Many Instagram bloggers are happy to work with businesses and publish posts and stories for products or services of brands. This is the best solution for small companies: the business saves money and gets new leads and sales. We will talk about successful cases of such cooperation and share the secrets of how to make cooperation with influencers more effective.
Content:
1. How Instagram bloggers and businesses cooperate
2. Review for a product as a format for cooperation
3. How to calculate the effectiveness of barter cooperation
4. What to look for when choosing a blogger?
5. How to make cooperation with a blogger on barter successful?
6. How to order barter advertising from a blogger?
7. Conclusion
Influence marketing is rapidly gaining popularity. Many types of businesses have realized the benefits of partnering with bloggers: low traffic, low cost of customer acquisition and conversions, high engagement and rapidly expanding reach. But sometimes cooperation with famous bloggers with a large audience of subscribers is not cheap for a business, especially if he plans to order posts and stories regularly.
On the other hand, if a company is just trying this way of promotion and is not ready to allocate large budgets without testing the possibilities of influencer marketing, in such a situation, cooperation with a blogger by barter would be the best solution. Many of them are happy to make posts and shoot stories in exchange for goods or services of the company. This saves the business money and helps to attract new customers. How to negotiate such cooperation with bloggers will be discussed in our article.
How Instagram bloggers and different types of businesses cooperate on barter: successful cases
KFC prepared the first pink burger for women and presented it to a blogger. The girl posted photos and videos with it on Instagram for several days. The brand in 4 days increased the number of sales by 40 times increased the recognition of the restaurant and the number of customers by two and a half times.
Coffee house "Lady Meringue" took up the promotion of coffee and confectionery. After the opening, the company did not use advertising for 3 months, but promoted only with the help of influencer marketing. Bloggers worked with the brand on a barter basis, which extended to all items on the menu. An influencer could come to an venue and place an order within $15.
When working with bloggers, the coffee house did not set strict rules, but asked them to pay attention to a particular dish, menu in the reviews, expressed a wish about the positioning of the content. Cooperation was carried out with three female bloggers. The coffee shop said that this approach is more effective than one-time reviews.
Basically, it all came down to the fact that the blogger came to the coffee shop, made an order and filmed a story about it with a coffee shop tag in it. Most often it was 10 stories per day for 2-3 months. Bloggers were not chosen by chance, at first they themselves went to the coffee shop and tagged it on Instagram. Noticing this, the brand offered cooperation. As a result, the coffee shop increased sales for positions advertised by bloggers.
Review for a product as a format for cooperation with bloggers on Instagram
Today, a product review has become a popular marketing format, involving the story of the proposed product or its demonstration by a blogger for free use. The brand gives the influencer their products as a reward for the post and its publication. This collaboration has proved highly effective, as influencers are opinion leaders and the main source of information, they often inspire potential customers – their followers – to make a purchase.
If such cooperation is organized correctly, then the selected bloggers will be able to motivate the target audience to buy your products more often. This means your sales will increase. As a result, the company receives not only the flow of new customers for free, but also their trust and loyalty, forms a positive image of the brand, improves communications, because the blogging format is the most relevant way to communicate with subscribers today.
It also happens that bloggers refuse to cooperate on barter or offer businesses to switch to a paid format after they feel the benefits of working on barter. Sometimes influencers turn out to be irresponsible and forget to post on time, miss deadlines, or present the product in a negative light.
I must say that the format of cooperation with bloggers by barter is not suitable for all types of businesses. Small local businesses are unlikely to experience positive results from it. Also, this format will not work if the brand has a poorly designed Instagram account and does not have:
- prices;
- unique selling proposition;
- information about payment and delivery;
- pinned stories;
- professional attractive visual;
- catchy posts at least 10 pcs.
In which sectors does barter cooperation work best:
- online training;
- fitness studios;
- clinics;
- cosmetology;
- food industry.
The list is not full, so it's best to test the results on a case-by-case basis.
How to calculate the effectiveness of barter cooperation with a blogger?
The cost of barter cooperation with a blogger depends on their size. On average, bloggers with an average number of followers charge around $100 per post and $70 per story series. If you cooperate with a blogger for about 20 days with about 10 stories per day, then it will cost the business about $1400.
If you offer a blogger a barter that costs, for example, $15 per day, as the Lady Meringue coffee house did, it turns out that the business will spend $450 per month on the blogger’s services. From these funds it is necessary to subtract the margin and the cost of expenses will decrease even more. As a result, for little money, the company receives almost endless advertising.
What to look for when choosing a blogger?
- Number of subscribers. Usually, the more followers a blogger has, the wider the reach of a post, but macro-influencers are reluctant to collaborate in a product review format. It is better to look for bloggers with 10-50 thousand followers. But sometimes even a blogger with 300 thousand subscribers can agree to cooperate in a barter format if he likes your product, he willingly uses it, and is loyal to the brand.
- Audience engagement. You should not work with influencers, on the pages of which there are a lot of bots. This is a signal of low audience engagement. This figure is easy to calculate: divide the number of comments and likes by the number of followers, and then multiply by 100.
- Content quality. Posting should be regular, photos should be attractive, content should be varied. You should feel the influencer's tone of voice.
- Nishe. The topics covered by the blogger, its geography and target audience must fully fit your brand and match the portrait of your client.
How to make cooperation with a blogger on barter successful?
- Before starting cooperation, it is important to analyze which formats or topics for this or that blogger work better. Determine the percentage of audience involvement, if possible, check the subscribers.
- Talk to the influencer before making a decision. Ask him questions about the format, reactions, target audience. Ask for screenshots of statistics. It also happens that at the beginning of the conversation, the blogger insists on his terms of cooperation. This does not mean that such an influencer should be dismissed immediately. Make him a counter offer on the terms that are beneficial to you. Bloggers do not know that you have come to them with a barter offer that is beneficial to them, but they will gladly agree to it if you tell them about the terms of cooperation.
- To track how many people come to you from bloggers, use a promotional code that will provide subscribers with a discount or a gift. If you need subscribers, you can offer users who came from a story or a blogger's post to name a promo code for free valuable or important information from you. For example, it could be a checklist or a little-known recipe with a secret ingredient revealed. It all depends on the needs of your target audience.
How to order barter advertising from a blogger?
- Determine the goal of your advertising campaign: increase the number of subscribers, increase their activity, increase the average bill, increase the number of sales.
- Study your audience on Instagram: who is your target buyer, what interests does they have, what matters to them and what does not. The more accurately you define the portrait of the target audience, the higher the effectiveness of advertising will be, and the number of errors, for example, when choosing a blogger or developing a creative, will be reduced.
- Choose an influencer by hashtags, competitors' ads, geolocation. They can also be found on special exchanges.
- Carefully study all the selected candidates and offer cooperation to several bloggers you like on barter.
- Develop the terms of reference, indicate in it everything that matters to you: the nature, purpose of the publication, deadlines, unacceptable moments and what needs to be emphasized.
- After the advertising campaign, be sure to evaluate its effectiveness. Ask the blogger to send you statistics or send the influencer a promotional code that will help you record the number of sales using it.
- Be sure to thank the blogger, and if you are convinced of the effectiveness of cooperation, maintain business relations with him.
Conclusion
There are several ways to promote on Instagram with small advertising budgets. But completely free promotion is advertising goods or services from influencers on barter. Startups, small companies, start-up brands will be able to increase their awareness, increase the number of followers, leads and customers without large advertising budgets. But it is also important to advertise your goods or services to a huge audience through barter correctly. In this case, the company without financial expenses will be able to attract the audience as efficiently as possible.
Product reviews allow brands to achieve business goals without spending a lot of money. Micro-influencers willingly agree to such cooperation, they are highly motivated and create quality content. Often such an opinion leader becomes a brand ambassador for a small local company. He makes high-quality reviews that increase the company's sales several times.
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