Influencer marketing has become the number one way to drive traffic and sales for brands, especially e-commerce businesses. It offers an authentic way to connect with target audiences, build brand awareness, and drive sales. But most people have no idea what influencer marketing really costs? That’s a question many entrepreneurs and brand owners ask, especially when launching a new brand with Shopify.

Case Study

Earlier this year, we launched a brand new store for our client Jonas, who currently operates the CuppaDecor brand using the Shopify platform. In just 127 days, we achieved a total of 165 orders, all thanks to influencer marketing.

To achieve this growth, we ultimately shipped almost £2,400 worth of free gifted products to influencers who curated content and promoted products to their audiences. This method has proven itself time and time again to be both effective and cost-efficient (when compared to paid advertising), and I'm about to share how you can use the same strategy for your brand.

Next we'll break down the costs of influencer marketing, what you should expect to pay, and how you can leverage influencers to grow your brand with Shopify.

Free product gifting is low-cost, high impact

One of the most affordable ways to get started with influencer marketing is through free product gifting. This is where you send your products to influencers in exchange for social media content and promotions to their followers.

When we launched CuppaDecor, we simply handed out free £20 Gift Vouchers to influencers who aligned with the brand and the type of products that we sold. These influencers then simply curated content and promoted the products that they themselves chose to order using their vouchers, and shared this content with their audiences which ultimately drove all of the organic traffic and sales and still remains the primary method of traffic growth to this day.

Here’s 3 reasons why this works

• Influencers are trusted by their followers, and their recommendations feel more genuine than any paid advertising that you can do.
• You will receive high-quality user-generated content (UGC) that can be repurposed and posted on your own social media channels.
• Partnering with the right influencers ensures you’re reaching an audience that’s already interested in the products that you sell.

So what does it actually cost?

• Your product cost + shipping fees.

For CuppaDecor, we charged influencers a flat-rate per order shipping fee of £5.00 GBP for standard delivery anytime a gifted voucher was redeemed, or we made delivery free whenever they spent £5 or more. Doing this provides two incredibly important benefits to you and your brand.

• Making influencers pay something reduces the likelihood of attracting those who just want free product and have no intention of ever promoting your brand.
• The cash collected will offset your own shipping costs when you fulfil gifted orders for influencers.

Why you should focus on working with Micro-influencers

Micro-influencers should not be overlooked as they will often have highly engaged audiences and are more likely to accept your offer. In most cases, they will be willing to collaborate in exchange for just free products, which helps to keep your marketing costs as low as possible when you're just starting out.

We would consider a micro-influencer as anyone with between 1,000–15,000 followers. Simply by targeting these people when you're just starting out will result in a significantly higher response rate from those you invite to join your ambassador program. This is both a time efficient and cost-effective way for you to start working with influencers right away, and will enable you to start building a team of brand ambassadors who will promote your brand to their audiences on a regular basis.

Recurring partnerships and building your team

When we launch brands such as CuppaDecor, we use a combination of monthly recurring vouchers and affiliate commission to keep influencers onboard and promoting our products to their audiences on a regular basis. These ongoing partnerships work well when the influencers are highly motivated by commission-based structures, and means that you’re only paying influencers based on the actual revenue that they drive for your brand.

With an affiliate commission model, you’re only paying for results.

Content Usage Rights

Something to consider right from the start are content usage rights. If you plan to use influencer-generated content for any paid advertising, social media posts, or other commercial purposes, you'll want to make sure to include those terms in your amabassador program. This will ensure that you always have 100% full rights to reuse any content that influencers curate for your own marketing purposes.

How we can help you get sales and grow?

For our client Jonas, and many others who we've helped, influencer marketing remains the number one way to drive traffic and sales in all of these stores. It plays a critical role in the success that these brands have had in getting their stores not only up and running, but actually provides a pathway to scale simply by increasing the number of influencers that you choose to work with. We fundamentally believe that you will achieve similar results with exactly the same methods that we use time and time again for these brands.

That’s why we've developed our Influencer Marketing Coaching Program. In just 30 days we teach you our exact method for building and operating a successful brand ambassador program that does help brands just like yours not only get off the ground, but to scale and get results like you've never seen before.

Learn more →