With the increasing popularity of social influencers, there’s no denying that influencer marketing is a great way for brands to enhance their marketing efforts. This is exactly why many brands have chosen to work with social influencers to promote a new product.
Leveraging influencers is highly effective; 92% of consumers say that recommendations from individuals considered to be their peers are more trustworthy than any other form of advertising.
In order to introduce your new product to customers, work with influencers to boost your marketing reach and to establish trust. Take a look at some of these effective influencer marketing methods to boost your product launch:
1. Get influencers talking about your brand
Influencers have a large reach and a loyal following. They have built this following based on detailing their lifestyles through superior digital storytelling. These followers observe the trends that influencers promote and often try the products that the influencer suggests. Encouraging influencers to talk about your new product on social media is a simple yet effective way to get started with your product launch. Find your brand influencers, reach out, and establish a relevant hashtag that the influencer can use to promote your product.
This technique has worked fairly well for LaCroix sparkling water. Using the hashtag #LiveLaCroix, the brand has encouraged influential individuals to talk about their new water flavors. Even celebrities like Big Smo have posted images of themselves enjoying LaCroix's new flavors.
They didn’t just limit themselves to people, but also opted to work with other "influencers" on Instagram. LaCroix promoted itself with animal Instagram influencers such as Tinkerbelle the dog.
While LaCroix didn't mind getting silly with celebrity and pup influencers, the driving forces behind LaCroix's social media marketing campaign were fitness influencers. Health and Fitness Instagrammers posted photos of themselves enjoying the new flavors and wrote descriptive captions inviting followers to try the drinks as well.
2. Choose relevant influencers to work with you
Social media influencers have a special knack for describing something in an appealing way that resonates with their audience. Whether it’s a trip to a distant city or a new line of clothing, they are able to paint an interesting digital story that encourages browsers to mimic their lifestyle decisions. So when it comes to educating your target audience about your new product, choose influencers that reflect the demographics and lifestyle of your brand.
Let’s take the example of Charlotte Russe to descirbe this technique.
Since the brand is about fast fashion and on-trend pieces, they partnered with micro-influencers sharing their fashionable outfit of the day. The brand engages online shoppers by displaying a shoppable, social inspiration gallery on its site. To collect hot customer content, Charlotte Russe asks customers to post their best looks on Instagram and to tag @CharlotteRusse or #CharlotteLook to be featured on its website's inspiration gallery. By displaying a shoppable inspiration gallery on its site, Charlotte Russe is able to inspire consumers with trendy looks, and engage on social media while also increasing conversions online.
3. Promote social media contests and giveaways
Another excellent way to promote your new product is by hosting a social media contest. And what better way to promote the giveaway than through influencers? Hosting a giveaway isn’t enough if you don’t have enough fans signing up for it. So you need to get the news to people who will be interested in it and spread the news through influencers they look up to.
Ultimate Ears, a brand committed to transforming the way people experience music recently ran its #TakeMeToTheUEBoat social contest. Ultimate Ears asked contestants to share a photo of how they best celebrate summer and the winners received a free trip to Yacht Week in Europe. Ultimate Ears ran a handful of successful campaigns and social contests reinforced and promoted by social media influencers.
4. Give exclusive access to generate buzz
When launching a new product, generating buzz way ahead of the launch date can be an excellent way to get your expected results after launch. Influencers can help you do this but you’ll need to give them exclusive access to the product before anyone else. Whether you give them early access to your product or you get them in on the creation process, it’s a great way to create awareness about the new product.
This is exactly what Chanel did before the launch of their new perfume – Chanel No. 5 L’Eau. They invited some of the biggest influencers in the fashion industry such as Instagrammers and fashion bloggers for a sneak peek into how Chanel makes their iconic perfumes in their production facilities in Grasse.
These Instagram influencers then posted several images of their visit using the unique hashtag #newchanel5 and #chanelgrasse. This encouraged followers to generate content of their own using the branded tag. One of their invitees was the Chinese cello prodigy Nana Ouyang, who posted an Instagram video of her visit, which generated more than 140,000 views.
When choosing a new face for the perfume, they went with Lily Rose Depp who has massive influence and appeals to their target audience without being too mainstream. Her post with the #newchanel5 hashtag received more than 200,000 likes.
Now you have a few ideas that can help you make the most of influencer marketing to launch your new product. Make sure you work with influencers who are relevant to your product and target your ideal audience while matching your brand values and lifestyle. You don’t have to limit yourself to just these examples; try to come up with a campaign that’s exclusive to your brand.
Shane Barker is a digital marketing consultant who specializes in influencer marketing, product launches, and website conversions. Shane specializes in influencer marketing, product launches, sales funnels, targeted traffic and website conversions. He has consulted with Fortune 500 companies, influencers with digital products, and a number of A-List celebrities.
Editor's Note: This article was originally published on pixlee.com. Any statistics or statements included in this article were current at the time of original publication.
