How To Find The Best Micro-Influencers To Work With Your Brand Long-Term

Influencer marketing has become integral to any brand's marketing strategy, and for good reason. By partnering with micro-influencers - influencers who don't necessarily have a large following, but the following they do have is very engaged - brands can tap into new audiences and drive sales. Working with several micro-influencers long-term in an affiliate-style program (often deemed a "brand ambassador program") has proven to be an exceptionally successful form of influencer marketing for thousands of businesses.

But, finding the right micro-influencers to join your program can be daunting. How do you find people who align with your brand values and will effectively promote your products or services to their audience? And how do you get them to sign up for your program once you find them? 

In this blog post, we'll give you some tips on how to effectively recruit micro-influencers to join your program, including how to discover the right influencers, how to use the Buzzbassador landing page and application form to get them to sign up, and how to use incentives to entice them to join. Follow these tips and you'll be well on your way to building a successful influencer marketing program.

Leveraging Customer Loyalty to Find Influencers

Finding customers who have purchased from your brand multiple times is a great place to start. These people are already fans of your products, so they will likely be more receptive to working with you as an influencer. Since you're aiming to find micro-influencers, it's not required that these customers have a large social media audience. They could bring in sales for your business as long as they have people who trust their opinions and recommendations - whether work colleagues, family, friends or social media followers. So, there is no harm done in equipping these customers with an affiliate link or promo code and having them work with you long-term to drive sales. Their content will come across as even more genuine, as they are loyal customers.

To identify these loyal customers, start by accessing your customer data in Shopify. Here, you can track purchases and customer information to identify customers who have made multiple purchases from your brand. You could also identify loyal and happy customers by seeing which ones have left you a positive review on your website or who have already posted about you on social media (check your mentions on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok!). Once you've identified these customers, you can contact them via email or social media to ask if they would be interested in joining your influencer program. We'll get to that step shortly!

What if you're just starting out and don't yet have customers, or you've been doing this for a while and have already exhausted that channel? Keep on reading for more ideas.

Finding Influencers on TikTok's Creator Marketplace

TikTok's Creator Marketplace is an excellent tool for brands looking to find influencers who align with their brand. The platform connects brands with creators looking to collaborate, making it easy for brands to find the right influencers for their campaigns.

To use TikTok's Creator Marketplace, create a campaign on the platform. This will allow you to specify your target audience and the type of content you are looking for. Then, use the search function to find creators who match your target audience and fit your brand's aesthetic. You can search by location, audience size, content categories, and more to find the right influencers for your program.

Once you've identified some potential influencers, reach out and ask them if they would be interested in working with your brand long-term as a part of your affiliate-style program. Be sure to clearly explain the benefits of collaborating with your brand and provide any details they need to know about your offering. 

Finding the Perfect Influencers with Buzzbassador Discovery

If you don't want to spend time searching through a marketplace or your customer history, your best option is to use Buzzbassador Discovery! Our Discovery feature makes it easy for brands to find influencers who are the perfect fit for their program. It's designed to be completely hands-free for merchants; our internal team of influencer & creator experts will scour the internet to find you the perfect micro-influencer matches for your unique brand & target audience.

To use our Discovery, you can simply input your search criteria via an easy form to get started, and we do the rest. Next thing you know, you'll receive 25 warm intros to vetted creators (that are willing to work in your defined budget!) in your email inbox

To get started with Buzzbassador Discovery, join our platform & submit a Discovery match request form from within the app! 

Onboarding Your Newly Found Influencers

Now that you know how to find potential influencers for your program, it's time to start recruiting and onboarding them to your program. One way to do this is using Buzzbassador's landing page and application form. These tools are designed to help brands recruit influencers and simplify onboarding by automatically setting them up with an affiliate link and promo code, a personal analytics dashboard, and more.

To use the landing page and application form, simply direct potential influencers to the landing page, where they can learn more about your program and its benefits. From there, they can fill out the intake form to submit essential details like their email address, social media profiles, preferred promo code format, and more. You can also use the application form to add custom fields that ask for qualifying information, like whether the influencer is willing to work with you long-term, details about the influencer's social media audience and posting schedule, and more. This information can help determine if the influencer is a good fit for your program. 

Once you've received the submitted forms from potential influencers, you can review them and decide which influencers to officially activate as a member of your program!‍

An Extra Tip: Ensure you are offering competitive incentives and compensation as a part of your influencer program. Influencers are more likely to sign up for your program and agree to work with you long-term if you make them feel valued, appreciated, and fairly compensated. Consider offering them cash compensation (i.e., revenue share), exclusive discounts, free products, and other perks. To learn more about our tips for influencer compensation, check out this excerpt here, as well as this article.

Wrapping Up

Recruiting influencers to join your program can be challenging, but it's an important step in building a successful influencer marketing campaign. Following the tips and strategies outlined in this blog post, you can effectively find and recruit influencers who align with your brand values and will help you reach new audiences. Don't be afraid to get creative and think outside the box when finding and recruiting influencers. By offering great incentives, pulling from your already-loyal community, utilizing platforms like TikTok's Creator Marketplace, and leveraging tools like Buzzbassador' Discovery, you can build a strong and diverse team of micro-influencers who will help you take your brand to new heights.