If influencer marketing is now essential for any brand that wants to be competitive in the market, it must be said that only a few branded contents are ‘slide-proof‘. The amount of information we receive on social media makes us extremely selective when it comes to advertising, and we can make this selection in a split second. Attention is a real parameter that brands should pay attention to alongside reach, impressions and engagement. But how do you make sure your campaign is seen and remembered by your audience? One of the keys is undoubtedly creativity. A survey from Nielsen analyzed 500 FMCG campaigns and showed that creativity is responsible for 47% of the sales uplift, ahead of reach (22%), brand (15%) and targeting (9%).
Let’s look together at 3 original ideas to attract the attention of the target audience and be remembered by them.
1. Secret campaign
We know that one of the first reasons brands use influencers is to increase brand awareness by leveraging their reach. But let’s remember that from a persuasion point of view, the best way to increase interest in something is to make it inaccessible or increase the sense of scarcity of that good.
One idea is to create a secret project that only a limited number of people can access (thanks to the options of many social media, it is possible to create private groups and circles). After selecting your perfect influencers, they will create content to explain to their communities how they can join the group of people who will access the special content before the others.
For example, let’s take a dietary supplement. The chosen influencers can show how the product has entered their daily routine, do live broadcasts to educate their community on the benefits of the product and answer questions and concerns. The influencer can then announce that the brand has opened a project with limited places to share discount codes, exclusive materials, and content, but only for a limited period of time and only for those who will become part of a small community. To access the group, users can be asked to register on a platform, or simply to follow a profile or do a certain action on a website.
Playing on the scarcity factor (of time) and social proof (joining a community) associates the brand with a certain standard and makes the product or service offered attractively. This strategy is particularly apt when dealing with sensitive or taboo subjects.
Benefits:
- Brand positioning
- Traffic to a website or promo
- Building a community
- Data and insights
Recommended for:
Niche products and services
Extra tip:
Remember to prepare really exclusive content for those who will participate in the community, something special and something you want to tell your friends and peers about. Never underestimate the power of feeling special to activate proper word of mouth!
2. Creating teams of influencers
Challenges are the big viral players on social, capable of engaging different targets and lasting for a long period of time. If your brand wants to focus on the social factor, it might think about not only creating its own personalized challenge but being even more creative and building real social teams, captained by Star or Macro influencers, in which every user can be included by participating in the challenges.
For example, take a new makeup product line, in which there are different shades of lipstick and blush. The brand could choose a Macro influencer for each shade, send them the products and create a “social game” in which the influencers challenge each other to create the most eye-catching makeup or use the products in a fun way, perhaps by putting makeup on someone else. But that’s not all: each leader will have to build their own team, asking those who want to participate in the challenge to buy products with a customized discount code and create their own content to win. Combining the reach of a Macro with the engagement of Micro and Nano influencers creates a powerful campaign that can go viral and win over a wide audience in the long run.
Benefits:
- Brand awareness
- Spontaneous content and noise on social
- Sales uplift
Recommended for:
Beauty, Food, Beverage, Fashion, Gaming
Extra tip:
Don’t forget cross-media: spread the challenge, publicizing the faces that are participating and using catchy storytelling to invite more and more people to take part.
3. Partnership with another brand
Brand partnerships in influencer marketing are still too little used. It is about joining forces with a brand that is not in competition with us but with which we share something. You do not necessarily have to create a new product or service together: many have done it, but it is not the only way to start a collaboration.
Let’s think for example of a food brand and a kitchenware brand, or a smartphone manufacturer and an app or video game company: these are complementary brands, which are likely to have the same target audience or share the same values. By entering into a strategic partnership, these brands can share the costs and benefits of the campaign, choose the most suitable influencers together (if the target audience is the same, the profiles to be chosen will also be more or less the same), and join forces to find the most creative storytelling to use.
Benefits:
- Lower costs
- A more original and memorable campaign
- Wider audience
Recommended for:
All types of industries
Extra tip:
Given the double budget, this is an opportunity to target Macro or Star influencers: reach will be the key point of the campaign. After that, this could extend to Nano and Micro through exclusive, time-limited discount codes or a challenge to win limited edition prizes.
Would you like to brainstorm creatively but don’t know where to start? At TERRITORY Influence we have an entire department that does just that.