As a digital marketer, you must be aware of influencer marketing. Over the last five years, the influencer marketing industry has grown to over a $5-10 billion dollar industry.
Did you know that there are almost 3.2 million to 37.8 million influencers across the globe on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube? If you widen your target age range to find influencers, you will discover more people to promote your brand because over 28% of influencers within the age of 36 speak to an audience younger than them.
According to Influencer Marketing Hub, the ROI through influencers is also high – for every dollar spent on an influencer marketing campaign, brands have earned $5.78.
Besides bringing a unique voice and an established audience, influencers also help you build a powerful personality and voice on the internet. Moreover, there are several ways to include influencer marketing in your plan, and product seeding is proven to be one successful tactic.
What Is Product Seeding?
Product seeding is an influencer marketing campaign where brands gift their products to influencers/celebrities relevant to their niche or industry in exchange for free publicity. It is an excellent tool for marketers to reach a wider audience and target more groups of potential customers with the help of influencers.
Why Is Product Seeding Useful for Brands?
The entire point of an influencer product seeding campaign is to grab the attention of an audience that does not yet know the existence of your brand. This strategy helps build a strong relationship with the Key Opinion Leader (KOL) and is a cheaper alternative to traditional advertising/influencer marketing options.
Brands do not have to negotiate with an Influencer’s team about the collaboration prices or make a budget for social media platforms to promote influencers on their feed.
How to Optimize Your Instagram Product Seeding Campaign
Product seeding is an effective, cheap, and less time-consuming campaign to increase brand awareness and generate leads when used correctly. However, here are a few ways to optimize this campaign to make the most out of it.
1. Customize the Packaging
PR packages differ from packages that are sold to customers. A creatively customized PR package will grab the influencer’s attention, as it will stand out among the other bulk of packages an influencer receives.
Customizing the PR package shows your brand’s sincerity. It shows you have put in efforts, encouraging the influencer to share it on their social media.
2. Don’t Be Too Promotional
Ideally, you would want the influencer to show off your product but not make it look too promotional. You can do this by instructing the influencer to tag your brand page in a photo while using or wearing the product sent and making the content directly related to the brand.
3. Send Something They Would Use
Before sending a package to an influencer, study what they like. Influencers usually have their lives shown on social media – from their likes to dislikes – their feeds represent them and their interests. So sending them something useful adds more value to the campaign.
For example, if you sell dog toys, sending them to influencers who do not have dogs would make no sense.
4. Expand Your Program
Product seeding does not have to be the same for everyone. There are several product seeding programs, like micro-influencer, in-person, or celebrity product seeding. You should choose the right program depending on your goals and the audience you want to target through the campaign.
For example, if you have a product/service that suits first-year college students, it will make no sense to approach a celebrity or an influencer (unless they create content in that niche). In this situation, it is better to use the in-person program during campus move-in week.
5. Use it to Generate Reviews
The main aim of product seeding is brand awareness and product sales. You can utilize its benefit by sending a product to an influencer and, in return, asking them for an in-depth review instead of blindly posting about your product.
An honest review from an influencer will gain their followers’ trust and create the urge to buy the product.
6. Get in Touch After Sending a Package
Once you have sent out the package, it is always a good practice to send an email or a DM and let them know they have a package coming their way! With this small interaction, they will see that you value their experience with your brand and help keep track in case of any shipping errors or damages.
Wrapping it Up
Influencer product seeding has the potential to expose your brand to thousands of individuals across the globe! Not only does it help you achieve brand awareness, but it also creates a buzz around your products and has the potential to increase your sales. Now that you know some strategies to optimize your marketing campaign, put your plan into action for the best results and focus on creating a successful influencer marketing campaign for 2022.
