How To Use Instagram Influencers To Promote Your Big Sale

It’s holiday marketing time! If you’re one of the millions of brands planning a big, holiday thing, partnering with Instagram influencers can be an invaluable marketing strategy for getting the word out about your big sale and converting followers to clickers.

First, let’s start with the good news: it’s not hard to get people interested in a sale, especially one where people can shop from the comfort of their own homes. According to Think with Google’s holiday consumer insights from 2024, “59 percent of holiday shoppers know what gifts they are buying heading into December” and are expecting retailers to offer discounts and special deals. 

Cyber Monday hit a record of $13.3 billion  in sales last year. During Amazon’s July Prime Day 2025, U.S. revenue was estimated to reach $23.8 billion. And projections for Black Friday sales in 2025 are only expected to go up. 

And retailers like Macy’s, Walmart, Target, and Wayfair are extending “Black Friday” sales through the entire month of November year after year.

Why Would You Use Instagram Influencers to Promote Your Sale?

Two billion people use Instagram each month, and 166.2 million of them are in the U.S. That being said, Instagram is a go-to platform for sourcing ideas and discovering new products.

A few years ago, Bustle conducted a survey of 1,000 millennial women about their spending, and from that survey comes one of my go-to stats:

For 8 in 10 millennial women social media is the most effective way to reach them, and 4 in 10 say Instagram is the most effective social network for brands to reach them.

Those stats line up with a Facebook survey done a year later   that found 62 percent “ become more interested in a brand or product after seeing it in their Instagram Stories.”

Similarly, a study done in 2023 by the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) found that 85 percent of young adult shoppers say social media shapes what they buy. Do you know which platform is their top choice? You guessed it right, it’s Instagram.

Oh, and 73 percent of teens in the US prefer brands to use Instagram to let them know about new products or promotions (just 12 percent of teens prefer Facebook, and most of them aren’t super-interested in learning about new products on TikTok. Music, yes. Products, no).

Back to our topic… sometimes just announcing to shoppers that a sale is going on is enough to compel purchases. The key is getting them to see the announcement, and that’s where influencers come in.

7 Ways Influencers Can Promote Your Big Holiday Sale on Instagram

Instagram influencer marketing has multiple moving parts, none of which should really be a standalone strategy. Even partnering with influencers should be part of a larger overall social media strategy. I say that because Instagram offers SO many opportunities for brands to monetize their audiences, create shoppable content, and drive customers who want to buy to their websites.

One of the things we saw so clearly during 2020’s summer of social action is the power of images and captions to compel people to act.

People process pictures much faster than text, allowing brands to lay out contextual clues within a post that clearly communicate the value of a product without the need to read a super-long caption.

When you have great pics, you don’t need a whole, big sales pitch. And without a great picture, no one will stop long enough to read your sales pitch anyway. Influencers are experts at using visual cues to relay messages that resonate with their followers. By partnering with a few well-chosen Instagrammers, your campaign will have the right images to disarm your audience and make them curious enough to learn more about your brand or product so they feel comfortable buying from you.

#1. Partner with Micro-Influencers to Build a Content Catalog

If you want to promote your sale, you’re going to need content. So much of social media marketing is just getting people to stop scrolling long enough to take a look at your product, and a good way to do that is to partner with micro-influencers who are AMAZING content creators.

Three reasons why you’d want micro-influencers to do your content

We typically recommend micro-influencers if one of the goals of your campaign (You have set goals for your influencer campaign, haven’t you? If not, download our guide on the topic.) is to get influencer-generated content (IGC) that you can reuse across your own branded channels. Why would you partner with micro-influencers instead of going with larger influencers? Three reasons.

1. Micro-influencers typically have more niched-down crowds, meaning there’s a greater chance that if you partner with a micro-influencer that they’ve grown their following by getting really good at creating a certain type or style of content.
2. Micro-influencers are less expensive than macro-influencers and mega-influencers, with fewer rules about content reuse. (If you need a review of which is which, our post on influencer tiers will lay that out rather nicely for you.)
3. Since micro-influencers create content that’s more focused on a particular topic, you’ll have content that resonates with different segments of your audience.

#2. Partner with Macro- and Mega-Influencers to Get the Word Out to More People Faster

Okay, so you’re getting a nice variety of content from creative micro-influencers. But when your goal is to shout your big sale from the mountaintops, go with larger influencers who can get your message in front of more people in a shorter amount of time.

One of my favorite Gymshark ambassadors is Brittne (on Instagram @brittnebabe). She has more than 2.1 million followers, and a premium exercise program that’s inexpensive to join (I joined it). I first saw Brittne, not on Instagram or YouTube, but in a short video on Pinterest over a year ago. When I saw her again on Instagram, I immediately recognized her as the Pinterest girl who made me start a board called Go Hard. Haha.

In this video, Brittne’s doing what she does, but the caption announces Gymshark’s EARLY BLACK FRIDAY sale.

Brittne’s Instagram Reel mentions this YouTube haul 👇 where she highlights a few of her favorite pieces, their names and the percentage of the discount for each piece.

#3. Use More Than One Concept

There are times when you can crush it by having all of your influencers recreate one kind of post. But for the most part, you can broaden both your reach and your appeal by switching things up a bit with your content.

I’m just going to brag right here because one of the things The Shelf team does well is dream up creative concepts so that brands can get that all-important stop-scroll from their prospects.

But even if you’re not a genius at dreaming up creative visual concepts for your campaign, you can add depth and variety to your holiday marketing campaign by recruiting Instagram influencers of different sizes who have distinct creative styles.

For example…

I actually know a woman who owns a company that designs journals and planners. For her company, the obvious choice for an influencer partner is to find a micro-influencer who also journals or who uses planners and has considered journaling.

Solid choice, right?

If she posts a picture of herself journaling, that would make sense to her audience AND make sense for the company that hired her.

But this particular paper company could also partner with a nano-influencer like @ramtalk who creates really interesting (read, scroll-stopping) mixed media collages and reach a very niche journaling audience.

Or Anne (on Instagram @bujotrulla), a bullet journaling micro-influencer from Germany. #bujo! Or for our less monochromatic journalers, the post on the right from Klara Zole (on Instagram @journals.by.klara). If you click the image on the left (or click this link), you can watch Anne’s bullet journaling video on Instagram.

Or the #writingprompts crowd. Or the #mentalhealth crowd. Or the #productivity crowd. Or moms with #kidswhojournal. Or the teens who write. Or the #nanowrimo crowd, like this pic below from Saturne ou Jenna (on Instagram @jennanvrs).

Jenna’s post was a contest in partnership with a paper company. The caption’s in French, but you get the gist: follow her, follow the brand, get $40 in writing gear.

The possibilities are quite literally endless. All of these posts would look drastically different, but they would also appeal to different prospective customers, and the content would look native to the feeds of each influencer.

What about holiday-themed stuff? Holiday themes are fantastic, but you don’t HAVE to stick to holiday themes to do your holiday marketing. Instead, focus on creating content that you can reuse and repurpose, whether you’re reusing it next winter or six months from now.

#4. Have Influencers Cross-post between Instagram Reels and TikTok for Better Reach

Instagram Reels allow you to create videos which you can string together  set to music.

That sounds like TikTok, right? Well, why not just use TikTok? You can, but if you’re partnering with TikTok creators, you should also have them cross-post their videos to Instagram as Reels. Not only is there a larger user base and a wider representation across older generations on Instagram, but Instagram is favoring content published using Reels. So, influencers and brands are getting 2x, 5x, and 10x the views with Reels than their typical viewership/reach with, say IGTV content.

I’ll demonstrate this with a story from a few years ago:

After spending hours searching for the perfect throw pillows (not even kidding – I literally spent hours doing this) and trying to decide if I wanted to go with fall decor or holiday decor in my living room, I bought about 100 bucks in stuff from Michael’s (paid $38 for it, yay for holiday sales!). But I don’t have everything I want to create a welcoming holiday vibe. So, I considered heading to Hobby Lobby today until I saw this:

On mobile, this image is actually an IG Reel. But on desktop, I get to see more of World Market’s feed without clicking over to their profile.

Here’s the beauty: I NEVER see content from World Market. But World Market is probably the answer to my “holiday home” woes. My very next action was Googling “World Market near me”. And that’s what you want, because “near me” is a strong indicator of purchase intent.

Here’s the thing: I wasn’t looking for World Market. I wasn’t even looking at home decor stuff on IG. I was actually scrolling my feed for a good example of a holiday ad to use in this post (coincidentally, I didn’t find anything as I’m very careful about the content with which I engage, so I mostly see ads about marketing tools, creating courses, fitness, and interior design ideas). And now I’m trying to figure out when I’ll have time to make the 40-mile trek to World Market (the World Market tab is already open on my computer and I’ve already signed up for an online account so…).

So bottom line, it’s worth it for you to ask your TikTok creators to cross-post campaign content to Instagram Reels.

#5. Have a Local/Regional Instagram Influencer Do a Walk-Through of Your Store to Spotlight the Deals

Even though online shopping is really popular, an in-store walk-through can help alleviate apprehensions about supply chains or just plain reminders of how awesome retailer locations are. I’m one of the people shopping early this year because I don’t want to be caught without the appropriate number of LOL dolls. As my six year-old daughter told me a few hours ago, “I’m counting on you!” (actual quote from her about buying enough LOL dolls EARLY enough so they’re here for Christmas, so…).

That said, partnering with a local or regional influencer who can talk your audience through some of the deals and steals is a smart idea. Check out this video from Reis World, which is a walk-through of a Walmart store was set up with its traditional Black Friday store displays. My non-social-media using husband sent this to me and I found it SUPER helpful ($5 Disney anthologies!)

Reis World also posted Shop with Me videos of Black Friday sales in Costco, Burlington, and other big retailers. Christmas may not have come in July this year… but it’s gotten pretty close.

Reis World isn’t an Instagram influencer, but the channel gets tons of subscribers and visitors to their Shop with Me videos. But like we saw with Brittne in one of the previous examples, this can easily be chopped into a 15-second Reel that announces in the caption that the full walk-through can be found on YouTube.

#6. Give Customers More Than One Reason to Buy

In addition to promoting Early Access to its Black Friday sale, Pink Lily also had multiple “carrots” to dangle in front of Instagrammers such as a $1000 giveaway, a $20 sale, the launch of their newest line of holiday-themed pajamas (and I’ll just admit it – the pajama onesie is actually pretty cute even though I shun holiday jammies for grownups).

Most of the posts in Pink Lily’s feed are either from staff or they are repurposed posts from Pink Lily’s influencer partners. And you can see from the thumbnail below that the video has been cross-promoted on Instagram from TikTok.

#7. Use Both Paid and Organic Posts to Promote Your Sale

Organic reach on Instagram is much better than other social media platforms. We Are Social pegs Facebook’s organic reach at 5.2 percent, meaning if you have 1,000 followers on Facebook, 52 of them will see your post at any given time. Instagram reach in the U.S. ranges from 5 percent to 10 percent, but reach really depends on where you are in the world. In places like Kazakhstan, organic reach can get as high as 72 percent. Good for Borat, not great for you if you’re in Cincinnati trying to figure things out.

So, it’s wise to have an organic marketing plan and a paid marketing plan. There are advantages to both.

Organic/non-paid content – You have the opportunity to regularly engage with your followers and slowly woo new followers by using specific hashtags. But by and large, only the people who follow your brand will see your organic content.

Paid Instagram content – You level-up your targeting by running your ads with the Facebook Ads Manager to better define which Instagram users should see your ad based on their interests and online behaviors. Paid ads allow you to reach beyond just your followers to people who may not know your brand, but who are likely to be interested in what you’re promoting.

Conclusion

Just to recap, if the goal is to promote your big sale, Instagram influencers can really help you target your messaging to the exact segments of your audience who are most likely to shop with you.

1. Partner with micro-influencers to get tons of content you can repurpose.
2. Partner with macro- and mega-influencers to spread the word about your sale quickly to lots of people.
3. Use different campaign concepts to get more interesting content.
4. Loop in Instagram Reels to expand your reach.
5. Have a local/regional influencer do a store walk-through to show off your goods.
6. Have each influencer feature a different product that will be discounted for your sale.
7. Boost those posts! Use both organic and paid Instagram marketing.