If you are an internet marketer, you have probably heard about influencers. These online personalities are the darlings of digital marketing today.
They bring an established interested audience and a unique voice to marketing campaigns, and they can help brands build a powerful voice and personality on the internet.
There are many ways to build influencers into your marketing efforts, and perhaps one of the most effective is through product seeding.
With product seeding, you give your products to influencers who are pertinent to your niche. For example, if you make cruelty-free vegan hair products and skincare, look for influencers with these interests and ethos and who already have an engaged audience that shares the same interests and passions.
Product seeding is an effective, low-cost way to introduce your products to a larger, closely targeted group of consumers. This strategy only works well if you make gifts to influencers who are interested in your specialized area.
You also need to consider the influencer engagement rate. High engagement rates deliver a better ROI. When you find an influencer, who matches your niche and has an actively interested audience, you are ready to seed.
You do not need celebrities with millions of followers for this strategy to work. Famous people with huge followings often have lukewarm audiences. On the other hand, micro-influencers tend to have high engagement rates. These people generally have less than 10,000 followers.
Their audiences, however, are often engaged and passionate about that particular niche. Giving products to micro-influencers can help build interest in your brand.
If influencers like your products and share them with their followers, you have succeeded in introducing your products to an active network of people who are already interested in your specialized area.
Therefore, even though micro-influencers may have smaller audiences according to numbers, these followers are interested, and they are listening. You may get a higher ROI with this approach.
Seeding can be an essential aspect of scaling your business and building momentum for your digital storefront.
However, product seeding may not work for all brands or companies. For this tactic to do well, your products and niche must fit effortlessly into influencers’ feeds.
If influencers like your products and share them with their followers, the audience should not feel jarred in any way.
Influencer marketing campaigns through blogs and social media work because these personalities have authentic, unique voices their followers appreciate.
When influencers like the products you give them, they will likely share them with their followers in their own specialized way. The result is the popularity of your product organically grows with hyper-targeted groups.
Before you send out anything, though, carefully consider the best way to get items in the hands of influencers. Sometimes you can send products directly to influencers.
Other times, you might try including your products in a gift bag given to those attending an event you sponsor. The most appealing way to present your gift in a way that is sure to stand out is to tailor it to the individual recipient.
Package your gift carefully to make it visually appealing. Use an influencer’s name, and include a short note that expresses gratitude. When influencers are interested in your gift, they are more inclined to try your products.
Personalization also helps your gift stand out from others that influencers receive. Once you start sending your gifts, be ready to respond quickly when you receive replies, comments, or questions.
A fast, professional, and interesting response also goes far in separating your products from the crowd. When influencers try your products and like them, they can genuinely share your brand with their followers who trust them.
This perceived trust is something you cannot buy, although it is invaluable to a brand. The extensive brand reach that can occur when an influencer shares your brand publicly.
Then followers share about it with their connections could also be challenging to buy, because this organic sharing cannot be planned.
Product seeding with influencers, when done well, can help you build your brand. Your brand reach could grow beyond anything you might ever plan in a business meeting.
This strategy is a way to build an online persona and interest people in your brand. When you have caught consumers’ attention, a large part of the marketing effort is already a success.