An Insider’s Guide to Working with Influencers to Sell Your Product with Alexandra Jimenez, Ep #26

Would you love to work with social media influencers and bloggers but are unsure where to start? The influencer world provides a unique opportunity to promote and sell products. If you think it may be a good fit for your particular product—what’s holding you back? Alexandra Jimenez joins Kevin in this episode of Maximizing Ecommerce to talk about the intersection of Amazon and influencers.

Alexandra started as a blogger and influencer and has built up a following of 1 million unique visitors to her blog monthly. She then launched an Amazon business she promotes on her site—and is making a 7-figure income. To hear about her impressive accomplishments, don’t miss this episode!

This episode of #MaximizingEcommerce is an insider’s guide to working with influencers to sell your product with @TravlFashnGirl. If you’re ready to work with influencers, but don’t know where to start—this is the episode for you! #Influencers… Click To Tweet

Outline of This Episode

[5:15] Kevin introduces Travel Fashion Girl, Alexandra Jimenez.
[9:20] How did Alexandra get started?
[12:15] Why she launched her site
[16:50] Utilizing the Amazon Associates model
[20:00] Partnership Proposal gone awry
[25:00] Driving traffic to Amazon with a blog
[29:00] Two reasons’ Alexandra sells on Amazon
[30:40] Launching a physical product
[36:55] International shipping
[41:15] How to reach out to an influencer
[47:15] Where do you get started?
[53:45] Who is ranking on Google for topics/products?
[56:00] Ads on Google and Pinterest
[1:01:10] Connect with Alexandra

Why Alexandra created the Travel Fashion Girl blog

Alexandra had the opportunity to work for an SEO agency alongside a web-developer and a social media manager. She learned the ins-and-outs of keyword research and how to drive traffic organically to a website. Alexandra launched her website as she was learning industry tactics to drive traffic to a blog, and it’s part of why it’s been so successful.

It was optimized from day one.

At the time, she had been an avid long-term backpacker for almost 5 years. She was traveling the world and struggling with properly packing her luggage. No one wants to constantly deal with overweight or hard to manage bags while traveling. Her goal was to enable women to travel light while packing everything they needed—for short trips or year-long journey’s. Now, seven years later, she’s built a sustainable business.

The Amazon Associate world and affiliate marketing

When Alexandra started blogging, she linked to products on her site as an Amazon Associate. If someone clicked the affiliate link on her site and purchased the product on Amazon she would receive a 4-8% commission on the sale. It was a consistent revenue stream that allowed her to track data.

She knew what people liked, what purchases were being made, and even what colors were chosen most often.

Her website was a goldmine of information. She also had a unique advantage: people came to her site to shop. What if she could leverage the data she had gathered and begin selling a product? She had dreamt for years of selling her own packing cubes and luggage—could she make it happen?

Keep listening as Kevin and Alexandra chat about the Amazon Associate program, driving traffic to Amazon, and why she chose Amazon over other platforms.

@TravlFashnGirl is a blogger and influencer who has built a following of 1 million unique visitors and a 7-figure income. To hear about her impressive accomplishments—and what you can do—don’t miss this episode of #MaximizingEcommerce!… Click To Tweet

Launching a physical product

Alexandra only recently started selling physical products. She struggled with the process because she had no real experience in the manufacturing industry. She spent time feeling out the market and desperately trying to find someone to partner with her, with no success. Soshe made a bold move. She went live on Facebook and told her audience that regardless of how well it sold, she was going to launch her products.

During a two week pre-sale, she sold 660 packing cube sets.

She didn’t make a profit on any of those sales, but what she learned was invaluable. She realized that shipping products herself was not an easy task, and was in fact quite costly. It gave her unique insight into quality control and customer service. She quickly realized that using Amazon’s platform would streamline the process for her and allow her to focus where she was needed.

How to reach out to social media influencers

According to Alexandra, reaching out to influencers through social media is like approaching a random person on the street to come mow your lawn. There’s no established relationship, yet you’re asking someone to carry out something very personal. Alexandra has developed a system that she suggests you use:

When reaching out, use the person’s name—not just “blogger”. It’s more personal and isn’t immediately rejected as spam.
Point out the Unique Selling Proposition (USP) and why they are the perfect fit for your product. Be very specific and detailed and provide all relevant information
Tell them exactly where your product(s) are sold and how potential customers can access it.
Ask to send them a product, free of charge, with no strings attached.

Be genuine and don’t come across as shady. She points out that you can’t assume that someone will want to work with you. They may also charge a fee for reviewing your product, so be sure to be prepared to ask what they charge—not everyone wants to work for free product.

Kevin and Alexandra round out the podcast covering what level of influencer to reach out to, how to find the right influencer for your product, and the topic of Google and Pinterest ads.

Do you know how to properly connect with social media influencers? How do you get your message to stand out? @TravlFashnGirl covers this and much more in this episode of #MaximizingEcommerce. #SocialMediaMarketing #SocialMedia #Influencers… Click To Tweet