Marketing is no longer reserved for big brands with deep pockets. Small businesses can now harness the power of micro and nanoinfluencers to grow their brand, increase engagement, and drive sales—all without spending a fortune. In this post, we’ll walk you through how influencer marketing works for small businesses and how you can leverage it to your advantage.
Small businesses often face challenges such as limited budgets and stiff competition. Influencer marketing offers a way to connect directly with niche audiences and build trust through authentic endorsements. Here’s why it works so well:
Unlike celebrities or macroinfluencers, who can charge tens of thousands of dollars for a single post, micro and nanoinfluencers offer much more affordable rates. These influencers often work for product exchanges, smaller fees, or performance-based compensation, which makes them ideal for businesses with tighter marketing budgets.
Microinfluencers and nanoinfluencers have built strong relationships with their followers. Their content feels more authentic, as they tend to promote products they genuinely use and believe in. Followers see them as real people rather than celebrities with brand deals, which fosters a sense of trust and loyalty. For small businesses, this means that influencer endorsements feel more like personal recommendations rather than paid advertisements.
One of the biggest advantages of influencer marketing for small businesses is the ability to reach niche audiences. Micro and nanoinfluencers tend to specialize in specific areas, such as beauty, fitness, or tech, and have followers who share those interests. This makes it easier for small businesses to target exactly the right audience for their products or services. Instead of spending money on broad, untargeted ads, small businesses can work with influencers whose followers are already interested in what they have to offer.
By leveraging micro and nanoinfluencer marketing, small businesses can build authentic relationships, grow their brand visibility, and reach the right audience—all while staying within their marketing budget. That’s insane ROI if you ask me.
Influencer marketing is growing rapidly worldwide and in the Philippines. Globally, the influencer marketing industry is expected to reach $24 billion by the end of 2024, a significant increase from previous years. In the Philippines, 70% of online consumers have purchased a product based on an influencer’s recommendation, highlighting the effectiveness of this strategy in the local market. The country also has one of the highest proportions of internet users following influencers, making it an ideal channel to reach your target market.
Sounds too good to be true? Well, influencer marketing can be tricky, and it requires a lot of analysis and in-depth strategies to get the most out of it. It’s not some easy hack that’ll turn your brand into a consumer giant overnight. It can be a complete mess and waste of time if not thought out properly. Do it the right way, however, and it’ll work wonders for you.
Or you can let an agency do it for you.
Before reaching out to influencers, you need to have a clear understanding of who your audience is. Are they Millennials interested in beauty products, Gen Z gamers, or busy moms looking for convenience? The more specific you can be, the easier it will be to find influencers who speak directly to your potential customers. Think about your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) and that should be a good starting point already. This sounds like common sense, right? But a lot of brands seem to skip this step. It’s a recipe for disaster, trust me.
This is arguably the most crucial and analytical part of the process, at least in the eyes of our experts. We go more into detail over this in another article, but here’s a brief overview of what to look out for when picking out the perfect micro and nanoinfluencers for your brand.
This is the simplest measure of an influencer’s size, but it’s important not to get too caught up in follower count—especially for small businesses. While follower numbers can give you an idea of reach, it doesn’t tell the full story. Many accounts can be inflated with fake or inactive followers, which won’t translate into real engagement or results for your brand.
In the eyes of our experts, engagement rate is one of the simplest and most effective ways to gauge the quality of an influencer's audience. While follower count shows reach, a high engagement rate indicates an active, loyal audience that truly interacts with the content. This makes engagement a far more valuable metric, as it shows the influencer’s ability to spark genuine interest and trust.
There are a lot of tools and ways to calculate this online, but here's one from trendHERO for Instragram and another from HypeAuditor for TikTok.
Pro Tip: Micro and nanoinfluencers often have higher engagement rates compared to bigger influencers or celebrities, as they have a closer, more personal connection with their followers.
We believe this is one of the most important data points to keep in mind when looking into an influencer. Now that you have your target audience, it’s important to ask, does this influencer’s audience match your ICP?
Ask yourself:
A cosmetics brand selling contours probably wouldn’t do so well with someone like Mr.Beast, whose audience primarily consists of teenage boys. Though important, it can be very difficult to get your hands on such data points as most platforms don’t allow you to peer into the in-depth profile analytics of influencers.
There are a bunch of tools you can use, but even without them, you can get a general gist or idea of an influencer’s audience by simply watching their content and reading their comments or engagement.
Look at the influencer’s past content. Do they create authentic, high-quality posts, or do their sponsored posts feel overly promotional and forced? Authenticity is key, as their followers are more likely to respond positively to genuine recommendations.
Review previous brand collaborations the influencer has done. Have they worked with similar brands or industries? More importantly, how did their audience respond?
Pro Tip: If they have worked with your direct competitors, be cautious. You may want to avoid overlapping influencers unless they’ve delivered excellent results for similar brands.
Again, there’s a bunch of other data points to look at, but that’s a quick TLDR. You can read about it here. At the end of the day, building influencer marketing strategies, should go beyond just the numbers, so it’s important always to conduct an eye test and watch their content.
Work with influencers to create genuine, engaging content that fits both your brand and their style. Authenticity is key—followers trust influencers who promote products they truly believe in.
When doing so, make sure to give the influencer freedom to create the content. After all, they are the experts here, right? However, it’s equally important to make sure that the content being produced resonates with your brand identity as well. It’s a matter of balance between both.
Before launching a campaign, decide what you want to achieve. Is it more brand awareness, website traffic, or direct sales? Once your campaign is live, use tracking tools to monitor its performance. Focus on metrics such as engagement, reach, and conversions to measure success. That way, you can easily define your ROI and garner insights that you can use to improve on campaigns moving forward.
BONUS TIP: If you’re a small business with limited marketing budget, you can tap nanoinfluencers who might be willing to offer their promotions and services in exchange for your products.
Ready to reach your target audience with Influencer marketing and UGC? We're offering 5 free consultations for the month of October! Talk to one of our experts now.
A fast-growing baby milk bottle startup in Australia struggled to see meaningful engagement and ROI from their traditional influencer campaigns. They were spending heavily on big macroinfluencers, but the results were falling short. Looking for a more effective approach, they partnered with us to leverage mommy micro and nanoinfluencers in Australia instead
We identified a group of passionate and trusted mommy influencers with a strong following of parents. By creating authentic, relatable content that resonated with their audiences, we aimed to drive higher engagement and brand affinity.
The content was very simple. A huge selling point for the bottle is the durability and the fact that it's spill-proof. We decided to leverage it by asking these mommy influencers to compile cute baby bloopers using the bottle. These included clumsy drops or spills, highlighting the strong points of the product, while also being entertaining and baby-fever inducing (is that a word?) for the audience.
Results:
One of the greatest benefits of influencer marketing is its measurable ROI. Whether you’re running brand awareness campaigns or aiming for direct conversions, you can track how much engagement and sales each campaign generates. For small businesses, this ability to measure impact ensures you’re getting the most out of your marketing dollars (or pesos).
Influencer marketing is a powerful, cost-effective tool for small businesses looking to grow their brand and connect with their audience. By partnering with micro and nanoinfluencers, you can create authentic campaigns that drive real results—without needing a massive budget.
Ready to reach your target audience with Influencer marketing and UGC? We're offering 5 free consultations for the month of October! Talk to one of our experts now.
