Product seeding and influencer gifting can be powerful tools for brands seeking to reach new audiences and build brand awareness. Influencer gifting campaigns have several benefits:

• Gathering performance data before you commit to fixed budgets
• Reduce advertising spend which lead to increased ROAS
• Increase network of influencers which can be utilised for future campaigns
• High quality UGC which can be reused

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Gifting Campaigns: Gathering Data

One of the main reasons we recommend to work on gifting campaigns is for gathering data. In previously articles we have outlined the typical performance distribution of influencer marketing. In summary, around 20% of the influencers you work with generate over 80% of your revenue.

Read our detailed article on What Performance You Can Expect with Influencer Marketing here.

That being your objective should be to identify this performing 20% and continue to work with them by building up a relationship with your performing influencers. In order to do this, it is crucial to set up an effective gifting process.

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7 Effective Tips for Influencer Gifting and Product Seeding

Here are some tips for successfully using product seeding and influencer gifting in your marketing strategy.

1. Make Sure You are Targeting the Right Influencers

You should prioritise those who align with your brand’s values and have a genuine interest in your products. This will not only increase the likelihood of them promoting your brand, but also ensure that their audience is a good fit for your target market. You can use influencer marketing platforms like Influencer Hero to find influencers who are a good fit for your brand.

2. Personalise Your Outreach to Influencers

‍Don’t send a generic message to every influencer on your list. Personalising your messages will make them feel seen, valued, and more likely to share their experience with their followers. The Influencer Hero platform can include Ai generated personalised sentences based on the last social media posts into your outreach maximising your reply rates. 

Tip: Including the firstname of the influencer into the subject line will increase your open rates by 10-20%! 

3. Make the Gifting Offer as Attractive as Possible

‍In order to maximise your influencer onboarding rate make sure to make the offer for the influencer as attractive as possible. Besides offering a product (ideally with high perceived value) offer an affiliate commission as well as a discount for their followers.

4. Negotiate with the Influencer

You might have already experienced that a lot of influencers ask for a fixed fee. Don't give up right away negotiate and explain that you are looking for long term partnerships and that this initial post is just to get a better impression for the match towards the brand. If you need help with this make sure to contact our team as we offer A/B tested negotiation templates free of charge.

5. Include Personalized Notes

When sending products to influencers, include a personalised note if possible. This will help you stand out from the many other brands that are likely sending them products. Additionally, personalizing the packaging can also make a positive impression on the influencer reducing non-posting rates.

‍Depending on what product you send non-posting rates within gifting campaigns can range anywhere from 10% - 40%.

‍However, if you’re working with a third-party logistics provider and personalising the package is difficult, we recommend using thanks.io. Thanks.io is an automated platform that can send handwritten letters using personalization data tags, saving you time while still maintaining a personal touch in your outreach.

Although the personalised note won't be included in the gift it will be send as a card separately which an help as an additional reminder to post. By integrating this into your workflow this can be set up in a way which will send the card automatically every time you dispatch a product to an influencer.

6. Follow Up with Influencers After They Receive Your Products

‍Follow ups are crucial at every step of the process including after the product has been sent. As mentioned above non-posting rates of gifting campaigns can range anywhere from 10% - 40% in order to reduce this number make sure to use follow up sequences ideally automating this using tools like Influencer Hero. Make the follow up genuine and subtle.

You don't want to come over as pushy and don't put the focus too much on the commercial aspect of the relationship. Ask them for feedback and offer to answer any questions they may have. This will help build a relationship and trust with the influencer and increase the likelihood that they will share your product with their audience.

7. Track and Measure the Success of Your Product Seeding Campaigns

‍This part is crucial and the reason we recommend to work with gifting campaigns in the first place. Make sure to use an affiliate link and a personal voucher / discount code to maximise tracking and attribution. That way you will be able to identify your top performing influencers with which you can build up long lasting relationships and which will maximise your influencer ROAS.

‍With Influencer Hero you will be able to manage all your affiliate in one place providing the influencer with their own dashboard through which they can track their affiliate earnings.
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Conclusion

In summary, product seeding can be a powerful tactic for influencer marketing if done correctly. Choose the right influencers, automate and personalize your approach and measure your results. With these tips in mind, you can effectively leverage influencer gifting to drive success for your brand.

Read a step-by-step approach for Creating a Performance-Driven Influencer Marketing Program in our Ultimate Influencer Marketing Guide here.

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