Influencer marketing has broken through to become one of the forms of advertising that businesses of all sizes are implementing. It is a growing industry that hundreds of thousands of startups and corporations utilize. It is a form of marketing that can help boost sales and brand awareness and is viable on many of today’s most popular social media platforms. One of the primary reasons influencer marketing is becoming integral to many brands’ marketing goals is its cost-effective nature.

One of the benefits of influencer marketing is that it impacts purchase decisions without costing businesses as much as other advertising mediums. It allows brands to reach a broader audience in a scalable way. But just because influencer marketing is typically more cost-effective than many forms of advertising doesn’t mean it can’t be improved upon.

Here are some strategies to improve the effectiveness of your influencer marketing campaign while minimizing your spending.

Target Influencer Gifting as a Priority

Influencer gifting is when brands exchange their product with influencers in exchange for content creation. Rather than paying a hefty fee, influencer gifting allows brands to trade something they typically have in abundance, their own product, for something they need.

Typically, influencer gifting works best with a nano or micro-influencer. These are creators that don’t have the highest follower count but still have an engaged audience. The online influencers with the biggest following won’t be willing to exchange products for posts, as they have a higher value than that and can be paid thousands of dollars per post.

Influencer gifting makes sense as a viable strategy for an influencer marketing campaign because it allows brands to trim a lot of costs. Not every creator will be willing to exchange a post for products, but many will, and if you prioritize this in your campaign, you can gain a lot of exposure at a low cost.

Limit Yourself to a Specific Target Audience

This one is true to all forms of marketing. You must know who your target audience is before you launch your campaign. Knowing which target audiences you are appealing to will allow you to limit your spending by not marketing to the wrong niche. There are influencers who attract a following in every sphere, and utilizing the ones that coincide best with your product will allow you to create more personalized marketing.

Personalization in your advertising is singularly important. According to HubSpot, 99% of marketers say personalization helped advance customer relationships, with 78% saying the impact was strong or extremely strong.

Knowing your target audience and limiting your influencer marketing outreach to that group will allow you to have more lean, targeted marketing campaigns. It will also allow you to appeal to the people within that target audience on a more personal level. By narrowing your focus, you can trim excess out of your campaign for better results.

Work with Many Nano and Micro-Influencers

As mentioned previously, nano and micro-influencers are smaller influencers that can still elevate your brand. While a post from Kylie Jenner will do more for a brand than any micro-influencer could, that is far out of most marketing team’s budgets. Micro and nano-influencers make sense for brands trying to stretch their budget as far as it can go.

You can get your product posted on many different accounts by composing your campaign out of nano and micro-influencers. These creators typically have several thousand followers, and their followers tend to be more engaged. A high engagement rate means that followers pay closer attention to their recommendations, which presents an obvious upside to brands.

Businesses that target smaller influencers can trim their budget while still reaching a considerable number of potential buyers. As well, continued collaboration with smaller influencers can yield significant results, as they potentially transform into brand ambassadors. Rather than spending your entire budget on one influencer, spread your campaign amongst nano and micro-influencers to cut costs and boost effectiveness.

Adjust Your Strategy Over Time

Learning from your previous campaigns is one of the best ways to save money over time. You may not have the perfect influencer marketing outreach from your very first attempt, but if you are willing to learn from your mistakes, you can trim your campaigns into lean, effective forms of marketing.

With marketing insights, you can see what has worked in your campaign and what hasn’t. You can learn more about which influencers have yielded positive results and which haven’t. You can see which targeted areas seem to generate the most traction and attention for your product and where it fails. This will allow you to eliminate aspects of your campaigns that aren’t giving you ROI.

By changing your campaign based on what’s succeeded and what hasn’t, you can cut out areas that aren’t optimized. Make sure you get the most out of your marketing strategy by learning from and tracking your performance.