Why work with a niche influencer? Or, if you’ll allow us to rephrase ‘What are the benefits of working with a niche influencer?’ 

At TrueFanz, we’ve helped many niche influencers monetize their content and worked collaboratively with a few. 

So YES, we understand the benefits of having an influencer back your online activities and their impact on bottom-line discussions.

In this piece, we’ll talk about what niche influencers are, plus a handful of learnings. 

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What Are Niche Influencers?

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Niche influencers are content creators addressing a small part of an otherwise saturated market. 

These creators possess a close-knit audience of 1000 to 100k followers that trust and value their contributions to the industry. 

Niche influencers are not as popular as celebrity influencers, but their impact can help start-up brands and marketers on a budget reach a large audience and get a good return on investment.  

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Here’re a few attributes of prominent niche influencers: 

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• They address a niche topic.
• They have carved their specialties online. 
• They have an established social presence. 
• They possess an authentic and trusted voice.
• They are loved and highly respected by their followers.
• They share their interest and lifestyle in ways that benefit others. 

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Now that we clearly understand what niche influencers are, let’s address the elephant in the room; what are the benefits of working with niche influencers? 

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1. Better engagement

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One of the key benefits of working with niche influencers is that they are passionate about their industry. 

Learning about their industry feels exciting to them. So they have specialized knowledge about their focus topic and understand how trends affect the market.

And that’s why their followers love and adore them. 

By collaborating with these influencers, brands can create valuable, far-reaching content and increase engagement. 

Start by running interviews, creating blogs, or simply asking them to share your content. 

‍Pro Tip: niche influencers generally have better engagement (3.86% on Instagram) than celebrity influencers.

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2. More Affordable

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Paying niche influencers to produce content helps you save costs, but not the way you think.

In fact, high-value niche influencers will charge more than the everyday professional for the same piece of content.

And that's okay. 

You see, when working with a niche influencer, it's about the result. 

The everyday content creator might create a spectacular piece of content; however, without an audience that trusts and respect their every word, conversions will tank.

But with niche influencers, brands don’t just get content built around existing needs and pain points; they also gain access to an audience eager to listen and ultimately contribute to the conversation. 

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3. Increased conversion

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Niche influencers thrive on the wings of the value they provide.

Most go to extreme lengths to put authentic and original content on their social media pages daily - making it easy for people to trust and appreciate their recommendations. 

Partnering with a niche influencer can help brands increase conversion without the salesy or preachy approach.

Here’s an easy way out…

Grant a niche influencer in your industry free access to your product, asking for an unbiased review in return, and urge them to post the review on their page.

We guarantee that consumers will come knocking if your product is any good. 

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‍Pro Tip: Get a bunch of influencers within your industry to share a piece of content simultaneously or within a few weeks’ intervals, and ROI will skyrocket.

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4. Cross-channel following

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Many marketers tout the idea that brand following does not mean a thing if it doesn’t influence the bottom-line discussion. 

Indeed, that’s true.

Having a thousand or a million brand followers who are not prospects or ideal customers is of no use. 

One of the many benefits of working with an influencer is that you connect and put your product in the faces of an ideal audience.

And if, per adventure, other people in your niche find your product or service interesting, there’s the halo effect… where a positive attribute influences the decision of others. 

Then comes word of mouth, where ‘everyone begins to talk about your brand.’

This inevitably leads to cross-channel following where people from Instagram, Reddit, Facebook, LinkedIn, and every other social media platform flock around your content.

So YES, niche influencers help brands expand to a new audience on the shoulders of an established social presence.

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5. Cult-like Loyalty

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A brand’s online presence is only as successful as its company culture.

Without a culture that can’t be celebrated, people will barely listen to what your brand says. Worst off, your brand won’t have a voice.

Niche influencers make it easy for brands to showcase their culture - especially if the brand is lucky enough to find an influencer with ideals that strongly reflects its message.

The thing is, when people find a brand backed by a niche influencer they love, they become curious. They’d want to know more. 

Give them enough reason to believe your brand perfectly reflects these influencers' ideals, and they’d trust the brand enough to do business with it.  

The best part is if you can make their transaction seamless. Rest assured; you’d gain long-term customers with cult-like loyalty.

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6. Genuine Connection

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There’s a fine line between personal recommendations and advertisements.

Almost every brand run ads. They talk about their product and its benefits to the users - leaving consumers with thousands of ads to sort through daily.

Now, while ads have their perks, consumers rarely look out for ads when they need an above-average product or service. 

Instead, they ask friends or go to communities, searching for recommendations from niche influencers.

One of the many benefits of working with a niche influencer is that you get to portray your product and services as a personal recommendation - not as an ad - building genuine connections with potential buyers.

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7. Intuitive Audience Insight

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The day-to-day of a regular niche influencer involves learning and talking about the ever-changing need of consumers.

In other words, they know your customers as well, or probably better than you.

Working with a niche influencer means your brand has a partner with valuable insights about your audience's needs, pain points, and desires. 

Your brand’s content marketers won’t be left hanging each time they run out of ideas.  

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Pro Tip: every generation have its own spending habit. Gen Zs and Millennials don’t spend the same way. Working with a niche influencer that perfectly represents your ideal audience demographic cohort would help you create better content.  

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8. Suitable for Long Term Partnership

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Compared to celebrity influencers, niche influencers have a deeper level of emotional connection with their audience. 

Unlike their counterpart, these micro-influencers engage in comments, stories, direct messages, and communities of interest. 

More importantly, they’re affordable. 

Brands that can find a niche influencer with ideas and vision in sync with theirs will enjoy a long-term, cost-effective relationship for content creation and distribution at scale.

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Wrapping Up

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While influencer marketing has multiple benefits, success is not written in stone.

If you want your brand to yield results from your niche influencer marketing activities, you must draft a pitch-perfect strategy that’d attract the right influencers to your brand. 

Also, bigger isn’t always better. Even in niche influencer marketing, there’s the looming urge to choose influencers with a high follower count. 

Mitigate that desire. Focus on influencers that perfectly represent your brand’s core ideals. Good luck!