How to Reach a Niche Target Audience on Social Media With Influencers

Influencers are everywhere. They’ve become a mainstay in the social media landscape, and a staple part of the marketing mix for many brands all over the world. As niche content creators with engaged audiences, video influencers are well-positioned as strategic partners in marketing to specific customers. As brands develop and evolve their influencer marketing programs, there are a few key points to keep in mind when leveraging creators to reach a niche target audience on social media.

More Than Top-of-Funnel
Influencer marketing is traditionally seen as a great way for brands to achieve top-of-funnel metrics such as awareness and EMV. However, with the right tools and strategy in place, influencer marketing can also be leveraged as a powerful bottom-of-the-funnel, revenue-generating tactic. Why is it becoming such a viable marketing mix?

First, with the right strategy, using influencers can provide access to specific niche audiences that reach certain customer demographics. Think of them as “pre-targeted” audiences.

Second, with data-driven platforms like MagicLinks that provide historical performance and campaign sales data, brands can now rely on “true” sales ROI instead of only “vanity” metrics like EMV and Impressions.

Match Influencers With Your Customers
Influencer marketing ROI is best achieved through the use of influencers with a deep knowledge of your target market. The key to successful influencer marketing is not just finding creators with a large following, but using creators who have a careful understanding of your desired niche. The perfect influencer has both. Many influencers have such highly curated audiences that, when selected carefully, can lead to increased sales and a stronger brand following for your company.

Once you find quality influencers that align with your company goals, it’s then time to build relationships with them. Many influencers, from macro-level to micro, have opportunities to work with a variety of brands, so the key is making your brand offering stand out. Influencers need to see that you are someone who will be valuable and enjoyable to work with. A few other ways to stand out include: offering unique/personalized incentives, gifting campaigns, giving the influencer creative freedom, and being honest about what you’re looking for.

At MagicLinks, our platform handles A to Z for brands looking to work with influencers to reach niche audiences. Our database of 21k+ carefully vetted influencers are matched to brands using our award-winning Match Intelligence™ database, surfacing the creators with the best brand fit and historical performance data. This allows our team of experts to cast influencers who are most likely to have the best niche audience and engagement with their fans to support successful campaign ROI.

Social media makes it easier than ever to reach audiences that are perfectly matched with your target niche. Marketers can spend hours scraping the web or searching through CRM databases trying to find the right influencers, but without actual performance and historical data, it’s difficult to understand exactly which influencers are going to provide ROI for your specific campaign.

End-to-End platforms like MagicLinks help by bridging the gap of sourcing, matching, managing, and optimizing influencer metrics so you can see stronger results sooner.

Best Tactics for Reaching Niche Audiences With Influencers
There are a variety of ways to work with influencers and content creators, but crafting the winning strategy all depends on your brand’s goals and strategy.

MagicLinks makes this process very simple, and we’re sharing a few tips on how brands can easily integrate into creators’ original social content:

Photo Credit: @nazjaa on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/p/CY9vjBPp8MZ/

Mentions: Getting an influencer to mention your brand on their platforms can instantly provide a lift to your brand awareness and EMV. When working with niche audiences, positive exposure for your brand is likely to entice people to follow you, view your page, or buy your product. Mentions are one of the “lower lift” tactics in influencer marketing, and they can happen as part of a paid campaign, or organically if your audience and interests align well enough. Fostering strong influencer relationships early and putting your brand in front of the right people on social media can be instrumental to building a base of niche creators who are qualified and willing to promote your business.
Influencer Gifting: Gifting campaigns allow influencers to promote a product that they may not have been familiar with previously. In turn, this often feels more authentic and gives their followers more of a desire to purchase the product. To facilitate the gifting process, MagicLinks’ works with brands to connect them with influencers who are the best fit for their products based on reliable data.

Newer brands or brands with leaner budgets can utilize gifting to gain a lot of reach with a modest investment. Gifting is a very cost-effective and resourceful marketing tactic, while also proving to be more useful in the long run. A study by MuseFind reports that 92% of consumers trust an influencer more than an advertisement or traditional celebrity endorsement. With a well-run influencer campaign, you can save money on expensive advertising campaigns and celebrity endorsements while still garnering strong returns from consumers more likely to buy your product.

Campaign Collaborations: Collaborating with an influencer in your niche allows you to fully tap into their dedicated base. A dedicated campaign can amplify your results across carefully selected influencers – and in turn their audiences. At MagicLinks, we use Match Intelligence™ to match brands to creators who are most likely to drive results for their specific target audience.

By ensuring your influencers are curated to match your desired niche, your product will reach their highly targeted audience. These recommendations can be an important driver for your online business. AdWeek reports that in 2019, 49.3% of consumers had made a purchase based upon an influencer’s recommendation and 44.2% of respondents generally trusted the recommendations from influencers.

Depending on your product category, you may want to find influencers with a complimentary niche, so get to know their focus points. Lastly, you want to make sure that the niche influencer is using social media to promote brands they know and care about. When searching for a niche influencer, here are some things you should look for:

Photo Credit: @melhwang on Instagram
Micro that drives sales $$$ like a mega – Mel Hwang

An established social media following: Not all influencers need to have a 1M+ following – in fact, brands can see lift from influencers with less than 5K followers (known as “nano influencers”). When it comes to influencer marketing, size is not as important as a loyal following – specialty and loyalty are often more important
An engaging presence: Does the influencer engage with their fans? Do they keep the conversation going and answer questions when appropriate? Ensure that the influencer you work with is going to create an interesting and enjoyable experience for their fans (aka your potential shoppers). You don’t want a scenario where there are interested buyers in the comments section that are being overlooked or ignored.
Similar interests: Does their audience align with who you’re trying to reach? Equally as important as if the influencer is interested in your market, are they engaged with your audience’s other interests? Make sure the influencer you’re working with isn’t just hitting your niche, but they’re helping you grow and expand your reach with legitimate potential buyers. Struggling to find the right influencers for your brand? Our Match Intelligence™ technology is designed to curate specific influencers for brand collaborations using historical purchase and social media data, ensuring you get the right influencers, every time.

Utilizing influencers to reach a niche audience is an effective way to gain reach and awareness with your target consumers on social media. Be smart about how you choose your influencers and use them to spread positive word of mouth. High-quality influencers create high-quality content, helping you reach consumers in a relevant and interesting way.

It is important to remember that your goal does not have to be immediate; influencer campaign videos can live long after your initial activation and continue to drive ROI for your brand. .

If your business is not already taking advantage of influencer marketing, you can start today. By investing in creators, you can build relationships with them as well as their audiences of engaged consumers.