Many brands tend to shy away from working with influencers because they’re under the illusion it’s an expensive form of marketing.
Sure, it can be, but there are many different forms of influencer marketing and, indeed, many ways to gain exposure, engagement and those all-important sales for your brand.
Here, we’re taking a look at the power of influencer gifting, which is already proven to be one of the most effective forms of influencer marketing for brands of all shapes and sizes. So, make sure the kettle’s on because you might be about to change your marketing strategy for good.
What Is Influencer Gifting?
Influencer gifting is a way for brands to build meaningful relationships with talented storytellers by way of matching their products with their needs and interests.
Paid influencer marketing, by comparison, doesn’t rely on such strong relationships. Content can be created on the back of a paid agreement between the brand and the celebrity or macro-influencer, so it has a more transactional focus.
Gifting instead has a more emotional focus that relies on transparency and integrity. Relevant gifts are sent to carefully selected content creators with smaller, but more engaged audiences. They only post about the products they genuinely love and aren’t obliged to, so it’s typically a more authentic way to include influencers in your marketing campaigns.
The Benefits of Influencer Gifting
The stand-out benefit of gifting influencers is the access it grants you to whole new audiences. If you do the necessary groundwork and choose your influencers carefully, as we do for you right here at Gifta, you can get in front of more potential customers via a voice they already trust. Beats a cold call any day in our book.
Remember, they’ve taken the time to build an engaged audience that values what they have to say, so the right brand partnerships can be both natural and lucrative for all parties.
What’s more is that it’s generally a pretty cost-effective way to go about your marketing. Instead of paying celebrities thousands of pounds to promote your products, you can gift selected items to micro-influencers and even partner with other complementary brands to make it a complete package. This way, your only expenses are the products themselves, in exchange for delicious reach and engagement from genuine content.
We cover the benefits of working with different types of creators in our guide to the differences between micro- and macro-influencers.
How To Get Started With Influencer Gifting
It’s easier than you might think to start sending gifts to influencers. It doesn’t need to be a super complex operation, but you do need to know which direction you want to take before you set off.
Identifying Which Influencers To Use
Your first port of call is to pick which individual influencers you’d ideally like to partner with for your marketing efforts. Focus on who you can see yourself building long-term relationships with instead of looking at quick-win content opportunities.
This is where the bulk of the research should be done, as you’ll need to get to know things like how they operate, what they engage with and which other brands they might already partner with on your chosen channels.
Don’t fall into the trap of focusing on numbers and first impressions—most influencer content looks great these days, but you’re going to want substance as well as style in the long run.
Knowing When To Start Influencer Outreach
Once you’ve narrowed down your wishlist of influencers, you can start thinking about reaching out to them.
It’s a thrill, we know, but you don’t want to put them off from day dot, so don’t get too excited and bombard them with promotional messages. Take your time, familiarise yourself with them and engage with their content from time to time before you dive into their DMs.
Build up a bit of a rapport first and be sure to use our guide to crafting an influencer outreach strategy to set you on the right path.
Influencer Gifting Email Template
When the time comes to send that first email, it shouldn’t feel like a cold one. You should base it on any past content you’ve loved, their hobbies and interests or even their other brand partnerships. Just don’t make it all about yourself, for the love of the marketing gods.
Each email should be bespoke to the influencer you want to work with, but you can follow a certain style or template to get your key messages in there.
How To Get Maximum Engagement From Influencer Gifting
When you take the gifting approach, you typically partner with micro-influencers who have audiences in the thousands rather than the millions. That’s why you usually get to enjoy better engagement rates as standard because their audiences are more engaged with their content.
When it comes to engaging the influencers themselves and convincing them to work with you, there are a few things you can do to boost your chances.
Getting Personal
Personalisation doesn’t just stop with the influencer outreach emails. You should make every interaction you have with your chosen influencers a personal one. You might offer products that are suited to their tastes or perhaps even discuss with them what they would like to receive as a gift.
When we send gifts out to our carefully chosen content creators, we always include a handwritten note, too—it’s our way of making sure the relationships are valued and not taken for granted.
Sending The Right Gifts To Influencers
If you can agree on the right gifts with them before anything is sent out, then great—you’re off to a strong start. If that’s not possible, make sure you take the time to match it to their profiles and personalities as closely as possible.
If your influencer gift box ideas are lacking in inspiration and personalisation, they’ll see right through it and your relationship will be as good as over. Take the time to plan the best influencer gifts according to what you know about them from your research.
Influencer Gifting Examples
Not all influencers will appreciate the same products, so don’t be afraid to take a different approach with each one if your product range can accommodate that. Here are a few examples of gifts we’ve sent to content creators in the past to help you with sending gifts to influencers in your own field:
Playing By The Rules Of Influencer Gifting
One last yet important consideration for all your gifting activities is the need for each influencer to clearly state that the product they’re featuring was gifted.
Don’t worry, it’s all best practice. All this requires is the inclusion of the hashtag #gifted on each post—something that most consumers are well accustomed to by now.
To wrap up our guide to influencer gifting in 2023 and beyond, we’ve included some answers to commonly asked questions to help you with your own plans. If we’ve missed anything and you have any questions you’d love to get an answer to, don’t hesitate to get in touch via hello@gifta.co.uk today.
Influencer Gifting FAQs
Does gifting influencers work?
Influencer gifting isn’t a walk in the park, but it can be an effective way to adapt your marketing strategy in the current landscape. Working with micro-influencers typically rewards you with higher engagement rates than you’d get from their macro counterparts, while you also get the possibility of greater reach from more pieces of content. Check out our guide to micro-influencers vs macro-influencers to find out more.
Do influencers pay tax on gifts?
Gifting works on the principle of a brand receiving a review in return for the free product, so each gift counts as a payment-in-kind for the influencers concerned. This means influencers may need to include the gifts they receive in their tax returns each year.
How do I send gifts to influencers?
Sending the best gifts to influencers needs to be part of a comprehensive marketing strategy that’s based on relationship-building with your chosen content creators. It takes time and plenty of effort, which is why Gifta does all the hard work for you, from outreach to postage to reporting on every campaign. Get in touch today to find out more.
