Word-of-mouth has a significant influence on 74% of consumers’ purchasing decisions. The same research indicates it’s a great way to gain new customers as well. That’s fantastic news, right?
It means gaining consumer trust requires less investment in high-dollar celebrity endorsements. The power of influencer marketing is a great way to get your brand message across in a particular niche.
It’s the modern-day version of word-of-mouth advertising. And you can create targeted campaigns according to your current goals and budget. Discover the best influencer marketing tools for SMBs in this post.
Is Influencer Marketing Really Worth It in 2024?
90% of marketers consider influencer marketing effective. This positive sentiment shows that this strategy brought them satisfying results. A brand ambassador who engages with real people on a daily basis is a tremendous help to small and medium-sized businesses.
And no, you don’t need Kim Kardashian or other top-tier influencers raving about your products to get results.
Let’s look at micro-influencer Jess Larson. Her mouth-watering feed on Instagram has earned her 44.1k followers as of writing. Observe how she used her niche to promote a micro-brand specializing in butter and cheese.
Dinner Bell Creamery, a butter, and cheese company has just over a thousand followers. But the post from @playswellwithbutter reached 44 times as many Instagram users as the company. And they did a great job identifying the right influencer who caters to their target audience.
Unfortunately, 61% of marketers find it difficult to scout the right influencers. It’s also a tough job to pick the best influencer marketing tool among the countless choices available.
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To help you get your influencer marketing campaigns rolling or level up the ones you already have, we’ve gone ahead and listed the best influencer marketing tools that are excellent at helping SMBs.
The majority of these influencer marketing platforms have ticked all the boxes:
- A wide variety of influencers at their disposal, making it easier to discover influencers
- Tools that support campaign management and planning
- Communication function to keep in touch with influencers throughout the process
- Analytics tracking and performance monitoring
With these must-haves covered, we focused only on the features that made them stand out.
9 Best Sites and Tools for Influencer Marketing in 2024:
1. Inzpire.me
Inzpire.me is an all-inclusive collaboration tool for scaling influencer marketing efforts. The wide range of their registered creators is ideal for SMBs in targeting specific audience demographics. If your brand is a baby clothing brand, it’s easy to find and contact influencers who mostly post for moms.
Inzpire.me also ensures that campaign planning and management are nothing but a breeze. With the help of relevant tools and a customer support manager. This influencer marketing tool goes the extra mile by ensuring all posted influencer content is reusable and in line with your local marketing regulations.
2. BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo is perfect for in-depth analysis to benchmark your campaigns. Working with an influencer only famous “by the numbers” won’t get you far unless they post high-quality and competitive content.
Moreover, BuzzSumo provides insights from the trendsetters in your industry to overcome the pitfall of those vanity metrics. In terms of cost, it offers flexible pricing for small start-ups and freelancers on a limited budget.
3. Grin
For eCommerce of all sizes looking for full workflow integration, Grin is your option. It’s an all-in-one influencer marketing platform from relationship management to payment solutions. And it’s a powerful one, too. With the help of AI-powered influencer analytics and a market-leading influencer recruitment suite that’s integrated with social listening.
The integration features of this tool extend to eCommerce software like Shopify, Magento, and WooCommerce; communication tools like SMS and Slack; Office tools like Microsoft Office 365 and Google Drive; and payment channels like Paypal and Mastercard.
4. Post for Rent
Post for Rent is your typical influencer marketing tool with data analysis and campaign management but it offers two unique services; Do-it-yourself and Do-it-for-me. If you want a customizable and affordable plan for your campaign needs, here’s our top pick.
Moreover, Post for Rent has handy tools that can save entrepreneurs from headaches, such as contract templates and automated payment features. It’s very accessible for small business owners because the price starts at $5/profile analysis. Simply curate your own subscriptions by ticking the monthly services you need.
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5. Influencity
Influencity has a doppelganger feature showing the next best profile to your ideal choice. It also has an efficient database of your target influencers’ information. With it, you can compare and contrast how they promote other SMBs in one place, but minus the clutter. Given your limited funds, this feature enables you to find the most suitable creator for your brand without trials and errors.
6. Aspire
The most authentic form of word-of-mouth advertising comes from your real customers. The social listening feature of Aspire uncovers people who already love and patronize your brand. It also makes for a smooth collaboration since you can customize workflows for your partner influencers.
For SMB owners, this is a brand visibility booster available in a few clicks. Whether you’re a beauty, fashion, fitness, or food business, this tool can help you build a brand-focused influencer pool.
7. Impact.com
Impact.com is an influencer marketing tool that makes everything easier with its smart Discovery feature. Build your influencer pool by putting your discovery campaigns on autopilot.
The influencer marketing platform focuses on long-term influencer partnerships instead of using influencers as one-time brand ambassadors and it also saves you from wrong investments with its precautions against fraudulent affiliates or influencers.
8. TribeDynamics
The next top-rated influencer marketing tool is TribeDynamics which measures your overall performance, including estimated impressions, detailed engagement rates, and earned media value (EMV). This influencer marketing tool stands out for its in-depth analytics and community breakdown. Both of which are suitable for scaling campaigns.
9. Tagger
Tagger is one of the best influencer marketing tools in 2024. Its reporting and analytics tools also use comprehensive KPIs for more accurate measures. These strengthen influencer strategies using their real-time and customizable modular reports. It also generates reports for both influencer and competitor analytics. Tagger has a full team ready to walk through small businesses and startups in the entire process of their influencer marketing.
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How Do I Find the Right Influencers for My Brand?
From planning to performance tracking, here are the steps to ace your next influencer campaigns:
1. Define Your Influencer Marketing Campaign Goals
Start by asking yourself: Why do I need an influencer? Perhaps your primary goal is to increase brand awareness or drive more website traffic. Ensure that you’re taking the correct steps by narrowing down your options.
Do you want to build hype before the product launch? Or, are you planning to increase your customer base in a specific demographic?
Determining specific goals not only helps map out future campaigns. It also allows you to pick the best influencer marketing tool with ease.
2. Match Your Target Influencers with Your Budget
Budgeting is a crucial task for all SMB investments—and influencer marketing is one of them. There’s no point scrolling through influencer profiles you can’t afford to work with. So, set your goals and determine the amount you plan to spend.
Influencers have different tiers based on their followers. The wider the reach, the higher the rates. When you already have your predetermined budget, it’s easier to pin down your options and avoid overspending, especially if you have several campaigns. Here’s the standard tier of influencers based on their reach:
- Nano-influencers: 1,000 to 10,000 followers
- Micro-influencers: 10,000 to 50,000 followers
- Mid-tier influencers: 50,000 to 500,000 followers
- Macro-influencers: 500,000 to 1,000,000 followers
- Mega-influencers: 1,000,000 and above followers
The payment rates above are not yet final because of other variables. But now—speaking of payment, there are influencer marketing platforms with auto-payment processing features. Autopay eliminates the stress of missing or delaying payments, which can bring extra peace of mind for you as a business owner.
3. Build and Manage Your Target Influencer Pool
If you search for your best influencer but they aren’t available or refuse your offer, you’ll have to begin the process all over again. Create a pool of your target influencers to save yourself from going back to square one.
To supplement your initial options, check out several influencers on Instagram, Facebook, and other channels.
4. Prepare Proposals for Your Influencer Outreach
Tighten your influencer marketing plan with proposals. For nano- to micro-influencers, a more casual way works. Either send them a private message on their social accounts or contact them through the business emails displayed on their profile.
But it’s much better to use platforms to keep all relevant information surrounding your campaign. This applies when working with influencers, regardless of their reach.
Always include backup plans in your outreach campaigns should the influencer reject your offer. Is it about the brief, the rate, the campaign goals, or the turnaround time? Is there a counteroffer? What’s your next step?
An influencer marketing tool that comes with templates and status checklists will make your outreach campaigns more efficient.
5. Track the ROI of Influencer Marketing Campaigns
Influencer marketing doesn’t end once your partner influencers post or mention your brand. Go back to the goals you listed in the first step and the KPIs (key performance indicators) tied to them.
See the following metrics to measure the success of your influencer marketing campaigns:
- Website Traffic
- Ad Clicks
- Post Impressions
- Post Engagements
- Follower Count
- Sales Conversion
Performance tracking also ensures your campaigns’ success despite the inevitable system updates we get from social media platforms. Let’s take the Instagram algorithm that replaced the chronological feed in 2016. This affected the organic reach of Instagram promoters. When you have actual data, you can easily review the effectiveness of your strategies and revise them if needed.
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Conclusion
Influencer marketing offers limitless possibilities for a small business. If there’s the best time to grow your business with this strategy, it’s today and the latest trends declare the same. Invest in the right influencer marketing tool. Find your ideal influencers. Take your small business to greater heights.
