effective?
Yes, it’s highly effective. A large social media following is good, but it doesn’t always equate to a more significant impact. This makes nano influencers your strong ally because they have a small yet loyal and engaged audience.
These social media users genuinely care about the influencer’s content and exchange meaningful interactions. So, no matter what they recommend, it will carry weight with their followers. This makes them a credible source of information within their niche. ReferralRock’s survey further proves its effectiveness at driving engagement (average engagement rate of 7.62).
You can partner with nano influencers as your word-of-mouth marketers. But before you send out your pitch, establish an authentic connection first. It will help you understand their values, the type of content they create, and overall personal brand.
Everything should match your brand’s messaging and values. This will make their content or recommendation feel more organic and less like an advertisement. You can take Transparent Labs™ as an inspiration. The brand’s primary products are pre-workout vitamins and supplements. So, they only partner with nano influencers focusing on bodybuilding and other fitness-related niches.
Becky Wang is one of their partners with a 3,297 follower count. She’s an excellent choice because she naturally injects her choice of pre-workout supplements with her workout routine. One of her Instagram content includes her reasons for taking pre-workout supplements while showing the preparation process.
Here are practices you can do to establish a connection:
- Engage with their content: Follow, like, comment, and/or share
- Offer value first: Before asking for collaboration, you must offer something that aligns with their interests (sample products, informative guides, etc.)
- Write a personalized message: Be straightforward about your intention and mention specific content, or aspects of it, that resonates with your brand
- Allow creative freedom: Trust the influencers in expressing their unique style and voice
- Respect boundaries: Make sure to respect the nano influencer’s personal and professional boundaries (time, space, and preferences)
6 Methods To Make Money With Nano Influencer Marketing
Dash reports that a brand can get a $4.87 ROI for every $1 spent on influencer marketing. So, this is the best time to collaborate with nano influencers. Here, we’ll discuss strategies, best practices, and examples that can help maximize your impact and ROI.
1. Product Reviews
Today, 95% of consumers read online reviews before buying a product. That’s why brands gather authentic customer feedback online and make them accessible to potential customers. Its primary goal is to educate the audience about their product/service’s benefits, drawbacks, and features.
With nano influencers’ niche expertise and relatable persona, their reviews provide more impact. Since they know their loyal audience well, they can explain a specific product or service according to their preferences.
How does it work? If you have a physical product, you can send it to the nano influencers’ address (send an access link for digital products). They can start creating the review after thoroughly exploring the product. Based on social media channels’ trends, unboxing videos are increasingly popular. One excellent example is Homestead Homemaker, with 9,570 subscribers on YouTube.
For this unboxing video, she helps her grandmother set up the new personal medical alert device. Upon opening the box, she introduces each item (alert button, locks, etc.) for the viewers to see their actual appearances. It’s an effective way to show if it looks the same as advertised.
She explains the setup process step by step in the simplest way possible. Lastly, she let her grandmother test the device to show how to use it. This video is so relatable because every family has an elderly loved one who they want to keep safe from accidents.
Create a landing page so, if your target audience is interested, they can easily find where to buy it. The landing page should also have useful articles to help them narrow down their options. You can include side-by-side medical alert solution comparisons to see their strengths and weaknesses. You can also point out the latest technology available for home and mobile devices.
How To Calculate Product Review’s ROI
Nano influencer’s product reviews focus more on raising brand awareness. It may not translate to immediate sales, but it will still have a long-term impact on your ROI. Most brands use a tracking platform to check their influencer marketing campaign’s performances. Google Analytics can tell you where your visitors came from (social, email, or organic) and their engagement rate.
Some also provide a unique discount code per nano influencer. Metrilo’s Campaign Manager is a handy tool for quickly determining conversion value and ROI per campaign. Click the manage campaign button to filter campaigns per influencer.
2. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing focuses on promotional content. For every traffic and sales the nano influencers generate for the brand, they will receive a specific amount of commission. So, it’s the type of influencer marketing campaign you must run to secure a more substantial return on investment (ROI).
It starts with brands setting up an affiliate marketing program with specific requirements and terms. These requirements align with the brand’s image and products/services to ensure the influencers who will join are a natural fit. The influencer’s followers must also match the brand’s target demographic and interests.
Like in product reviews, you can directly approach the nano influencers and offer them partnerships. Provide them with tools, resources, referral links, and compensation rates if they agree to join. The referral links serve as the influencer’s unique ID to easily track their performance and commissions.
In setting the affiliate commission rates, it will depend on your business status. If you’re a small business, you can start with a low commission and increase as it grows. It’s also acceptable to offer lower commissions for high-value products. Shop Solar is an excellent example, offering a maximum of 6% commission for every sale of custom solar kits and components.
It looks small at a glance. However, with the average order value to meet, the influencers can still earn a good amount of money. The best part of it is that the brand didn’t set a limit on the earnings. So, you can make more as you wish.
One brand that offers a generous commission percentage and has a simple requirement is Colorcinch. You can earn a 30% commission for as long your referral stays as an active user of their photo editor.
The brand also offers a wide window to earn a commission. For example, your visitor clicks your referral link. They have 3 months to buy a subscription plan. This allows your visitors to explore it first, risk-free. At the Basic account, they can access several effects, change image background, and other editing features. Once they are satisfied, they can get a subscription plan, and you’ll get your commission.
Implementing efficient referral marketing software can streamline and enhance the management of the affiliate program, ensuring smooth operations and effective tracking of referrals.
3. Sponsored Post
Relatable and high-quality content is always the key to getting a bigger impact on your audience and bottom line. So, you should add content marketing strategies to your influencer marketing campaign. One effective strategy to implement is sponsored posts. You can pay a specific influencer for a partnership.
Before you create compelling content, you should decide first what online platform to focus on.
Here are 2 popular options you can use:
3.1 Social Media Platforms
Most brands target social media platforms because that’s where real people stay the most. Not to mention, it can spark immediate engagement through clicks, comments, likes, and shares. Here’s what a sponsored post looks like for Instagram.
When creating sponsored posts for social media channels, include a disclosure of the partnership. You can write it on the post’s description/caption using hashtags #ad and #sponsored. If you create video content, you can say it.
3.2 Blog
Sponsored posts are not only limited to social channels. Nano influencers can also add it to their blog. Blog posts are best for long-term reach, thanks to search engines like Google indexing them. This means it will continue to attract organic traffic as long as the content remains relevant and includes proper SEO practices.
You may help in providing SEO keywords to ensure they match your website’s target keywords. The Adult Man blog is one example to cite, providing practical men’s fashion and lifestyle advice.
It’s an influencer’s blog and they were asked to write an honest review about Onnit’s health supplements. They start the blog by addressing the primary concerns of consumers when considering buying health supplements for digestive issues. Is it worth it? Can it support your digestive health in the long run?
Asking these questions helps the product connect with the audience. They also share their personal experiences about the product to create emotional connections. The more they can relate to the influencer’s story or experience, the more likely they will trust the brand.
As the viewers read more, the better information they get. The influencer explains the available digestive health supplements, discusses their ingredients, and how often to consume them.
4. Guest Post
Nano influencers are known for creating authentic content that resonates deeply with their audience. You (the brand) can invite them to write a guest post on your blog to leverage their creativity and skills. Let’s say your brand is an online learning platform offering various educational courses and resources.
You can invite education-focused influencers to write guest posts about their learning experience and success stories on your platform. If the influencers are experts in their field, they can also provide recommendations and tutorials.
Here are some examples:
- Language Influencers: Provides language learning advice and inspiration
- EdTech Influencers: Share hacks, insights, tools, and educational technology practices
- Online Course Instructors: Give out tools and best practices for creating effective online courses and learning experience
Education Evolving sets an excellent example for adapting guest post strategy into their blog.
Guest posting will boost your blog’s brand awareness and social media presence. Simply because the nano influencers will likely share the guest article throughout their social networks. You can make it mutually beneficial to the nano influencers as well.
Two ways to do this are to add their online platforms’ links to the content and compensate them. People become an influencer to earn money, so make sure to pay their time and effort fairly. The standard rates per post range from $10 to $100. But you can always change as you see fit.
Once the nano influencer agrees, draft and sign a collaboration agreement. The agreement will cover the brand’s expectations, deadlines, content guidelines, and compensation.
5. Live Interaction
Nano influencers may not be like celebrity influencers with millions of followers, but they have a loyal following. They establish a strong sense of community within their audience through live interaction. With the unfiltered communication of live sessions, their audience can see the authenticity of their true selves in action.
Most major brands in eCommerce collaborate with influencers to host a live shopping session. The influencer shows the product and provides valuable insights about it. They can also immediately provide answers if their audience raises doubts or questions. Here’s a sample of live shopping for inspiration.
You can also use live sessions to educate your target audience about various topics related to your industry, products, or services. This will position your brand as an expert. Spartacus MMA sets an excellent example in using live interaction through live streaming.
Here, they share MMA entertainment and combat sports content. They also invite athlete influencers and professionals to discuss an upcoming event or specific topic (ex. methods to end a resignation fight).
When you plan to do live sessions, choose the nano influencers who are comfortable speaking in front of the camera. They should also interact naturally with the audience to make them feel welcome and build rapport.
Here are other best practices you should apply:
- Discuss guarantees and return policies
- Provide a discount code and giveaways
- Display real-time pricing, stock level, and availability
- Share direct links or QR codes for a seamless shopping experience
6. Collaborative Giveaways
Influencers are known for handing out giveaways to thank their audience’s constant support. Brands can take this as an opportunity to promote their products. Influencers can introduce the products to a broader audience in a friendly and engaging way. Since there is no selling involved, the endorsement will look more natural.
Another advantage of giveaways is the amount of data you can gather from real people. Giveaways require the audience to submit valuable data like email address, location, and preferences. This data is helpful for your future marketing initiatives.
Giveaways are not only in the form of products. You can also provide exclusive access to digital resources. Let’s say you’re a digital marketing agency for example. You can give out free eBooks about understanding the elements of digital marketing, building effective content strategy, and more.
Here are more free giveaways to give you an idea:
- Services & Software: Trials and premium access
- Educational Platforms: Access to course materials and lectures
- Video Conferencing Apps: Access to video messaging, collaboration, and meeting management tools (1-on-1 and group)
Summary – How To Make Money With Nano Influencer Marketing
The popularity of nano influencer marketing is constantly rising. So, it’s the best time to add effective nano influencer marketing strategies to your 2024 marketing goals. When choosing nano influencers, analyze their audience, engagement, and previous work. These factors will give you an idea of how well they engaged their audiences in the past.
Evaluate their values as well. Nano influencers will represent your brand, so they must share similar values as yours. Lastly, offer valuable content to your audience at all times. Influencers may be good at entertaining and inspiring others, but the primary key that interests the audience is your content. Provide a relatable and human touch to your content to foster a healthy community.
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Burkhard Berger is the founder of Novum™. He helps innovative B2B companies implement revenue-driven SEO strategies to scale their organic traffic to 1,000,000+ visitors per month. Curious about what your true traffic potential is?