Category: Influencer Marketing

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Consumer Insights Direct-To-Consumer DTC Marketing Influencer Marketing Podcast
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PaigeGarrett S8E8 1200x675

Bigeye’s forthcoming national study reveals that among those who follow infuencers, 9-in-10 purchase a product after seeing it used or recommended by an influencer. Paige Garrett, Assistant Vice President at RVD Communications in New York, explains how influencer marketing is reshaping retail and why it redefines the shopper’s path to purchase. Paige also shares which tactics yield the most positive ROI and predicts where influencer marketing is headed in the coming years. 

Episode Transcript

Adrian Tennant: Coming up in this episode of IN CLEAR FOCUS.

​​Paige Garrett: The fluff content is gone. Influencers are really doubling down on brands that give back or initiatives that, you know, they align with personally. They’re saying no to deals with brands that they don’t admire who aren’t doing well by society.

Adrian Tennant: You’re listening to IN CLEAR FOCUS, fresh perspectives on the business of advertising. Produced weekly by Bigeye. Hello. I’m your host, Adrian Tennant, VP of Insights at Bigeye. A full-service, audience-focused creative agency, we’re based in Orlando, Florida, serving clients across the United States and beyond. Thank you for joining us. Alongside the growth of social media over the past decade, influencer marketing has gained popularity with audiences and brands. Direct-to-consumer brands were among the first to use influencers to drive sales, particularly among new customers. A survey conducted by Inmar and Social Media Today recently found that four in every five respondents had made a purchase based on an influencer’s recommendation. And that over two-thirds of them had spent $150 or more. Influencers have loyal followings across several social platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and most recently TikTok, creating new opportunities for brands to appear in paid and earned campaigns that leverage influencers’ connections with their followers. Today’s guest is an expert in influencer marketing. Paige Garrett is the assistant vice president of marketing at RVD communications, based in New York City. She has over seven years of marketing experience across various industries, including fashion, fitness, hospitality, and lifestyle. Having worked at companies like Shopbop, an Amazon subsidiary, Obé Fitness, and more. In her spare time, Paige is a fitness trainer and integrative health coach. To discuss all things influencer marketing, Paige is joining us today from Williamsburg in Brooklyn, New York. Paige, welcome to IN CLEAR FOCUS!

Paige Garrett: Thank you so much. I’m so thrilled to be here.

Adrian Tennant: Could you tell us about RVD and the kinds of clients you serve?

Paige Garrett: Yes, absolutely. So RVD is a progressive PR, social media, and brand-building agency. We’re based in New York City and work across the hospitality and lifestyle industry. So we’re working primarily with bars and restaurants in the New York area, but also across the country, as well as some bigger national lifestyle brands. We also have a really strong women’s health vertical, so working with a lot of leaders in that space as well. And in terms of our, you know, core capabilities, I would say editorial PR is actually our bread and butter. So that’s where, as an agency, we got our start, that said, we understand, of course, that PR and sort of no marketing channel happens in a vacuum, so over the past few years, we’ve expanded our capabilities and services to include other marketing verticals as well. So social media management, email marketing, and then, of course, influencer marketing, which we’re here to chat about today.

Adrian Tennant: Paige, you’re the assistant vice president of marketing at RVD. What does your role entail?

Paige Garrett: I oversee our influencer marketing division, which is actually our fastest-growing division, which is really exciting. I also help oversee email marketing, I worked very closely with the social media management team and our publicists of course because for a lot of our clients, we’re working on the same projects, just on different channels. And I also help oversee new business with our founder, Rachel Van Dolson. So putting together proposals and strategies for potential clients based on their needs or what they’re looking for, which is also a lot of fun.

Adrian Tennant: RVD has clients in the lifestyle, health, and hospitality industries. Are these verticals especially well-suited to influencer marketing?

Paige Garrett: Yes, absolutely. So I would say, really any industry at this stage, is fitting for influencer marketing, but where we sit across lifestyle, health, and hospitality, there’s so much opportunity because there are so many influencers who are leaning into, more of just that like snapshot into their everyday life. So I think that those industries and categories, in particular, touch every one of us at some stage in our day. So it’s a lot of fun putting together strategies and, you know, specific campaigns for our clients within those industries, but, definitely a lot of room across any industry for influencer marketing.

Adrian Tennant: Is that true of business-to-business brands, as well as business-to-consumer brands?

Paige Garrett: I do think that there are still a lot of opportunities because from a B2B perspective, the people who you’re still operating with, a lot of them are also still on Instagram or on Facebook, or, you know, are using those channels to find potential partnerships. So I think, obviously from a consumer perspective, there’s a lot more opportunity in terms of just driving direct purchase and conversion  and bigger brand awareness campaigns as well. But I do think B2B, when you think about who is the consumer on social at this point, it’s really everybody.

Adrian Tennant: Are there any categories at all that you found don’t tend to be as good a fit for influencer marketing?

Paige Garrett: At this point in time, really every industry can win from some form of influencer marketing. That said, it’s obviously more challenging for certain industries than others. So you know, there’s a lot of red tape or regulations for certain industries. For instance, the liquor industry, even with our women’s health clients or supplements, there is a lot that you can and can’t do when it comes to having influencers endorse your brands or products. So, as long as you’re really reading the fine print and staying up to date with those regulations, and they do vary from platform to platform, I think that there is a way to go about influencer marketing. It really just comes down to finding the right strategy, finding the right partners, really getting clear upfront on the goals of your program and what you’re looking for. And then obviously matching that back to what you are, and aren’t allowed to do from an endorsement perspective.

Adrian Tennant: Could you explain the differences between paid and earned influencer management?

Paige Garrett: Yes, absolutely. So at RVD, we run three different types of influencer marketing programs. So the first you mentioned is earned influencer marketing and what that means it’s basically a fancy way of saying, trade influencer marketing. So trading a free product or experience or service to an influencer in exchange for set content. And that’s probably the type of campaign that we’re all most familiar with, in the sense that we’re driving trials with our influencers and getting their real-time feedback via content. So with those engagements, obviously there’s no agreement in place, there’s no flat fee compensation. So while we do our very best to confirm via email, we don’t have control over what that final piece of content might look like. So, it’s really making sure that, within those campaigns that you either have established relationships with those influencers, you’ve worked with them before and I think that’s where an agency comes into play in the sense that when we’re working with influencers on behalf of our clients in an earned capacity, we have that trust established. They trust us in the brands that we’re working with. We trust them that they’ll follow through with the content that they’re promising in exchange for that again, complimentary product or experience. And it’s a great way to also establish relationships early on with influencers and also just learn a lot because it’s not, from a budget perspective, you’re not spending a ton of money. You’re really just trading again, that experience or free product for content. But then from there, there’s bigger paid campaigns. So that’s when, in addition to those complimentary services or products, you are also giving an influencer a flat fee payment for their content creation. So this is where you might be working with a bigger macro influencer who requires compensation, or you have a very specific campaign brief that you want to make sure that you get exactly the type of content that you’re looking for. So with the bigger paid campaigns, there’s an agreement in place. You have more control over exactly when that content is going to go live. A lot of times we’ll include reviews within our agreements or that we’re getting to see the content before it goes live and providing our influencers with a round of content edits. So there’s just a little bit more control, compared to the earned engagement. That said, I don’t think smaller brands need to have these bigger paid budgets so early on as mentioned, I think an earned or trade relationship is a great way to learn and then carry those learnings into a bigger paid engagement. But we also do a lot of affiliate influencer marketing as well, which is more of an ambassador program, which also works nicely because you’re incentivizing influencers just based on the number of conversions they drive. So that typically looks like a set commission of sales that they drive, whether that’s tracked through a discount code or a unique link. So those are the three main campaigns that we run for our clients at RVD.

Adrian Tennant: How does RVD categorize influencers by the size of their following?

Paige Garrett: So this is a great question and I think the answer evolves every week, in the world of influencer marketing. But for now, we typically equate a nano influencer to anybody who has zero to 10,000 followers. So those are smaller influencers, but they usually have hyper-engaged communities. So in those earned engagements or the trade engagements, that’s where we’ll be working mostly with nano influencers. Micro influencers we typically categorize as having 10K to 100K followers. There’s a new branch of influencer, which is the mid-level, which is a hundred to 500K. Macro influencers would be 500K to a million followers. And then there would be the mega macros, which have over a million followers snd those are typically more of the celebrity status of influencers. So we, of course, are very mindful of these different tiers. And as mentioned a paid campaign versus an earned campaign will kind of stipulate who we’re working with from a tier perspective. but we do also keep a very close eye on engagement rate. No matter if we’re working with a nano influencer or a macro influencer, because at the end of the day, you want to make sure that your content is being seen. So there are a lot of platforms that can equate engagement rate for you but the way you would basically go about finding that engagement rate is likes and comments divided by the total number of followers. So again, making sure that in addition to a lot of followers, all of those followers are hyper-engaged with that specific influencer’s content.

Adrian Tennant: For those listening, who haven’t yet worked with influencers, what are some of the issues marketers need to consider when planning a sponsored campaign for the very first time?

Paige Garrett: A lot of the clients we’re working with are brands that are just launching or who have never done influencer marketing before. So what we like to lead with is lead time. So it does take a little bit of time to nail down your strategy, align on the goals of the program. Is it brand awareness? Are you looking just for content to repurpose across your owned channels? Are you looking, of course, to drive sales, sort of like, what are the main goals of this initial campaign that you’re putting together? And then from there, really working backwards to find the right partners. I think really making sure that you’re doing your due diligence and researching to find the right type of influencer. For instance, we would never recommend a cheese brand to an influencer who is obviously dairy-free. So while it takes a little bit of time to do that manual research, of course, there are resources and platforms that help, it is really important to take that extra time to do so. And then from there, it’s also vetting those partners. Obviously, in the world that we live in, everything on social and everything online, it lives there indefinitely, so make sure that you’re doing a deep dive before reaching out to a potential partner to make sure that they’re fully brand aligned with your brand or your client’s brand. I think influencer marketing works very similarly to public relations or PR in the sense that you still need to proactively pitch your brand or your product or service to the influencer and get them to be interested. So, you know, just like how journalists are inundated with pitches every day, so are influencers. So what can you do to really insert your brand or product or service into that influencer’s day-to-day life? How can you personalize your outreach and make them see the value of what it is you’re offering to them? So really taking the time to craft that messaging, in the right way. And then from there, it can take a little bit of time to get that interest. So again, I think the overarching theme of my replies is time and research. Typically, once we have that initial interest, we’ll provide a creative brief, but also leaving ample room for that creator to use their creative expertise, because that’s why, you know, you’re approaching them in the first place. So, just making sure you have all those various aspects buttoned up before you even begin your outreach so that once the interest is there, once you start the process of collaborating with an influencer, you know exactly what you’re looking for and the value that they can provide to you and your brand.

Adrian Tennant: Thinking specifically about direct-to-consumer brands or retailers selling online, what types of influencer marketing campaigns does RVD typically run?

Paige Garrett: A lot of the clients that we’re working with are either new brands that are just launching or brands that are smaller and may have never done influencer marketing before. So for a DTC client, specifically, we typically start with more of an earned or trade engagement. So providing that product, just getting the product into as many influencers’ hands as we possibly can. Of course, again, doing our due diligence to make sure that they’re the right type of partners, the right influencers, who would genuinely as consumers value from that client’s product or service. So, within that sort of initial earned or trade campaign, it’s a great way for us to learn a lot, candidly. So before our clients have to put, you know, larger budgets behind campaigns, we can use more of this earned engagement to find out what type of influencers are really resonating with the brand or product? What type of content is working really well? What content might not be working as well? Who do we love, who loves us? Just really establishing relationships and learning in this initial earned phase so that when it does come time to do a bigger paid initiative or campaign, or even just build a brand ambassador program, we have all of those learnings in place. The beauty of DTC, as well as that obviously via stories, or even just via link in bio, if you’re working with a smaller nano influencer, you can link directly to your client’s website or the specific products that the influencer is recommending. So from a conversion perspective, it’s really helpful specifically for those DTC clients.

Adrian Tennant: Let’s take a short break. We’ll be right back after these messages.

Lane Martin: I’m Lane Martin, graphic designer on Bigeye’s, creative team. Every week IN CLEAR FOCUS examines trending topics through the lens of consumer behavior. At Bigeye, for every engagement, we commit to really understanding our client’s target customers, using research to learn about their attitudes and motivations. As a graphic designer, I use these insights to guide my approach to crafting visually engaging solutions and inspiring effective campaigns. If you’d like to put Bigeye’s creative communications to work for your brand, please contact us. Email info@bigeyeagency.com. Bigeye. Reaching the right people, at the right place, at the right time.

Adrian Tennant: How do you identify?

Voices: Female, male, gender fluid, cis-gender, genderqueer, non-binary, trans-feminine.

Adrian Tennant: Society is constantly changing and evolving. To understand how Americans feel about gender identity and expression, Bigeye undertook a national study involving over 2,000 adult consumers. Over half of those aged 18 to 39 believe that traditional binary labels of male and female are outdated and instead see gender as a spectrum. Our exclusive report, GENDER: BEYOND THE BINARY, reveals how beliefs across different generations influences the purchase of toys, clothes, and consumer packaged goods. To download the full report, go to Bigeye.agency/gender.

Voices: Nonconforming, transgender, two-spirit, trans-masculine, gender fluid.

Adrian Tennant: GENDER: BEYOND THE BINARY.

Adrian Tennant: Welcome back. I’m talking with Paige Garrett, Assistant Vice President of Marketing at RVD communications. Paige, how do you calculate the return on investment for clients from an influencer marketing campaign?

Paige Garrett: I love this question. Of course, measuring success is extremely important and, you know, for our earned, our trade relationships, where we don’t have an agreement in place, we still typically like to use UTM links. So, essentially it’s first establishing, what is the goal of this program or campaign that we’re running? Is it capturing content? Is it driving sales? Which is usually the goal. Is it just driving bigger brand awareness for a specific initiative or partnerships? Sort of aligning on what the goal is upfront so that we can measure against that. But what we can use UTM links for is essentially, once our influencers are including that swipe up or the link in bio, we get to see what’s happening once a consumer leaves the world of Instagram or leaves the world of that influencer, and enters the world of our client or brand. So while again, these aren’t paid, we do have a lot of success with asking our influencer partners to use their UTM links, because the way we position it to them is that we, as a brand, want to create a longstanding relationship with you. And what this unique link will allow us to see is everything that you’re driving for us as a brand. And I think influencers are really active and receptive to that, which is wonderful because they also want to do right and do well by the brand. So basically what a UTM link does is codes all of that information into our clients’ Google analytics backend, so that we can see, obviously, who’s purchasing, if anybody’s purchasing or if they’re not purchasing, you know, when that customer is leaving the site, how long are they on the site for? It kind of helps from a UX perspective as well, especially for our brands that might have just launched. That’s typically how we will measure success in an earned capacity. From a paid capacity, there’s a lot more we can ask our partners for because we’re paying them and have that agreement in place. So we’ll always ask for their Instagram metrics. So there’s a lot that’s public in terms of likes and comments, but we also like to look at things like sends and saves. So, from an engagement perspective, how else are potential customers engaging with the content? I think saves is a great way to see that there’s obviously some sort of intent to come back to that content or learn more about it, read more about it, or purchase. The same goes with sends, in the sense that somebody is clearly sending that to a friend or to somebody else who they want to see that content. We also ask our paid partners: did anybody DM you about this brand? We look at the sentiment of their comments. So overall, just making sure that we’re capturing the full picture in the sense of what did this partnership drive from a website or conversion perspective, but also just from a bigger brand awareness and sentiment perspective as well.

Adrian Tennant: Paige, thinking about the types of clients you work with at RVD and obviously without giving away any trade secrets, what are some of the tactics or types of content that you find work consistently well?

Paige Garrett: Yeah. So we have a fun phrase that we like to say at RVD, which has gone are the days of fluff content. I think that, when influencer marketing first started a few years ago, especially on Instagram, there was a lot of posing with specific products or very curated content. And I think that while there are a lot of content creators who do create beautiful content that is very editorial and stylized, I do think that more real, authentic content is what is performing really well. And it makes sense because at the end of the day, a follower or a community that an influencer has, they’re looking to that influencer just for day to day inspiration. And they have that established relationship with that influencer. They know what their typical day is like because the influencer shares it every day. So when an influencer is promoting something that is so far from what they typically would share, or that clearly goes against something that a follower already knows about them, I think it’s really obvious to the consumer and it’s very unlikely that they’ll take action when it comes to that content. So for instance, we have an influencer who we work with quite frequently, who we had a paid engagement with recently. And her content was already pre-shot, we’ve, you know, approved the content. We were ready to go. And she actually, unfortunately, got COVID and it was during this time that she really used her channel to open up about her mental health, about the way that it was affecting her, obviously, physically, but mentally as well. It was such a beautiful thing to see in such a real and honest depiction of who she is as an influencer and the way that she wants to try to help others who are likely going through similar situations. And the content we had prerecorded just felt so wrong in that instance, because of this phase that she was coming out of personally. So instead, we decided to collaborate on, you saw value in the product previously. How do you see value in the products now that you’re coming out of such a difficult two weeks, a difficult time where you obviously spoke to your mental health, and how this has all affected you? And we kind of worked with her as a creator to reshoot the content in a way that felt really real and honest with where she was in her life. And I think that is a great example of the type of content that is resonating most, because it’s very authentic in a way that, followers and consumers are picking up on now more than ever.

Adrian Tennant: E-marketer estimates that influencer marketing sponsorships totaled around $10 billion in 2020. Given its popularity, are you seeing clients using influencer marketing in addition to ad campaigns or does that $10 billion reflect a shift in spending away from traditional and digital advertising and toward influencer marketing?

Paige Garrett: Yeah. I would say that the two definitely go hand in hand. I think it was about two years ago that it took 8 touchpoints to convert a customer. So I could only imagine it’s more like 12 now. Whereas as a society we are very distracted, we’re doing too much at once. It takes a lot to get somebody to finally decide to purchase something or to go to a restaurant or whatever that action is. So I do think that there is a reason to have both traditional and digital advertising in addition to influencer marketing. So I would say that, you know, bigger brands, they have that bigger advertising budget, but they’re also setting up a separate budget for influencer marketing. That said, I also think that for smaller brands or newer brands who don’t have as big of budgets, I think that the value of influencer marketing, especially early on in a business is so important. And I do think that a lot of our clients and a lot of the clients that we’re working with, do tend to allocate their dollars there first, because I think working with influencers, it’s almost like you have a group of beta testers to collect feedback from. Using our UTM links, we can see, is there anything broken in terms of our UX website flow that we should consider before you’re putting larger dollars behind advertising? And I do think also with influencer marketing, there’s a lot of content you can capture that you can then leverage for your owned or paid channels eventually. So, I do think again, the two work hand in hand, there’s a reason to be doing both, but as a smaller brand, while you’re just starting out using an influencer marketing campaign and more of that trade or earned capacity to start, is a great way to find your core audience demo, find what’s working from a content perspective. Use your influencers like beta testers, just like use that influencer campaign to collect a lot of data and information that you can then carry over when you’re ready to do more of a traditional or digital advertising run.

Adrian Tennant: Well, we can’t talk about social media and not discuss TikTok, the breakout network of the pandemic. Paige, what kinds of brands do you see performing best in this channel?

Paige Garrett: We love to talk about TikTok. It’s definitely a labor and time-intensive platform in the sense that if you’re going to be on TikTok, you really need to double down, and to be on TikTok. So what we typically recommend for our clients is making sure that you’re really ready and that you have enough content to fill in that channel. So, it’s obviously very video-heavy. There’s a lot of cutting and it’s also what we like to say as well as whereas with Instagram, there’s a lot of curation. It’s a very editorialized vision of your brand or product or service, and the same goes for influencers. I think that there are a lot of influencers who still take a lot of pride, artistically in their Instagram feeds and the type of content they’re producing on Instagram. Whereas with TikTok, it’s kind of like what Snapchat was like when it first came out, only it lives forever. It doesn’t go away after 24 hours, but it is a little bit quicker, a little bit more real, authentic, kind of like a BTS or behind the scenes look at, a real, authentic version of that influencer or of your brand. So, I do think that, you know, when it comes to influencer marketing on TikTok, we typically recommend not going too heavy until you have a presence as a brand on TikTok. That said, I do think it’s also a great way to test via influencers, what type of content is resonating on TikTok. almost using your influencers like a beta test to see what they’re producing on behalf of your brand on TikTok. So that, that can kind of get your creative wheels turning from your owned content perspective. Also leveraging that influencer’s TikTok content on your TikTok eventually. But when it comes to, let’s say, an influencer campaign that we’re running on TikTok for a brand that doesn’t have a TikTok presence just yet, we’ll also make sure that our influencer partners are repurposing that content via Instagram Reel so that they’re able to tag our brand of course, and drive direct conversion that way as well.

Adrian Tennant: For any brand that’s considering engaging with an influencer marketing agency or a communications firm to manage a campaign, what are some good questions to evaluate whether that firm will be a good fit?

Paige Garrett: I think that it’s getting very clear upfront regarding what you’re looking for with that influencer campaign. So, obviously, I think every brand is interested in sales, but depending on where you are in your business, do you just need content? You know, maybe you don’t have a budget for a big photoshoot or, you’re just a founder and you don’t have access to a full team. Is there a campaign you’re looking to mount just so that you can capture content for your own channels? Are you looking to drive sales? Are you looking for, you know, bigger paid campaigns? Just making sure that your goals align with the agency and the agency services and capabilities. I also think definitely asking about previous projects that they’ve done, case studies, making sure again, that the types of brands that agency may have worked with fits with what you’re looking for, what your brand vision may be, that they’re brands that you know and respect and admire in the space. And I also think it’s just making sure that you’re also set up to have a successful influencer program. So for instance, if you’re looking for a bigger brand ambassador program, do you have some sort of DTC component, do you feel equipped and ready to have enough product to seed out to influencers? If you’re doing a trade or earned program if you want a bigger paid campaign, do you have healthy budgets, making sure that, you’re aligned on all of those key components, in addition to, the goals of your campaign, so that that agency can give their strategic recommendation on what is or isn’t doable.

Adrian Tennant: Paige, looking at the next two to three years, how do you see the influencer marketing landscape evolving?

Paige Garrett: The fluff content is gone. I think that when an influencer is choosing to share content, whether it be sponsored or not, I think that influencers are really looking to add value and to open up bigger conversations, and use their platforms for the greater good. Whereas, you know, I do think there was a lot of curated interest in stylized content previously. So I’m excited to continue to see this where influencers are really doubling down on brands that give back or initiatives that they align with personally, they’re saying no to deals with brands that they don’t admire who aren’t doing well by society. Really just leaning into authentic, real content that feels good to them as a consumer, but also that they know that their community will resonate with. So I, for instance, would always rather an influencer say no, and we have had some, some no’s, because if it’s a dietary restriction or, a personal decision that they want to lean into a different industry, I would always rather hear, “No”, that “this is not brand-aligned”, then an influencer produce content that they don’t feel good about and that they don’t think their community will resonate with. So continuing to move in that direction, I definitely think video will continue to be huge. And I do think that video allows for that more authentic and real connection. Whereas, you can’t just hide behind a stylized photo. A movement towards the real is really what I think we’re all experiencing and especially after such a challenging few years, with everything going on, I do think that influencers want to leverage their platforms to do more than just share brands or content, to share resources. You know, I think that educational content will continue to be huge and just moving towards using social media for the greater good, rather than perpetuating unrealistic norms of a perfect lifestyle, which we all now know does not exist.

Adrian Tennant: So Paige, if IN CLEAR FOCUS, listeners would like to learn more about influencer marketing with RVD, where can they find resources?

Paige Garrett: Yeah, so you can visit our website at www.rachelvandolson.com. You can email us at info@rachelvandolson.com or find us on Instagram: @RVDCommunications.

Adrian Tennant: And if people would like to know more about your coaching services for fitness and integrative health, where can they find you?

Paige Garrett: They can find me at www.PaigeGarrett.com or on Instagram @PaigeAConnelly.

Adrian Tennant: Paige, thank you very much for being our guest this week on, IN CLEAR FOCUS!

Paige Garrett: Thank you so much for having me. It was such a pleasure.

Adrian Tennant: Thanks to my guest this week, Paige Garrett, Assistant Vice President of Marketing at RVD Communications. You’ll find a transcript with links to the resources we discussed today on the IN CLEAR FOCUS page at Bigeyeagency.com. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider following us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Audible, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you for listening to IN CLEAR FOCUS produced by Bigeye. I’ve been your host, Adrian Tennant. Until next week, goodbye.

Categories
Influencer Marketing
influencer marketing campaigns
influencer marketing campaigns

See and understand ten examples of great influencer marketing campaigns for a variety of CPG companies, from Diet Coke to underwear.

According to Martech Advisor, almost 90 percent of CPG marketers include influencer marketing in their promotional campaigns. To gain some inspiration about successful campaigns for a variety of CPG products and brands, look at brief summaries for a variety of examples.

CPG Marketing Agency Picks for Examples of Successful Influencer Ad Campaigns

To understand how a CPG marketing agency might plan to maximize the ROI from influencer marketing for a specific type of product, it should help to consider these diverse examples. 

1. Fiji Water

This bottled water company sponsored workout videos on Instagram with Danielle Bernstein. They hoped to emphasize the company’s focus upon keeping fitness buffs well hydrated, while they’re working to look as good as Ms. Bernstein.

 
 
 
 
 
View this post on Instagram
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Feelin’ fit, lookin’ fancy. #FIJIFit. ? @weworewhat #bodyworewhat

A post shared by FIJI Water (@fijiwater) on

2. Diageo whiskey

As the parent company, Diageo produces Lagavulin and Oban whiskey brands. This campaign featured Nick Offerman of Parks and Recreation, mostly just sitting by the fire with his glass of whiskey. It even won an award as the best influencer marketing campaign in the celebrity category.

3. Stride gum

Lots of people recognize DJ Khaled as a hip hop artist and producer. He’s fairly famous on Snapchat and partnered with Stride for some fun channel takeovers. In many cases, influencers post on their own channels; however, in this case, Khaled performed on Stride’s network to provide CPG advertising. In this way, he could engage both his and Stride’s existing audience.

Stride Gum – DJ Khaled Snapchat Day from Mark and Paddy on Vimeo.

4. Naked Juice bottled smoothies

Naked Juice wanted to position themselves in the sphere of beauty, health, and fashion. To that end, they engaged Kate La Vie, a lifestyle blogger. She basically shared posts of her daily essentials. Of course, these included sunglasses, a makeup kit, and a bottled smoothie from Naked Juice.

 
 
 
 
 
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Post gym fuel + today’s outfit details! @nakedjuiceuk #ad

A post shared by Kate Spiers (@kate.lavie) on

5. Glossier beauty products

Instead of relying upon a social media star or celebrity, Glossier ran a campaign called Regular Women. The company motivated women to share images of their beauty products by offering them the chance to offer product discounts to their own social circles. This example might particularly interest a consumer package goods agency with a tight budget.

 
 
 
 
 
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?

A post shared by Glossier (@glossier) on

6. Kraft food products

Most people probably associate Kraft with at least some types of common food products. According to Tap Influencer, 98 percent of North American households have at least one Kraft product in their pantry or fridge right now.  Still, the company wanted to better connect with a customer base that increasingly turns online for information about products.

They “crafted” their influencer marketing around high-quality content, such as recipes and cooking demos that incorporated Kraft products, and earned a considerable amount of exposure in the process.

7. Persona vitamins

Persona markets Vitamin Packs to consumers. They first developed software called the “Vitamin Advisory System” nearly two decades ago. They began to perform much better when Dr. Andrew Weil and Drugstore.com used this software on their own websites.

Dr. Weil has a popular health and nutrition site, and Drugstore.com is a big eCommerce site. In both cases, the vitamin maker offered something of value in exchange for exposure. Since then, their model has been used by other vitamin companies.

8. Diet Coke soda

Apparently, the color scheme of a Coke can is so familiar that Diet Coke ran their campaign without using labels. Actually, the purpose of the campaign was to start discussions about labels, and they even tagged it #unlabeled.

They partnered with a diverse set of influencers, who all talked about obstacles they needed to overcome because they believed they had been stereotyped. In this case, Coca-Cola did a good job of connecting with their audience over values.

 
 
 
 
 
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we’re removing our labels, to start a conversation about yours. see how we’re celebrating individuals and their stories at dietcoke.com/unlabeled. #unlabeled

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9. Stance underwear and socks

Stance wanted to establish an identity for their brand as comfortable, carefree, and active. Known as a sock company, they are also branching into underwear. They had the idea to engage influencers to perform a wild activity in their underwear in order to encourage their audience to do the same — and have a chance to win cash prizes. They hoped to highlight high-quality, engaging content in order to visually connect with customers.

10. Sperry shoes

Sperry noted that some influencers already wore their shoe brands on social media, so they worked with them to create more engaging content to attract an audience. Sperry looked for micro-influencers and not major social stars, offered them assistance, and hoped to reap the benefits while the influencers also grew their audience.

 
 
 
 
 
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Soar to new heights and set sail on new adventures. #odysseysawait @slavatheshrimp

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Obstacles an influencer marketing agency can help CPG businesses overcome

Done right, using influencers for CPG marketing can produce great results. At the same time, HubSpot pointed out that many businesses struggle with at least a few challenges. These can include determining ROI and finding appropriate influencers that can provide the reach, authenticity, and positive messaging. An experienced consumer package goods agency can offer solutions to overcome these obstacles to ensure influencer campaigns produce a positive ROI.

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Influencer Marketing Pet Pet Food Pet Health & Wellness Pet Insurance Pet Supplies
influencer marketing scaled 1
influencer marketing scaled 1

Don’t knock influencer marketing when building your strategy for pet products. This type of marketing amplifies word-of-mouth marketing through social media.

Do you trust a random TV actor pitching a product?

What about a celebrity pitch person — someone you’re familiar with? Would you trust this person more?

How about a close personal friend whose opinions you respect? Does their product recommendation carry even greater weight?

In most cases, the answer to these questions are all in the affirmative. There is a definite spectrum in terms of whom we trust — that’s one reason why word-of-mouth marketing has historically been so effective. People trust friends, family members and people they respect more than faceless corporations.

Influencer content marketing offers many of the same benefits associated with word-of-mouth marketing, and amplifies those benefits by including the reach of social media. Let’s take a closer look at the current state of influencer marketing, how it can specifically be used to sell pet products more effectively, and the benefits of working with an influencer marketing agency.

Influencer marketing: a maturing market

The growth of influencer marketing has been nothing short of astonishing over the last few years. Just consider these statistics from Influencer Marketing Hub’s “The State of Influencer Marketing in 2020” report:

  • The industry is worth nearly $10 billion, growing from $1.6 billion in 2016.
  • Average earned media value per $1 spent has jumped to more than $5.
  • The number of micro-influencers used by large companies has tripled in three years.
  • 80% of respondents plan to have a dedicated influencer marketing budget in 2020.
  • 91% of respondents believe influencer marketing is an effective tactic for growing a customer base.

As those statistics show, it’s on a rapid growth trajectory. Yet to get the most out of your influencer marketing campaigns, it’s essential to have your finger on the pulse of evolving trends. eMarketer’s recently published “2018 Influencer Marketing Report” cites the following trends for 2020:

  • 48% of businesses plan on using celebrity (or “macro”) influencers, while 45% will use micro influencers.
  • Instagram is the preferred platform for influencer marketing, with 100% of report respondents using it. 85% use Facebook, 67% reported using YouTube, Snapchat 44% and Twitter 33%.
  • TikTok, which is seeing some of the fastest growth among social platforms, is expected to be a major player in influencer campaigns in 2020.
  • Influencers will continue to cross-over from having niche social media followings to being full-fledged celebrities. While this will give the most prominent macro influencers more leverage with businesses seeking to work with them, it also greatly expands their potential orbit of influence.

How can this be applied to pet products?

The pet industry is a natural home for influencers. People are devoted to their animals and love to consume and share pet-related content over social media. It’s estimated that one-quarter of all social content is pet-related and that one-fifth of pet owners have created a social media account specifically for their animal. The #dogsofinstagram hashtag alone is closing in on 200 million posts. Social media influencer marketing agencies that are solely dedicated to working with famous animal accounts have sprung up in the last couple of years, attesting to the power of this phenomenon.

Companies seeking to sell pet products, therefore, have a powerful advantage relative to businesses in other industries: An army of potential influencers waiting to be leveraged. Pet bloggers and owners of pet social media accounts number in the millions, which means that the pool of available influencer talent is vast. Given that the ability to source influencers is perennially ranked as one of the most difficult challenges for firms engaged in influencer marketing, this is a considerable advantage.

There is an obvious parallel to be drawn here: Mommy bloggers. Brands, over the last ten years, profited enormously from their partnership with high-profile mommy bloggers, who were able to build vast and deeply engaged audiences across various social platforms and websites. Parent-focused social media marketing become a core strategy for countless brands, and helped generate billions in new revenue.

Pet industry brands have a similar opportunity to leverage pet bloggers in the same way, given their sizable numbers and considerable reach. Pairing this approach with some of the trends we’ve cited above is a winning strategy for 2020 (we especially encourage brands to focus on integrating TikTok into their influencer marketing strategy, as that platform is poised to become perhaps only second to Instagram in terms of cultural cachet and reach).

Finding the right influencer marketing agency

At Bigeye, we are experts at crafting compelling influencer marketing campaigns rooted in a deep understanding of the latest trends and technologies. If your pet product campaign needs a boost, we encourage you to reach out to us today — and learn what the right influencer marketing campaign can do for your brand.

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Influencer Marketing Marketing/Business Media & Analytics
influencer marketing scaled 1
influencer marketing scaled 1

Influencer marketing continues to grow at an extraordinary rate. Yet the field is on the verge of an even greater transformation. Here’s why.

Influencer marketing as a general concept stretches back to early 20th century consumer advertising, when athletes, actors and astronauts were turned into pitchmen extraordinaire. Yet influencer marketing in the modern sense has been around for little more than a decade. Despite its relative youth, influencer marketing has proven remarkably popular — and successful.

Total spend on Influencer marketing grew to $6.5 billion in 2019, a significant hike over the $1.6 billion spent in 2016. The industry is expected to crest $10 billion within the next two years, as roughly 70% of marketers expect to increase their spending in this category in 2020.

To earn a competitive advantage, however, you can’t just throw money at influencers — you need to ensure resources are deployed wisely. This means divesting yourself of older influencer techniques that have lost their ability to engage and convert, and deploying new strategies that earn instant attention and cultivate meaningful brand loyalty.

Understanding the evolution of the influencer market

To help you develop a winning influencer marketing strategy, let’s take a look at a few techniques that have lost their relevance:

  • Not giving your influencer the latitude to be creative. At one time, giving an influencer a fairly restrictive project brief made sense: Influencer marketing was new, and brands were taking a gamble by allowing non-traditional advocates to speak for their enterprises. Influencers, most of whom are used to engaging with audiences in an intimate and interactive setting, weren’t always shining examples of brand safety or caution, so it made sense to stick to a tight creative script. Today, however, most leading influencers are old pros and more than capable of adding value by stretching the creative bounds of a campaign.
  • Focusing too much on size. In the early days, the size of an influencer’s following was the most important metric. Today, however, we understand that engagement is just as critical (if no more so). Audience engagement also tends to drop as size grows, so it makes sense for brands to try to hit the sweet spot that pairs wide reach with active engagement. Brands are also increasingly targeting the micro-influencer space. Even an account with a few thousand followers can deliver an exceptional ROI if those are the right few thousand people.
  • Only using influencers within your niche. Again, this may have been entirely logical at one time, but you’re going to activate the Law of Diminishing Returns very quickly. To maximize the power of your influencer marketing strategy, reach beyond your niche or your industry and you can vastly widen the talent pool at your disposal. Great brand ambassadors can be found in the most unlikely places.

I’ve retired my obsolete techniques…tell me what’s next?

If you’re ready to refresh and recalibrate your influencer marketing approach, we think the following ideas are worth pursuing.

  • Drop the one-off engagements and build long-term relationships. Finding great talent is the eternal battle for any business. You should view influencers through the same prism. People with engaged followings who can sell your brand in a compelling way that’s consistent with its values…those people are not easy to replace. If you want your influencer marketing efforts to be a sustainable driver of marketing ROI, it’s important to cultivate long-lasting links.
  • Don’t get hung up on celebrities. Influencers sometimes get a bad name for being vapid or transactional. Brands that can avoid this and create influencer campaigns that deliver real value will have a great differentiator. Avoid shallow, celebrity-driven engagements and create something with more organic appeal and real value.
  • Insist that your influencers use every tool at their disposal. The best influencers stay ahead of the curve on the formats they use (whether video or AR) and the creative approaches they take. Your influencers should be as eager to push the envelope as you are — it’s the only way to remain relevant in a saturated market.

Finding the right influencer marketing agency

At Bigeye, we’ve been harnessing the power of creatively inspired influencer marketing since the earliest days of the form. If you’re looking for an influencer marketing agency that can help you create the kind of campaigns that engage and convert, reach out to Bigeye today.

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Influencer Marketing Marketing/Business Media & Analytics Multi-Family Real Estate
The Secret to Effective Property Management Marketing Minding Your Ps and Cs 1 1200x600 c default
The Secret to Effective Property Management Marketing Minding Your Ps and Cs 1 1200x600 c default

Didn’t grandma ever tell you to mind your own business? Now it’s time to shift focus to the P’s & C’s of property management social media marketing.

Social media moves fast — so it’s critical to stay up to date with the most innovative new ideas. The recent Multifamily Social Media Summit gave property management professionals the perfect opportunity to exchange such ideas and ruminate on the state of property management social media marketing.
If you weren’t able to travel to Napa Valley to attend the conference, don’t worry — we’ll take a seep dive to highlight all the most intriguing ideas.

Avoiding the “deadly four Ps”

Have you ever noticed that brands within some industries handle their social media with much more skill than brands in others? Part of this has to do with the nature of the business — it’s hard to make industrial supplies compelling, for example.

Property management falls somewhere in the middle of this spectrum. Yet this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. For property management firms that get social media right, it’s a chance to become highly differentiated within their market.

One of the easiest ways to get it right is to prioritize storytelling. Let’s face it: Most people don’t care about the “deadly four P’s,” as marketer Steve Crescenzo refers to them: Policies, programs, products and procedures. What do they care about? According to Crescenzo, the “four Cs” — compelling, creative, concise and conversational content.

Partner with a property management social media marketing firm to present your content in the form of a narrative, rather than a dry report where you’re simply pushing out information, and you’ll keep your audience from tuning out.

Higher impact on a lower budget

Every marketer has heard it repeated ad nauseam: Video is critical to your success. More video content is now being uploaded every 30 days than all the content the broadcast TV networks have ever created. Additionally, audiences report deeper engagement with video content.

Unfortunately, video does present challenges. Many brands don’t have the time or the budget to create high-level video content on a consistent basis. However, there is a simple solution — the use of short animated videos. These videos are high impact and relatively inexpensive to produce.

By partnering with the right property management social media-marketing agency, multifamily businesses can reap the benefits of video marketing within their social efforts without deploying excessive resources.

An influential marketing approach

Influencer marketing isn’t new or novel, but it’s just now gaining traction within the multifamily space. By joining forces with an influencer, brands gain access to highly engaged users and receive an endorsement that carries more weight than traditional online marketing messages. The best influencers combine the weight and value of a word of mouth recommendation with the reach of digital.

Some multifamily properties are taking this strategy to the next level by offering free or discounted living space to partnered influencers. These influencers agree to share their living experiences within the community on social media in exchange for this consideration.

While partnering with influencers does require some due diligence and careful guidelines in terms of how content is presented, it’s a strategy that makes sense for multifamilies seeking to improve engagement and grow their social media audience.

The takeaway

If you’re seeking help with property management social media marketing, don’t wait to call our property team today. We’ve got the multifamily expertise, creative talent, and digital skills to help you creative a marketing campaign that creates interest, generates revenue, and increases occupancy.

Categories
Branding Influencer Marketing Marketing/Business
3 Things to unlearn about video game marketing for your brand 1 scaled
3 Things to unlearn about video game marketing for your brand 1 scaled

Gaming is a 2.3 billion global person market, not tapping into this video game marketing arena is a huge loss of opportunity.

There are a lot of things that people think they know about marketing to gamers. Forget all of it. The gaming world is a lot more like the mainstream world than most would think. There is a large amount of both men and women, as well as many different interests and categories. This can make for an incredibly diverse, yet niche audience. The complexity that comes with a melting pot like gaming is hard to fully grasp. So here are some common misconceptions you should unlearn.

1.Stereotypes

There are many ideas out there about the gamer demographic that are flat out wrong. Let’s go through a few and get to the truth of it.

There is one singular gamer demographic: As previously mentioned, there are currently 2.3 billion people that make up the video gaming marketing audience. There is no one profile that can encompass many people. It’s important to understand that there are even more game genres as there are book genres. Books have sci-fi, fantasy, historical fiction, murder mystery and more. Games have role-playing, first-person shooters, platformers, scrollers, racing, puzzles, etc; then added on top of that are stories of all shapes and sizes that justify each action and these two levels are combined in every possible way in gaming.

  • Gamers are children: According to Statista  most gamers are 18-35 years old. In fact, 23% of gamers are 50 years of age and older. This isn’t to say that children do not play video games. They do. Here is the 2018 Statista gamer distribution:
  • Gamers are men: Almost half of the gamers in the US are women and the statistic seems to only be growing. Here is a gender distribution from Statista showing 2006-2018.
  • Gamers are secluded introverts: According to Yahoo! Small Business, gamers are intricately interwoven and over 60% play together both in-person and digitally. With live chats, streamers, game commentators, the ever-growing world of esports, and plain old multiplayer games the idea of the loner gamer has passed its expiration date.
  • Games are played on consoles: Consoles are gaming devices that either plug-into TVs or are their own handheld device. However, there is also PC gaming which is done online through PC computers, as well as mobile gaming which are just as popular—in fact, they’re more popular. Check out this gaming platform distribution for 2019 from Statista.

Plus, most gamers play on any and every platform they can get their hands on.

2. Chameleon-ing

When getting into video game marketing, you have to be genuine. While brands need to be genuine to achieve their goals in all areas, in gaming it works a little differently. Andy Fairclough and Rhian Mason of The Drum said it best, “Gamers can smell bullshit a mile off” don’t just try to tack on a gaming audience. Gamers are used to interactive, engaging media on a level that can’t even be matched by social users. You have to earn their attention genuinely—and here’s the catch—that’s genuine to who you are rather than who you think consumers will listen to.

If there’s one thing Gamers value it’s being absolutely yourself, whoever that is, whether or not you think that’s who they want you to be. If you have an established brand you should stay true to it when marketing to gamers. They do their research; they’ll see right through pandering and they like to talk. The moment your voice is “debunked” by a gamer it will be all over every forum, your campaign will be dead in the water. Do not change who you are to appeal to gamers, use the same message—your message—in a different way on the right channel. How and where is integral as well. Unless your product is a game do not base your campaign on game marketing. Gamers don’t like being tricked or yanked on. They’ll hate this tactic just as much as personality falsities.

3. One-sided advertising

Be in the conversation, not just near it. Gamers are all about interactive media, speaking at them rather than with them is a huge oversight. When entering the conversation, remember the advice above, be genuine. If you’re not sure your branding is the right fit, then influencers can make all the difference. Gamers love live streamers on YouTube and Twitch or the expert teams leading the esports charts. Find the type of gamers you are looking to reach out to then reach out to their influencers. If you want your video game marketing communications to be more direct there’s Reddit where you can find existing game threads and join them as well as gaming platforms with plenty of opportunities to interact with gamers such as mobile game apps and Steam for PC players.

The takeaway

If you’re looking to market your products or services to gamers, find advertising experts that understand video game marketing, that know the stereotypes are outdated, falsities will get you nowhere, and that all brand communications should be customized, grassroots, interacted, or a combination thereof. The gaming world is multi-faceted and takes a lot of research and expertise to excel in.

Get a video game marketing agency that understands each market segment within the gaming industry to effectively promote your product or services. Our team knows the minutiae of the gaming world like the back of their hands. Reach out when you’re ready to plug-in.

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Branding Implementation Influencer Marketing Media & Analytics
Want to maximize your influencer relationships Then go long 1 scaled
Want to maximize your influencer relationships Then go long 1 scaled

Fine-tune your influencer relationships with expert brand messaging services to bring your brand voice to a whole new level!

Brand messaging services have long evangelized about the power of influencer marketing. Yet in order to maximize the returns brands see on influencer campaigns, it’s important to optimize these relationships.
One key factor that many brands overlook in this process is longevity. By finding the right influencer partners and developing a sustained relationship, brands can build more interesting and complex content — and ultimately save money doing it.

Unlocking the key to longevity

Influencer marketing campaigns have evolved over time. A few years ago it was common for influencers and brands to partner for a single campaign and then move on.

Today, however, the trend is shifting toward sustained collaboration, and there are several reasons for this change.

First, brands are beginning to understand that sourcing influencers can be time-consuming. Today, the number of would-be influencers has grown significantly, so it takes more time to discern the pretenders from those with real market sway.

Brands also understand that longer relationships with influencers unlock greater creative potential. Once you grasp an influencer’s strengths, abilities, and the preferences of the influencer’s audience, you can use this information to develop highly targeted marketing content that’s more relevant and more engaging. There’s no feeling out process, which means less time and money is wasted trying to get creative sensibilities in alignment.

Long-term relationships also play well with audiences. If an influencer’s audience sees that a featured brand is one half of a supportive, long-term partnership, this will register as authentic, and earn brands goodwill.

Influencers, too, benefit from a sustained partnership. High-level product partnerships help establish influencers as credible and increase their standing in the eyes of their followers, brands, and other influencers competing for the same market.

Setting the table for longevity

So how do brands lay the groundwork for long and mutually profitable relationships with influencers? It starts with identifying the right people. Success as an influencer isn’t only about reach or pure numbers — it’s also about engagement. An influencer with 10,000 deeply passionate fans or followers may have more value than an influencer with 100,000 mildly-engaged fans or followers.

It’s also critical to target the appropriate niche. This doesn’t necessarily mean that a partner influencer needs to be situated in the exact same space as a brand’s products or brand messaging services. There may be crossover opportunities with influencers in adjacent niches. Or, established influencers may seek to grow their followings into new yet still somewhat related categories — a beauty blogger transitioning into fashion, for example.

Brands should carefully weigh variables such as the size of an audience, its growth rate, overall engagement, how long an influencer has been operating, the platforms they use, the kind of content they create and the values they possess.

It’s also important to consider personal attributes as well. Influencers are like anyone else — their interests, desires, ambitions, and life circumstances evolve over time. It’s possible that today’s fashion influencer may become tomorrow’s parenting vlogger.

If all of these elements are aligned with the strategic needs of the brand, the stage is set for a long — and mutually beneficial — relationship.

The takeaway

We understand the immense value that can be unleashed by establishing the right influencer marketing partnership. Brands can work with influencers to create more authentic connections with their audiences through brand messaging services and reach highly motivated consumers within new lucrative channels.

If you’d like to hear more about the value of long-term influencer relationships, we urge you to contact BIGEYE today.

Categories
Influencer Marketing Media & Analytics
Politics affect sales according to influencer marketing agencies
Politics affect sales according to influencer marketing agencies

Brands and influencers have long exercised great caution when dealing with anything falling into the categories of sex, politics, and religion. Yet times are quickly changing. This election season saw public figures such as Oprah and Taylor Swift engage in unprecedented political activity. Brands, too, were eager to join the electoral fray, often under the direction of an influencer marketing strategy agency.
So what does this mean for the future of brands, politicians and these newly emboldened influencers with dedicated followings?

Quite a bit, it seems.

Why “politics” is no longer forbidden for influencers

The high-profile political activity displayed by A-list celebrities like Oprah and Taylor Swift didn’t occur in a vacuum. Influencers as a whole have never been as deeply involved in electoral politics.

Fohr, an influencer marketing agency, ran a campaign called “Influence the Election” during the midterms. The campaign asked influencers to connect their Instagram accounts to the company’s website in order to receive story templates to help identify highly engaged political content and encourage tagging and sharing. In a recent interview in AdWeek, James Nord, CEO of Fohr, claimed the campaign reached nearly 100 million people.

Nord said he was inspired to start the campaign after he noticed that influencers were largely ignoring news about the Trump Administration’s ongoing attempts to institute a travel ban. Nord said this lack of engagement prompted him to wonder about the power influencers wield and how they choose (or choose not) to use it. Many influencers, Nord believed, failed to post about political issues because they felt it was simply out of their niche.

That, however, may soon be changing.

How influencers are creating a new kind of politics

The “Influence the Election” campaign was designed to be a digital election yard sign of sorts. Just a decade or two ago, candidates fought bitterly to secure the endorsement of newspapers. These endorsements were exceptionally valuable because of the gatekeeper role that newspapers filled. Many people had their political views shaped by the work of a relatively small number of reporters and editors.

Today, that gatekeeper role has been greatly diminished. The Internet allowed thousands of websites to blossom, democratizing coverage of news and politics. Even more importantly, social media gifted every person a megaphone. Now, instead of relying on one newspaper to deliver an endorsement, politicians could receive endorsements from individual influencers with highly devoted and motivated followings.

Many influencers are staying fairly neutral in terms of content, encouraging followers to vote and support widely popular causes. Yet as the space matures, we could soon see influencers working on behalf of candidates much in the way they work for brands. Candidates can identify influencers who have followings that match their demographic priorities — and who have political views in alignment with their own — and ask the influencers to use their platform to promote their campaigns.

While this is a tricky road to tread (especially given the past problems Facebook and other platforms have faced with more nefarious targeted influence campaigns), it’s not difficult to envision a future where politics and commerce are largely indistinguishable in the way that they interact with influencer marketing.

The right influencer marketing partner

At BIGEYE, our team helps develop the kind of influencer marketing campaigns that can drive sales – or even win an election. Reach out to us to learn more about what a world-class influencer marketing strategy agency can do for you.

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Influencer Marketing Media & Analytics
How influence became the currency of marketing why it matters
How influence became the currency of marketing why it matters

If you’re a longstanding fan of TV’s “The Bachelor” or “The Bachelorette,” you’ve probably lost count of the hundreds of contestants who have contended for roses and eternal love (or at least a plausible television wedding) over the course of the last decade.
Yet just because eliminated contestants may drop out of sight, doesn’t mean they drop out of the public’s mind. Many have devoted followings on social media that endure long after their time in front of the camera ends.

And marketers are well aware of this.

Ex-reality TV stars pitching products on Instagram and other platforms have become a cottage industry. Whether hawking teeth whitening strips or “flat tummy tea,” contestants from “The Bachelor” and other shows are cashing in. While they may have failed to find a perfect TV love match, they’ve found the next best thing:

A new career as a well-compensated influencer.

How influencer marketing became inescapable

At this point, cultural influencers have become both omnipresent and meme-worthy — just look at the new “Influencer” Halloween costume from Urban Outfitters, for example. Yet influencer marketing isn’t the sole province of reality stars and social media personalities. While it’s true that many of these influencers have built sizeable and devoted followings, you can also think about influencer marketing in a much broader way.

One such example is Nike’s recent campaign built around NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick. Though the on-field protests Kaepernick led and inspired were controversial, they were also deeply inspiring and influential to a large segment of consumers.

By creating a campaign that highlighted, in a central fashion, Kaepernick’s protest for social equality, the influencer marketing strategy agency tapped into the disposition in a very real and moving way. Of course, this isn’t the kind of influencer marketing that’s fit for everyone — it’s a polarizing issue with the potential to divide audiences. But it also allowed Nike to become a serious player in an ongoing cultural conversation — not an easy thing to do for any brand.

Another example is McDonald’s. As AdWeek notes, the burger chain has been drawing positive reviews for the minimalism incorporated in its new global design aesthetic. McDonald’s creative agencies seem to be on the same wavelength.

Remember the artist Banksy’s self-shredding painting — the one that self-destructed after being purchased at auction? Worldwide media was fascinated by the story (much as they are with anything Banksy-related), so McDonald’s creative team came up with two minimalistic takes on the art world phenomenon.

It was a clever way for McDonald’s to trade on Banksy’s influence, and the larger trends that are driving art, media, and design.

Do I need an influencer marketing strategy agency?

Influencer marketing is inescapable for a good reason — it’s highly effective. Brands can target highly motivated niche audiences by partnering with social media stars, or become part of larger societal trends by incorporating those themes into their campaigns.

The right influencer marketing strategy agency can play a key role in cultivating the necessary relationships with key influencers, while also helping brands identify the most influential trends with which to work.

At BIGEYE, we specialize in helping brands grow their audiences by implementing highly effective influencer marketing strategies. Contact us today and we can do the same for you.

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Influencer Marketing Marketing/Business Media & Analytics
Play to win Why an influencer outreach agency partners with gamers scaled
Play to win Why an influencer outreach agency partners with gamers scaled

Think gamers are too niche of an audience for your business to pursue? Guess again. These days, virtually every household has a gamer, and most have more than one. Whether we are talking about die-hard gamers streaming their exploits on Twitch or the businesswoman who relaxes with Candy Crush on her smartphone, gaming permeates our common culture. Working with the right influencer outreach agency can help you take advantage of these unexploited outlets.

Influencer marketing connects gamers and brands

The first thing to understand about influencer marketing and gaming is that the two are inextricably linked — influencer marketing is pervasive in the gaming industry. Brands hire top e-sports stars to pitch their products and video game makers use real-world athletes to pitch their games.

This means that gamers, as an audience, are conditioned to respond to influencer marketing in a way that general audiences are not. Gamers are also a massive market; by 2020, there are projected to be 213 million mobile gamers alone. The demographics of this audience aren’t necessarily what you might envision. More than half of mobile gamers are women, one-third are older than 45 and most have significant disposable income.

Sounds like an ideal mix for brands and marketers, right? The next step, however, is critical: Finding the right partners to maximize a brand’s reach and influence.

Identifying the right influencers

Influencers come in many forms in the gaming industry. They include professional e-sports players, amateur game streamers with massive followings on YouTube, Twitch, game developers, and other content creators.

Because becoming a gaming influencer can be a very “bottom up,” democratized process (barriers to entry for building an audience are very low), those who wield the most influence in the gaming sphere may be little known among the larger public. This shouldn’t dissuade you from working with someone, however.

Gaming audiences also tend to be rabid in their support for their favorite players, developers and streamers — the most popular of whom generate millions of dollars from donations and advertising revenue.

When working with influencers, it’s also important to allow them the creative latitude to highlight or pitch your product in their preferred fashion. They understand their audiences better than any outsider ever could, and it’s important that any pitch or placement be done in an authentic and organic manner.

Finding the right influencer, however, may require working with an influencer outreach agency.

Need help getting started?

If you’re unfamiliar with the conventions of gaming culture — or influencer marketing — it’s a smart idea to partner with someone with a firm grasp on both. A top Florida marketing agency like BIGEYE can play a critical role in helping you find the right gaming influencers and kick-starting a new, highly effective targeted campaign.

By working with the right influencer outreach agency, you can be certain that your influencer marketing initiatives are thoughtfully conceived, well executed and designed to deliver an excellent return on your investment. Reach out today to begin organizing the proper influencer strategy for your brand.