Have you ever wondered what makes influencer gifting campaigns that little bit more effective? We’ve identified common themes of what works really well and what doesn’t from analysing hundreds of influencer gifting campaigns.
Go for grids, skip the stories
Although Stories bring a more spontaneous, behind-the-scenes, in-the-moment aspect to Instagram, they are temporary posts that disappear after 24 hours. Don’t be happy with influencers only posting a story about your products as the value it receives doesn’t last a long time as well as receiving lower EMV, engagement and brand awareness.
Instead, ask your influencers to create at least one grid post or reel about your product and use stories as support. The Instagram grid is the traditional Instagram content that everyone is familiar with and allows users to create their own ‘personal brand’ or ‘visual identity’. It has a longer shelf life than Instagram stories do and will stay on their profile forever (unless they take them down). Grid posts and reels can deliver higher awareness, engagement and EMV.
For example, if an influencer features your product in a grid post, ask them to post a story in conjunction with the grid post where they can include links or discount codes. This way, you can track the source of website traffic and conversions, giving you a clear picture of the performance of each influencer.
Spark creativity and inspire
Avoid asking your influencers to create basic and simple content. For example, steer away from unboxing videos, especially if you want to repurpose their content. You don’t want your feed full of repetitive content.
Encourage influencers to produce innovative and varied content by giving them some guidelines rather than step-by-step instructions. By encouraging creative freedom, it lets influencers get creative with their content about your brand. They can pick up on trending themes or build a story that weaves your product into their content style. This way, their content comes across more authentic, inline with most of their other content, and therefore will resonate with the follower base more.
Leave no platform unturned
Don’t limit your influencers to a single platform. It might feel like you’re saving time, but you’re missing out on a potential massive opportunity.
Instead, encourage creators to post on multiple channels, or find creators on different social networks. By embracing diverse social media channels you can maximise your brands reach and engagement. TikTok, Instagram and YouTube; each platform serves a different purpose and targets different demographics, so it’s important to test them out. You never know what content or influencers are going to resonate with your audience.
Plus TikTok and Reels are often seen as more authentic content, and might drive higher engagement with the potential to go viral, than a simple story on Instagram which disappears in 24 hours.
Measure the metrics that matter
Don’t start your gifting campaign without understanding what you want to achieve – don’t focus on the vanity metrics – the likes and the comments. What’s more important is focusing on measuring performance through sales that have an impact like cost per sales, revenue and number of orders to gauge the real impact of your campaigns, and to know whether you should build a partnership with a particular influencer, and become a brand ambassador.
By prioritising these metrics, you gain a deeper insight into the effectiveness of your influencer collaborations and what is and isn’t working- helping you make informed decisions for future campaigns and collaborations.
Utilise discount codes and UTM links
Everyone loves a discount! These not only incentivise purchases but also help in tracking the effectiveness of each influencer’s contribution. Through individual discount codes, you can track and report any orders and revenue associated with your influencer and their followers. By tracking influencer performance in real-time, you can identify which influencers are driving business growth.
Usage rights
Ask your influencers for usage rights to their content, so you can repurpose it on your brand’s marketing channels. When running gifting campaigns make sure you agree usage rights with each influencer. Using their authentic and relatable influencer content on your marketing channels will help improve conversion rates, as it demonstrates real-world product usage, by real people (i.e. not advertising).
If you’re looking to start your journey with influencer gifting, or would like to boost the performance of your campaigns please get in touch with matt@dyzio.co or simply book a call below with a member of our team to see how the platform works.