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As a business owner, you might be wondering why in the world would you give away your products for free? After all, nothing is for free nowadays right? If you have an online business and want a simple way to get more content and reach for your account, you can implement an influencer gifting strategy right away.
Marketing is the lifeblood of any business. It’s how you reach more people to let them know about who you are and what products you sell. 57% of fashion and beauty brands rely on influencer marketing as part of their strategy to grow online, according to Digital Marketing Institute.
I remember when a business could grow organically faster than it does nowadays. I’m part of the social media marketing team of Wicked Weasel – an Australian swimwear and lingerie brand. Last year, we focused less on organic content and took more action on other marketing efforts such as tripwires, influencer collaborations, branded content, and paid ads. It was just way more effort to share organic content for the results that it gave us.
Brands are focusing more on building relationships and collaborations with influencers. According to Retail Dive, 75% of retailer decision-makers view gifting as crucial to their e-commerce strategies.
So what exactly is influencer gifting? Brands use this social media strategy to collaborate with influencers and reach more people. It’s basically sending your products like a PR package to influencers, so they can post about it and even rave about it if they really like your products. Yes, you may be spending money on shipping them your products and losing inventory, but it’s a waaaaay cheaper alternative to paid ads. Usually, brands will have an allocated budget for paid ads and influencer marketing for maximum results.
If you’re wondering why you need to do it, then think about why a person would follow your brand on Instagram or Facebook, when all you do is SELL SELL SELL! The thing is, people hate the idea of being sold to. They love to buy, but if you push too hard and only post about your promotions, then all you do is sell to them. You have to try to engage them with content they want to see and make them feel that you’re a brand with real people using your products. Authenticity wins on social media, gifting micro-influencers so they can create engaging content you can reshare is one way to have a relatable online presence and boost your brand’s image and authority.
In one survey by Meta for Business, the results are astounding, 55% want to see fun content from the brand, and 32% of them said they want to know the brand’s personality from their content.
One brand that I can think of that is doing this well is Urban Decay Cosmetics, this brand partners with influencers and makeup artists for beauty tutorials, and I just love how creative they are! The beauty tutorials they have from influencers are not just helpful for their followers to re-create beauty looks, but they are also delightful to watch.
Another famous brand that is known to do influencer giftings is Fashion Nova. Did you know that in 2017, Fashion Nova was the most searched fashion brand? They did this well, considering they didn’t do any fashion shows, placements in magazines, traditional marketing campaigns, and forced SEO tactics according to WWD. They work with over 3000 influencers globally. They have an estimated $400M annual revenue, and they just keep growing.
Their branded hashtags have over 9+M results. Do you know how often this brand posts on Instagram? Yep, I cannot even keep track! But if you check them out, you can notice that they post around 30+ images, reels, and videos from their influencers – in 24 hours! Now that’s UGC content well used!
Another way to benefit from gifting influencers is integrating fun events for your brand. For example, maybe you want to host a charity drive with a mini fashion show where proceeds go to a cause, and influencers are your models and hosts. By building a relationship with them, you also get access to people who believe in them – their followers.
Creating a robust social media presence doesn’t need to be super expensive. You don’t always have to rely on vast amounts of paid ads, and you can benefit from a more affordable alternative like influencer giftings to build your following.
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Do you have more questions about influencer marketing? Send me a quick DM here or drop a message on my contact page. XOXO