Why Brands Should Activate Influencer Marketing This Holiday SeasonThe season of giving is a profitable one, but it is also one of the most competitive times of the year. Brands should activate influencer marketing to help them stand out. By collaborating with the right influencers, you will access an engaged audience that will pay attention to your brand. 1. Online shopping is on the rise In the last year, 1.66 billion people worldwide bought products online. During the same year, sales were estimated to hit $2.3 trillion with increased projections of up to $4.48 trillion by 2021. As the holiday season approaches, consumers start to look for the perfect gifts, meaning they will be turning to social media for recommendations and inspiration. Therefore, the festivities are the perfect opportunity to increase your sales and generate more brand awareness. 2. Brands can be Creative with their Holiday Campaign Establish what is important to your audience and what would inspire them to purchase your service or product. If you are creative and add a holiday spirit to your Instagram influencer marketing initiatives, you will be noticed! For the 2017 holiday season, the jewelry company Zales Jewelers collaborated with the Instagrammer Jaci Marie Smith and her husband to promote their holiday necklace. Instead of creating an ordinary Instagram post, they created an engaging video. This memorable video received over 65,000 views and many comments. 3. Influencers will Help your Brand Stand Out If you want your holiday influencer campaign to have the biggest impact, let the influencers do what they do best. They know how to connect with their audience and positively tap into their emotions. Aim to build a relationship with your influencers so they have the chance to understand your brand’s goals and target audience. Your brand will benefit when influencers can explore creative ways of making you stand out. Aerie is a good example of a company that took the 2017 festive season by storm on Instagram. They collaborated with influencers such as Nichole Ciotti last holiday season, which helped them stand out from their competitors. 4. You can Target all Ages including Millennials
Influencers already have a large, loyal base of millennial followers who trust them. Millennials are influenced by an influencers’ recommendations in their buying decisions. Therefore, the holiday season is the perfect time to activate an influencer marketing strategy. Millennials do not want to be blatantly advertised, influencer content allows you to reach these audiences in an organic way. Allow your Influencers to create and tell a story that engages their audience while respecting your brand’s values. An influencer is like a trusted friend to Millennials, so they are more likely to buy a product recommended by them. Create your influencer marketing strategy this holiday season with In/Spree Brands. We match you with your perfect influencers after understanding your brand’s goals and objectives. Schedule a demo with us here to spread some holiday magic. How Influencers Help Brands Build the Ultimate Holiday Marketing CampaignInfluencer marketing requires some unique forms of preparation for the upcoming holidays. Therefore, if you haven’t started planning your influencer marketing campaign yet, now is the time! We’ve outlined how influencers can help you build the ultimate marketing campaign during this festive season and beyond. 1. Planning your Campaign Ahead The first step for a successful holiday marketing campaign is by planning beforehand. The National Retail Federation revealed that 40% of shoppers start their holiday shopping before Halloween and we know that most holiday wish lists are made while scrolling through Instagram. It is crucial to have the right influencers for your brand, so you can decide on the Instagram content together. Setting realistic goals and crafting a thorough plan with relevant content to maximize interest and sales is key. Your influencers will be able to help design an original and creative concept. They will help you decide on the vision of the holiday campaign, including its complete feel and look. 2. Incorporating a Fun Holiday Giveaway Influencers know their audience well, so they will know exactly how to incorporate a fun giveaway that will increase engagement for your brand. Having influencers offer free products to a lucky winner or providing their audience with a 25% discount is a great way of growing. For the 2017 holiday season, Viktor&Rolf collaborated with the Instagrammer Victoria to promote their perfumes. She offered one lucky fan who commented on her photo and tagged a friend an opportunity to win a perfume or give as a gift during the holidays. 3. Enhancing your other Instagram content with stories The influencers you collaborate with can dedicate Instagram stories to support your other Instagram content on the important days of the holiday marketing push. Instagram has a feature that makes tagging brands super easy in the influencer’s sponsored stories. Instagram Stories provide influencers a chance to show the products in action or promote limited time and special offers. Influencers can also engage their followers by sharing behind-the-scenes videos and photos. The poll and question stickers made Instagram stories more interactive, so influencers can easily engage with their audience and collect feedback for your brand. 4. Capture the millennial market share Influencer marketing is a proven way of capturing the millennial market share. Influencers have a large millennial follower base who are actively online, and scrolling through Instagram. Millennial buyers spend around $600 billion each year, a large part of it during the holiday season. Influencers can create fun content and spread some holiday merriment, which catches a millennials’ attention. For instance, Kylie Cosmetics collaborated with Brooke Tiffany, who primarily targets a millennial audience, to promote their products. In/Spree Brands can match you with quality influencers who will make your brand stand out during the holiday season. Schedule a demo with us here to kickstart an amazing holiday marketing campaign initiative.
5 Influencer Marketing Strategies You Need to KnowDeciding on your campaign goals and finding appropriate influencers to work with is key in creating a successful influencer campaign. Your goal as a brand is to communicate your message as clearly as possible to potential customers. We’ll help you achieve the best results from your influencer marketing campaigns with the following strategies. 1. Clear Goals and Effective Publishing Schedule It is important to have your objectives clear before the publishing stage. Setting realistic, quantitative goals that will be measurable in the future. A good start is to plan a campaign that will be maintainable over time. Outline your campaign before launching to receive the best results. Tamara is a fashion blogger who is paid to advertise some major brands, we can see from her posts that she genuinely enjoys wearing the particular items she features. By setting clear goals and publishing schedule, Tamara can gear her post around key seasons and really try the product to make sure it aligns well. 2. Long-term Partnerships with Influencers You should look beyond the value from a single campaign and rather more toward a year long or even longer ambassadorship as the influencers will represent your brand in a more organic and seamless way. In these partnerships, influencers involve the brand into their usual content, showing how they use your services or products on daily basis. They will be more involved in your brand and will provide valuable insights from a consumer perspective. The consumers may not buy the product or use the service the first time they come across your brand; however, they are much more likely thereafter. 3. Product Giveaways and Social Media Contests Instagram accounts that hold contests with the support of their influencer to market the products achieve 70% faster follower growth than the accounts that don’t hold contests. Voting, photo, selfie contests, tag to win, like to win are some options for your social media contests. Keep in mind that your contest will generate better results if you’re giving away relevant prizes to an influencer and their audience. A good example of a photo contest is from IGersBoston. They encouraged artists and photographers to take pictures of Boston and if their photo wins the contest, they're invited to attend their events. 4. Company Events
If you want immense media attention, your company needs to organize influencer events for brand awareness and product promotion. You can take an example from Tarte Cosmetics, which dedicates a huge part of their budget to influencer events. They regularly fly Instagram beauty gurus and YouTube vloggers on paid holidays. They unify these travel events under the hashtag #trippinwithtarte. The influencer voices are both far-reaching and powerful, so Tarte’s marketing team designs these influencer events to maximize exposure. 5. Measure Results Precise measurement of results are a fundamental part of any campaign. In this phase, you're able understand which campaign aspects should be improved and if your efforts have paid off. You can analyze if your campaign was successful, how much gain the brand made from the campaign and if the return met your expectations. If you want to estimate the effect the message had on your brand, consider variables like the generation of online traffic, mentions for your product or brand, subscribers or followers on social networks. Create your influencer marketing strategy using In/Spree Brands. We delve deep into your brands' goals and objectives to facilitate collaborations with proven influencers; schedule a demo with us here. 5 Mistakes You Are Making With Influencer MarketingInfluencer marketing is an effective strategy for marketers to build a stronger brand. When performed correctly, it creates greater impact than any other advertising methods. We've outlined five influencer marketing mistakes that can easily be avoided. 1. Engaging with the Wrong Influencers When choosing the right influencers, you need to consider the demographics, common interests, market segments, and the influencers' knowledge in a specific field. You need to do background research and screen the influencers for online reputation. One excellent example of engaging with the right influencer is Whole Foods collaboration with food and wine personality Antoni, from Netflix’s Queer Eye. Of course, he is being paid for shopping at Whole Foods; however, his caption feels heartfelt and passionate, so he's more likely to attract potential customers to Whole Foods. 2. Failing to understand your audience Once you truly know your customer, it is easier to find the right influencers and create a longstanding influencer marketing campaign. You need to understand your brands' audience pinpoints, purchasing habits, psychographic, and demographic information. A good example of a brand understanding their audience is Airbnb. Their Instagram page truly feels reflective of who their customers are. Airbnb works with strong micro influencers such as Chelsea, who gives her followers an incredible opportunity to experience the places she travels and stays through her photography. 3. Being Disorganized with your Strategy
If you want your brand to be successful, your influencer marketing campaign will need a proper, strategic plan to avoid this mistake. You need to plan carefully, every aspect of your campaign so you can start with clear goals. Knowing how you will measure the success of your campaign and what exactly you want to accomplish is very important. In addition, you will need to have an organized payment plan for your influencers. 4. Not Using the Right Metrics You need to analyze all metrics, including the social sentiments, the shares on all your social media platforms, and engagement of clicks and comments. With these metrics, you will easily understand what worked and where you need to invest your budget. You can use our analytics to measure performance and to understand if the influencers you're working with are generating the needed engagement and reach, in addition, to other incredibly useful data points. 5. Influencer Marketing on the Wrong Channels The effectiveness of your campaign depends on understanding your target audience and customer focus. You need to reach the largest number of people, who will be passionate about engaging with your brand. Instagram one of the most engaging social media platform in the world. A recent study with 2,500 micro-influencers revealed they preferred Instagram to others platforms. 59% of the influencers said Instagram is the most efficient platform to engage their desired audience. Using information like this to better understand where your brand should be positioned is key. Start creating your influencer marketing strategy today using In/Spree Brands. We'll help you stay clear of these five mistakes! Schedule a demo with us here. Why Your B2B Needs Influencer MarketingB2B Influencer marketing drives greater credibility and visibility for B2B companies. It is about creating constant engagement through content and building a long-term relationship with your customers. Many B2B companies desire credible recognition, thus influencer marketing is a useful tool for them. Once you look at the following stats, you will not ignore the likely effect of a B2B influencer marketing strategy. 1. Influencer Content Provided Great ROI According to a study led by Nielsen Catalina Solutions, the content created and shared by influencers provided 11 times higher ROI than the average display advertisements after one year. This means the influencer content has about 4x the ROI from traditional ads. When a trusted Influencer talks about the benefits of your product to better-informed potential consumers, it will eventually lead to more sales. 2. Influencers Help Communicate Your B2B Product in an Easier Way B2B products may be complex, thus it is sometimes challenging communicating the advantages of the product. Here is where you need your influencers the most since people confide far more in a genuine influencer than they do in brands. For instance, the influencer marketing strategy of LaCie is to collaborate with social media influencers. Their ambassador Ben Brown, who is a popular vlogger and Instagrammer, explores interesting places featuring LaCie, and publishes about it on his Instagram. 3. B2B influencer marketing allows your brand to tap into the authority of the influencer If the customers respect the influencers, they are likely to look at your brand in a more confident light. Influencers know well their followers and know what type of content works best for them. The respected influencers will paint a flattering picture of your brand and make it more desirable. WeWork is a co-working startup that supplies businesses with office space. They collaborated with several of their members and J.Crew to highlight their community and the difference that these entrepreneurs are creating. Working with other businesses is a great way of expanding your reach, while creating meaningful partnerships. 4. Types of B2B Marketing
The influencer’s opinion and voice comes across as more authentic than a commercial or banner advertisement for your product. A good example of this is American Express, which invests greatly in its influencer B2B marketing. They collaborate with influential bloggers such as Emily Henderson to reach small businesses. Their campaign “Love my Store” aims to clarify that even a small business accepts credit card and to promote their brand, received 5 million impressions and 400,000 Amex decals. They employ many influencer-marketing campaigns for gaining both consumers and corporate clients. From collaborating with celebrities to micro-influencers, American Express is extremely successful at influencer marketing. 5. Influencers put you in touch with an audience you otherwise could not reach Finally, B2B influencer marketing helps your brand to reach a larger audience. Video Fruit is a company that coaches businesses how to grow their email lists. Their founder, Bryan Harris, wrote a guest post on an influential website. The post exposed him to an audience he would not have been able to reach on his own. They received 1,086 visitors with this post (the average visitors were 285 before his post). Also, in 2 days, 215 people subscribed to his website. Concentrate on influencer marketing; maintain a great relationship with the influencers and your brand will be promoted in the best possible way. In/Spree Brands makes the collaboration between brands and influencers quite easy. You can choose from thousands of incredible influencers who will drive proven results. We offer you a perfect influencer marketing campaign, schedule a demo with us here. How to Maximize ROI from your Influencer Marketing Campaigns in 2018Return on investment is one of the most effective tool for measuring the success of your influencer marketing activities. Your ROI goals are key in sustainable success of your marketing efforts. Therefore, you should design and plan properly in order to ensure your business is driving maximum ROI from your influencer marketing campaigns in 2018. We’ll show you few strategies on how to maximize ROI for amazing results. 1. Choose the Right Influencer First, you must know exactly who your audience is so that you can more easily choose the right influencer. For your campaign to be successful, it is important to know your target audience. You’ll have to choose the right influencers who can connect with the audience in your niche. Choosing the right influencers is one of the hardest aspects of influencer marketing with 67% of marketers stating that finding the right influencers is their largest influencer marketing challenge. However, once you’ve chosen the right influencer to work with the payoff can be incredible. Statista published an overview of Instagram accounts with the largest following worldwide as of June 2018. While targeting macro influencers and celebrities can be enticing, it’s best to aim for a mid-level reach with influencers who best suit your demographic. A large following has a wide demographic which can be too great for a specific product. Some important items to note when selecting the right influencer is one who displays qualities such as consistency, authenticity, strong engagement, and domain expertise. 2. Research Your Influencer’s Feed Thoroughly researching an influencer’s feed is important to see if the content they produce and overall style works well with your brand. Brittany Maddux is an American influencer who shares her lifestyle with her 125k+ followers base. Her content is relevant to all her fans that seek beauty and fashion tips. Her followers see even her sponsored content as pieces of advice on which services and products to use. Looking at past collaborations can highlight successes in addition to how an influencer incorporates a brand into their feed. It’s important for influencers to seamlessly integrate sponsored content and not look promotional when doing so. Successful influencers work with brands that not only resonate well with their audience, but feature products that influencer would normally use. 3. Reward Your Influencers Building relationships with influencers is an important way of curating a group of standouts for your campaigns. Some of the ways of achieving this is by providing rewards. These rewards can be in the form of discount codes, shout-outs, commissions, and products. The more an influencer feels appreciated by you, the better they’ll respond to your brand. At In/Spree Brands we facilitate collaborations with star influencers who drive maximum ROI. We’re happy to walk you through our platform where we match brands with proven influencers. Schedule a demo with us!
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