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What to Include in an Influencer Marketing Campaign Brief

Ready to reap the rewards of working with top influencers in your niche? Give them the best chance of smashing the campaign out of the park with a comprehensive influencer brief before you’ve put the postage stamps on your parcels.

Follow this seven-step guide to creating a campaign brief for your brand partners and you’ll be well on your way to a fruitful relationship or two.

• Campaign Overview

Of course, the best place to start is with an overview of the campaign plan. Where else?

Make sure you clearly lay out the goals of the influencer marketing campaign and explain how they align with your overarching objectives as a brand. Tie it into their objectives as an influencer, too, since you’ll have established a relationship with them by this point, so you’ll know what’s important to them.

Your overview should include details about target audience and demographics, including any specific interests and behaviours you know about—these can help your influencers tailor their content and appeal to certain portions of your audience.

• Brand Messaging and Values

Next up, you’ll want to go deep on your key messages for the campaign—this is how you’ll keep the content true to your story and values as a brand, so it’s second only to the overview in the briefing document.

Offer tips and tricks for how your influencers can align their messages with your products and craft authentic and useful content as a result.

Don’t forget to set out your brand guidelines and pick out any specific points that relate to the product you’re sending or the format of content you’re working with here.

You might want to provide examples or illustrations to be extra helpful (a good idea if it’s your first time working with the influencer(s)).

• Key Campaign Details

Now, it’s time to dive into the campaign itself. Lay out the timeline, including not only the start and end dates, but also the key milestones throughout, if applicable.

Detail any specific hashtags or keywords you want in the content so it’s all in line with your branding and key messaging and don’t forget the all-important campaign identifiers, such as taglines, target URLs and calls-to-action.

• Collaboration Requirements and Guidelines

A big part of the relationship is about being able to work smoothly together, so it’s a good idea to put your expectations down on paper, so to speak. Best eliminate any confusion from the off, hey? 

Add your deliverables, from the type of content to the number of pieces you’re hoping for, plus some examples of content you’ve liked in the past—again, make your vision for this campaign as clear as possible for the influencer(s).

Explain the usage rights, licensing and permissions for the content that comes out of the partnership, too, so there’s no room for misunderstanding. There might be negotiating to be done here, but it’s best to get it down in the brief from the start so everyone knows where they stand.

If applicable, add details about any ethical and legal considerations related to your industry, your products or your audience. If you don’t tell them, they might never know, but they should at least know that they have to disclose the nature of the paid partnership in any published content. 

If there are any sensitive matters around brand reputation or safety concerns, make sure they’re included in this part of the brief, too. 

• Compensation and Incentives

Money talks, we know, so all the more reason to get your figures written down and agreed upon before any work begins.

Clearly detail the payment structure for influencers, whether it’s a flat fee, commission-based or a combination of the two. 

Don’t forget to add any special incentives or perks as well, including the potential for long-term work if this campaign is a success—these will spur the creators on to give you the best content they’ve got.

• Measuring and Reporting

Nobody will know if it’s a success if you don’t build monitoring or reporting into the campaign plan, so make sure you add these details to the brief from the start.

Tell the influencers what you’ll be tracking and what you want them to track regarding their engagement figures, such as impressions, likes, shares, saves and comments. 

Your key performance indicators (KPIs) will help you stay on track, particularly if it’s a long campaign with specific milestones. Tie the metrics you’ll track into your overall campaign and brand objectives so the context is clear, too.

If you need to stick to a reporting schedule, this is the place to say it. Give an idea of what you’re expecting in terms of dates and insights from the content creators.

• Communication Channels

Lastly, make it clear to your new brand partners where and how you prefer to stay in touch with them. If you’d rather keep it out of your DMs and on email so it’s easier to track and report progress internally, don’t be afraid to say so.

You’ll also want to outline the feedback process at this stage so nobody is surprised about any requests for changes to the content later. It’s a collaboration after all, so everyone needs to be happy with the results.

And there you have it—your seven-step guide to creating the perfect project brief for your next influencer marketing campaign. Enjoy the ride—it’ll be a lot of fun and could end up happening again and again if everything falls into place…

Get in touch with us at hello@gifta.co.uk if you have any burning questions about maximising influencer marketing for your brand, whether you’re working with nano-influencers or micro-influencers.

by Jonny

TikTok vs Instagram Influencers: How Do They Differ?

Social media can often feel like a tough marketing nut to crack. It’s ever-evolving by nature, but that’s exactly what makes it enticing for brands looking for new opportunities.

Two of the world’s most popular social platforms, TikTok and Instagram, have thriving influencer communities that give marketers the chance to connect with customers like nowhere else.

But what do those opportunities look like in reality? How can brands break into the trends and challenges of TikTok and the grids and reels of Instagram?

Here, we’re taking a look at the differences between the influencer cultures on the two platforms so brand managers like you can decide which one is a good match for your marketing goals.

Audience Demographics

Firstly, it’s important to understand the demographic breakdown across the two platforms, but bear in mind this will inevitably be different from industry to industry. 

TikTok is generally considered a platform for a slightly younger audience, being popular with Gen Zs, while Instagram appeals to more millennials than the former.

According to Statista as of April 2024, the global audience breakdowns for TikTok and Instagram aren’t that wildly different, in fact:

While there may be a slight skew towards male users, general global usage of both platforms is quite consistent, but that doesn’t mean they should be tackled in the same way from a marketing perspective. The differences between content consumption and distribution are what set the platforms apart. 

Content Formats: TikTok vs Instagram

The Dominance of Short-Form Videos on TikTok

We all know TikTok for its video-forward approach to social, with a heavy lean towards short-form content. 

Spending five minutes on TikTok will show you just how much freedom and creativity this format unlocks for content creators. It can be fun, authentic and quickfire, so instant engagement is the name of the game.

The Versatility of Content Creation on Instagram

Instagram, by contrast, is more suited to creators who might take a bit more time to polish their content. It’s heavily driven by the visual, but also offers static images as an alternative to video so influencers can engage followers in different ways.

There are significant crossovers between videos on TikTok and the likes of reels and stories on Instagram. If an influencer is active on both platforms, they might post slight variations of their content on each channel to cut down on editing time, but it’s not uncommon to see different styles between the platforms to appeal to various audience interests and behaviours.

How Do Engagement Metrics Differ Between TikTok and Instagram? 

On the one hand, owing to the video-heavy nature of TikTok as a platform, you won’t be surprised to hear that it puts great emphasis on views, likes and shares when assessing content performance. 

Its algorithm builds a ‘For You’ feed based on your interests, viewing history and engagement behaviour—a machine learning (ML) model uses this data to show you more relevant content the more you use the app. 

You might say it knows what you want to watch before you know you want to watch it, so you’ll rarely have to go digging for great content yourself.

This algorithm works well for new creators by offering them a quick path to virality if they post high-quality content.

On the other hand, Instagram rewards long-term engagement-building activities that form communities around content creators. It similarly focuses on likes, shares and comments, but the prospect of going viral with a new account is much lower.

Instagram stories and reels are great tools for creators to engage their followers with video content, with views, likes and shares rewarded in a similar way to those on TikTok.

Both TikTok and Instagram have a ‘Collections’ feature that allows users to save content for later—a strong incentive for influencers and brands to create genuinely useful content for real-world customers to consume whenever they want.

How Do Influencers Work on TikTok vs Instagram?

While they share a lot of characteristics and social personality traits, influencers on TikTok can be quite different to those on Instagram. 

TikTok creators can build communities around trends and challenges quite quickly if they’re reactive and consistently posting engaging content.

They also have the capacity to interact and collaborate directly with their followers in the comments or via Duets and Stitches, which can send their engagement through the roof if they land on the right topics.

Duets allow users to publish videos alongside one another in the same post, so they’re ideal for jumping on dance or mime trends or serving up helpful tips and advice.

Stitches allow portions of existing videos to be sewn into new ones, so they’re often utilised for reaction clips or getting creative with green screens. 

They’re both great ways for people to forge closer connections with each other on the platform, since the content creation becomes a two-way conversation. 

On Instagram, influencer-generated content generally tends to be more one-way in nature to begin with, as a creator will post the likes of product reviews or expert insights to provide value to their followers. People then make use of the Direct Messages function on Instagram to connect with influencers they know and trust.

Influencer audiences on Instagram are typically amassed over a longer period of time through carefully crafted content that’s perfectly matched to their interests, so users on both sides rely more heavily on the use of hashtags there.

Browsers will use them to search for content that’s relevant to their needs and interests and influencers will use them to make such content more visible to said browsers (easy as that, huh?). 

Over time, certain hashtags grow in popularity and communities are built around them, allowing influencers to cultivate loyal followers of their opinions on a range of topics, from cooking delicious vegan meals to composing original new music.

Influencer culture on Instagram is much more established than it is on TikTok, but they each offer unique ways of engaging with others.

What Monetisation Opportunities Are There for Influencers? 

Both platforms are set up to incentivise content creators to stay at the top of their game by offering financial gain for their efforts. 

Instagram influencers rely on the more traditional model of sponsored posting to collaborate with brands. Similar brand collaborations are possible on TikTok, but the latter also offers a Creator Fund, which users can apply for once they’ve essentially become an influencer (AKA gained enough followers and engagement from their content).

TikTok’s Creator Fund

The TikTok Creator Fund is an initiative that aims to share revenue generated by the platform with the best content creators who help it grow. 

It’s an incentive to craft top-quality content on the regular and turn TikTok into a revenue stream as an influencer, but, as you can imagine, it’s an extremely competitive arena.

Instagram’s Sponsored Posts

Influencers on Instagram don’t have a revenue-sharing programme to lean on, but they zero in on sponsored posts and brand collaborations to make their money instead.

Sponsored posts, which must be labelled as such when live, allow brands to team up with leading voices in communities that are closely linked to their industry. 

Say a sports brand like New Balance, for example, connects with 50 influencers in the trail running community and gifts each of them a pair of new shoes to trial. They’d gain 50,000 engagements from a wider combined following of 525,000 people they might not have ordinarily reached, right? 

Right—you can read the case study here: New Balance x Gifta

It’s not easy to establish a brand-influencer partnership on either platform, but the rewards can be plentiful if both can bring value to the table. 

Which Platform Is Best for Influencer Marketing?

There’s no hard and fast rule for picking ‘the best’ platform for any given influencer marketing campaign because the decision has to come down to individual circumstances.

If your content style as an influencer or a brand is more focused on the eye-poppingly creative and digestible, then TikTok is probably a good place to start.

If your tone of voice is more about providing added value to your followers’ lives through expert advice, then Instagram is likely a good way forward.

If your immediate needs are to gain visibility quickly and cost-effectively, then TikTok’s algorithm will probably be kinder to you, but only if you can commit to creating regular, high-quality content.

If you want to maintain a higher production value with carefully planned campaigns that establish you as an authority in a space, then you might want to go all in on Instagram influencer marketing.

Whether you’re a brand or an influencer, both TikTok and Instagram have pros and cons and they’ll differ from product to product, campaign to campaign and, indeed, person to person. 

Consider all your options against your ultimate objectives, from immediate sales to long-term engagement, and don’t be afraid to test and learn as you go.

At Gifta, we can help you leverage social media to your advantage and ensure that you’re on the right platform for you and your audience. Interested in finding out more? Get in touch with us at hello@gifta.co.uk today.

by Jonny

How to Launch Your Own Influencer Seeding Campaign

New brands that boast great products don’t always have a great marketing budget to match. A painful fact of life for some, we know.

It takes time, transparency and tactical nous to make a name for yourself and, in turn, build that magical pot of marketing money to support your endeavours.

One of the best ways to get your products in front of the right people without turning your profits in the wrong direction is a tactic known as influencer seeding. 

It’s got nothing to do with gardening, but everything to do with finding your tribe and nurturing the kinds of relationships that’ll get your brand to where you want it to be (while saving a small fortune in the process).

Let’s take a good look at the phenomenon and how an effective influencer seeding strategy might take shape so you can start planning for the big time.

What Is Influencer Product Seeding and Why Is It Important?

Influencer seeding is a marketing tactic that involves brands distributing products to prospective partners with social media followers who could be interested in their offering. 

It doesn’t necessarily demand anything in return—influencers are instead free to choose whether or not they post about the product, which they tend to do only if they love it.

Also sometimes known as influencer gifting (only with more focus on content reciprocation), it’s a cost-effective way of building awareness of products that might be new to the market or sold by brands that struggle to cut through the noise. It’s also good for niche products that might seldom see the limelight on social media.

Read more: Product Seeding Or Influencer Gifting: Which Strategy Is Best For Your Brand?

Brands turn to influencer seeding as a tactic to work with micro-influencers rather than macro-influencers due to their comparatively lower levels of followers. 

This makes for more mutual benefits because both parties are interested in (1) growing their social reach and (2) nurturing more personal and meaningful relationships with their followers.

It also means cold hard cash doesn’t rule everything around them because the free products can do the talking—macro-influencers with many thousands of followers often have too much on to concern themselves with projects that don’t pay. Micro-influencers, by comparison, are more likely to respond with positive, organic and genuine content if they love the product they’ve been sent.

Influencer seeding might be quicker than building one-to-one relationships with partners because you can send many products out at once, but that doesn’t mean you should rush into it for fast results.

The practice still takes some good old planning and strategising, so here are 10 proven strategies to help you get started on your own influencer seeding journey:

10 Influencer Seeding Strategies That Work

Whether you are strapped for cash or simply want to try something new, keep these points in mind as you build your plan: 

Identifying the Right Influencers

It pretty much goes without saying that you don’t want to send your products to any Tom, Dick or Harry, but we’ll say it anyway: pick your influencers wisely.

The important point to remember here is that you’re not just picking influencers—you’re picking potential partners to market your products in the long run. Not every connection will work out this way, but you’ll want to studiously check audience metrics, content styles and tones of voice when compiling your list of influencers to target.

Building Genuine Relationships

This is the main reason brands should consider influencer marketing as part of their strategy. Forging meaningful connections with influencers means you stand a better chance of connecting with real customers who value your products, too.

Build personality into your approach and don’t just focus on reaching out to as many nano-influencers or micro-influencers as possible. Remember, it’s not about quick wins, this stuff.

Crafting Compelling Outreach

Building proper relationships relies on getting off on the right foot, so be sure to avoid a blanket approach to this one. 

Everyone is different, so take a little time to work out how to approach the influencers you want to work with—trust us, they’ll appreciate the effort.

Strategic Product Selection

Just as you would for any shop window display on the high street, pick your products carefully before popping them in the post.

Don’t just pick the ones you need to shift from your warehouse to make space. Treat influencer profiles as social shop windows that have only a few seconds to convince prospective customers to come on in and find out more about you.

Setting Clear Expectations

The good thing about influencer seeding is that it takes a bit of the pressure off because you’re essentially sending a free gift to somebody and they’re not entirely expected to do anything in return. 

Make this clear in your outreach and keep it about the relevance of the product to each specific influencer’s brand; otherwise, you’ll risk turning them off from the first contact.

Utilising Tracking and Analytics

That said, you’ll still want to track the effectiveness of your influencer seeding strategy, so monitoring social media for any mentions that come naturally is crucial.

At Gifta, we handle everything from the searching and gifting to the tracking and reporting for you, so you’ll know exactly how much of a splash you’ve made with your new gang of brand advocates.

Leveraging User-Generated Content (UGC)

Whether it’s from creators or customers, UGC is one of the fruits of your influencer marketing labour, so when it appears, you know you’ve done something right.

Again, try not to ask for it outright in your emails, but keep an eye out for the kind of content that’ll help you appeal more naturally to your customers and factor it into your own content strategy. 

You can consider buying the usage rights to post it on your own channels afterwards, too, saving you valuable production pounds in the process. 

Read more: What Is a User-Generated Content (UGC) Creator?

Creating a Seamless Experience

You’ll want to make it as easy as possible for your potential brand partners to, well, be your partner, so the only thing you should be asking them for is their address at this stage.

It should also be obvious to them where they should point interested customers to, so get your website, your social channels and your online shop in tip-top condition before launching any kind of influencer seeding campaign.

Measuring ROI

As with everything in the marketing world, proving the point of any activity to the higher-ups is vital to winning more budget to keep on doing it. Influencer seeding is no different.

It’s speculative by nature, of course, so your ROI will come down to increased reach, engagement and brand awareness as a result of your tactics. Tracking these metrics will be crucial to proving the effectiveness of this part of your strategy.

Adapting and Evolving

Having such performance data to hand will also help you learn from the insights and adapt and evolve as a marketing outfit.

You might go back in for more with some of the same influencers if the relationships look promising. If uptake wasn’t what you expected, you might want to change tack and send different products to a different niche of influencers to widen your appeal instead.

However you decide to build your influencer seeding strategy, the most important thing to remember is to be methodical about it. 

It’s more of a long-term mission than a short-term land grab, so take your time to build the right relationships from the off and you’ll be onto at least some winners.

by Jonny

The Impact of AI on the Influencer Marketing Industry

As sure as smartphones have transformed our everyday lives, artificial intelligence (AI) has influenced the influencers and changed the marketing industry for good.

Brands and influencers alike are leveraging the power of AI to change the ways they work, but what does that look like in practice? What’s actually changing for good and not for worse and how can we manage it to make our collective world of marketing and consumerism a better place?

Let’s take a look at the impact AI has had and perhaps will have on the influencer marketing industry we know and love…

Understanding the Role of AI in Influencer Marketing

What is AI in Influencer Marketing?

AI has a range of applications in the influencer marketing industry and the list is ever-growing (sort of inevitable really, wasn’t it?). It’s currently leveraged to assist with everything from influencer selection and targeting to content creation and analytics, so it’s already an established tool with many a benefit, but it also comes with significant challenges and limitations (more on those later).

How Does AI Work in the Influencer Marketing Industry?

Influencer marketing currently enjoys a bunch of benefits from the use of AI. Data analysis of user profiles is quicker, audience insights are vaster and campaign optimisation is slicker all-round. 

Influencers can turn to AI for help with content creation, so long as its usage adheres to rules and regulations set by their partner brands and the wider industry. Of course, transparency and trustworthiness are crucial elements of this practice—no influencer is going to be getting any influencing done if their content is blatantly AI-generated and far from tailored to their audience.

Brands can use AI for overall campaign management from start to finish, making it easier to pinpoint the right voices to market their products and speed up processes like payments and approvals of the content influencers provide.

Take influencer selection as a quick example. AI can analyse thousands of social profiles post-haste and deliver instant insights on follower numbers, engagement rates and even tones of voice, so brands can quickly develop long-lists of potential partners to assess. 

That’s where the element of personalisation comes in for brand managers to find the right storyteller for their brand and decide how to reach out to influencers in the appropriate field in the right ways. Crucially, AI can do the big jobs quickly, but still relies on human input for true personalisation. 

It also comes to the fore for the likes of tracking and reporting for accurate results—real-time engagement insights can lead to real-time changes to campaigns by way of predictive analytics, so campaign managers don’t have to keep their eyes peeled 24 hours a day.

Bulls-AI: Enhanced Targeting and Personalisation

Every brand’s (pipe)dream is to achieve pinpoint precision with its audience targeting. Of course, that can never be 100% accurate, but AI is getting us closer to such a marketing utopia.

Campaign effectiveness can be drastically improved when AI is trained on collecting data about demographics, user behaviours and industry interests. Brand managers armed with such insights can be more confident about picking the right collaborators to promote their products because they know they’ll be talking to an audience that’s more engaged with what they have to say.

This level of personalisation can lead to greater customer engagement and, ultimately, long-term loyalty if brands can hit the bulls-AI.

McDonald’s, for instance, collaborated with Influential on an AI-driven marketing campaign for its new Buttermilk Crispy Tenders a few years back. Analysing millions of data points to find the right users to target led to an uptick in purchase intent of 6.6% versus previous campaigns. 

Volvo Cars turned to Influencer.ai to find target buyers for its XC90 in Sweden and identified micro-influencers to help it do so via audience demographic and behavioural data.

Consumer targeting is only becoming more accurate thanks to AI, but that’s not the only benefit for brands like those. 

Getting Smart with Content Creation and Optimisation

Both brands and influencers can reap the rewards of putting AI to work on their content. From relevance to rapid deployment, this is where the manual processes involved in creation and optimisation get chucked into the gutter.

AI can personalise content to match tone of voice and look and feel so both parties can better engage their target audiences. From editing scripts to colour-grading images, AI tools analyse millions of pieces of existing content to know what works and what doesn’t, so there’s much less guesswork involved these days.

Content creators can lean on AI to suggest hashtags, descriptions, captions, alt texts and calls-to-action for images and videos, too, so their appeals feel as relevant to potential buyers as they would if they came from a friend.

Naturally, no two platforms are the same, so it’s necessary for brands and influencers to adapt their approaches to content creation across different channels. 

Taking a Closer Look with Visual Recognition Technology

Content optimisation with AI doesn’t stop there. Top brands can not only use it in the research process to pick out appearances of their logos and products, but they can even glean insights into the sentiment portrayed by influencers in their videos, which can be particularly handy for competitor analysis and content creator oneupmanship if they detect gaps in the reviews.

AI can also read audience engagement stats of such videos to inform ongoing content optimisation as part of a wider strategy. If it can spot when logos or products are used incorrectly by any given influencers, it can offer insights and suggestions for improvements in the next piece of campaign content. Smart stuff, indeed.

Not-So-Deep Fakes: Detecting Influencer Fraud with AI

Transparency is a hot topic in the influencer marketing industry—and rightly so. How are consumers expected to engage with a brand or an influencer if their content is disingenuous? 

This is another area in which we’re seeing significant growth in the assistance machine learning (ML) can provide. AI algorithms can be trained on key indicators of fraudulent activity and they know fake followers and engagement numbers when they see them. This allows brands to give wannabe influencers the swerve and avoid wasting any time or money on them from the start. 

It’s this level of insight that can help build trust in influencer marketing campaigns because both the brands and influencers involved can start building genuine relationships from the get-go. Again, it all comes down to that word: transparency.

Adhering to Industry Regulations around AI

While there are no rules or regulations in place right now with regard to using AI in influencer marketing, there are some relevant guidelines that can help ensure transparency remains at the core for all parties.

Brands and influencers in the UK are expected to fully disclose their collaboration in any content generated for a campaign, whether it came via AI or not. A lot of influencer-generated content is designed to seamlessly slip into a social feed as an editorial and not an advertorial, so the onus is on the creators of said content to make the nature of the collaboration clear to any viewers. The importance of this transparency increases if, indeed, AI was used to create the content in the first place.

Most people can call out fake or poor-quality AI-generated content in their social feeds, so brands and influencers can only come good with such an approach if they maintain complete honesty throughout.

Naturally, as the use of AI in the industry grows, the likelihood of AI-focused regulations entering the fray increases, so it’s only a matter of time before deliberately misleading content becomes illegal in many regions. 

Until then, brands, influencers and influencer marketing platforms like Gifta are rightly expected to hold themselves accountable when it comes to leveraging AI for content campaigns.

Navigating the Ethics of AI in Influencer Marketing

On top of the broader ethical considerations around trust and transparency, there are also issues around bias, privacy and data security to overcome before AI use is fully integrated into the influencer marketing industry.

Mass analyses of social profiles and personal information like content consumption and general online behaviours throw up a number of questions. How do brands ensure they have the necessary consent to use AI to gather these details about potential customers? How do they navigate the privacy requirements that come with hyper-personalisation? 

By virtue of the fact that AI algorithms are fed only information that came before (owing to the nature of human input), how do we ensure they make unbiased recommendations on an ongoing basis? 

When the world is constantly changing around us, it’s so important that AI is used sensibly and responsibly with these challenges in mind. They won’t be solved overnight, but they can’t be ignored through a lack of due diligence either…

What Does the Future of Influencer Marketing with AI Hold?

The possibilities that AI brings to the table in influencer marketing are almost endless, but their effectiveness depends on brands, influencers and platforms taking responsibility from day dot.

We need meticulously managed databases if we’re going to rely on increasingly complex algorithms to find target buyers. We need sharper sentiment analysis if AI is going to eventually create virtual influencers and, indeed, real-world buyers are going to relate to them. We need a deeper understanding of how humans and AI can collaborate to benefit everyone and not just a select few.

If it’s not implemented properly, automation can create as many issues as it can solve, so the future of AI in influencer marketing remains both precarious and promising in equal measures. 

Wherever AI goes as a technology, one thing’s for sure: we’re undeniably in a watch-this-space kind of moment right now…

by Jonny

A Complete Guide To Nano-Influencers

by Jonny

A Guide To Using Micro Influencers For Your Next Campaign

We all know the feeling. You’re running out of fresh content, but your competition is smashing it out of the park. How do you stay relevant in your niche and keep reaching new customers?

The answer could be right around the corner or, more accurately, further down this page. You’ve probably seen and heard about the micro-influencer boom of recent years, but if you haven’t yet explored it and all its possibilities, you could be in for a royal marketing treat.

Let’s take a quick look at what you could gain from choosing to work with micro-influencers for your next marketing campaign.

What Are The Benefits Of Using Micro-Influencers?

Whether you’re asking the question yourself or your boss is calling for a case to be made for getting micro-influencers involved in your marketing, you’ll hopefully find a few ‘no-brainer’ moments here: 

• They’ll only post authentic content about you

Because of the way gifting works with micro-influencers, they’re never forced into posting content they don’t want to post. They only shout about your products or services if they genuinely love them, which is why we always try to find the perfect matches between brands and micro-influencers here at Gifta. The stronger the connection is from the start, the more mutual benefits there’ll be for all in the long run.

• They’ll give you higher engagement rates

Thanks to the authenticity of the content that comes out of these relationships, engagement rates on the influencer’s chosen channels are typically higher than those you’d get from the likes of macro-influencers. Having hundreds of thousands or even millions of followers rarely translates to enviable engagement rates with potential customers.

• They won’t blow your marketing budget

Naturally, a brand will usually pay less for access to an audience of 50,000 than it will for one of 50,000,000. What’s more, though, is that you’re likely to get much more content out of partnerships with micro-influencers because they’re so well-matched to your brand (in other words, they’re not simply paid to put out a straightforward ad for your product). We go into how much more bang for your buck you tend to get by working this way in our guide to the differences between micro-influencers and macro-influencers.

• They are trusted by their followers

At the end of the day, micro-influencers are only ever going to post content about products they love if they know their audiences will love them, too. There’s a level of trust at play in such a relationship as well—they are followed for a reason, which makes it all the sweeter when it’s your product under the spotlight.

• They thrive on authentic relationships with brands they love

Think about how endlessly rewarding it could be if you matched the right products with the right micro-influencers and the customers just kept on coming. This takes a solid foundation of trust and a mutual understanding that it’s not a one-way relationship to work—remember, you’re helping each other grow. 

How To Reach Out To Micro-Influencers For Your Next Campaign

If you’re already sold on the benefits of micro-influencers and you’re keen to get going, it’s time to start planning the details around how to reach and engage with them.

The most important thing to remember at every stage of your strategy is that it needs to be entirely based on developing meaningful relationships. You can’t force a connection with any kind of influencer, so take your time to work out how you’d like to be interacting with them—what kind of partnership do you want to create?

You’ll want one of shared respect, of course, so at the very least, it needs a good balance of personal relatability and professional maturity. Sure, you’re not looking for a new best friend here, but you still want to enjoy working together, so consider how you’d like to be approached if you were an influencer and don’t forget that it’s a mutually beneficial relationship.

Have a professional and well-considered plan of action as well. Any influencer worth their salt will spot a brand that’s trying to take them for a ride from a mile off, so get prepared with your influencer outreach strategy before you make any contact. Remember, your brand’s image is the first thing that will come across to any new micro-influencer partner you approach—if you’re studious enough to get it right, you’ll be gifting like you mean it in no time.

Ready To Start Gifting Micro-Influencers?

If you’re psyched about getting micro-influencers involved in your next marketing campaign, Gifta could be the best place to start. As a leading micro-influencer agency, our network is vast and diverse enough to connect brands with great storytellers every day. 

Be sure to check out our case studies to see how it could work for you and get in touch at hello@gifta.co.uk to talk through your next big marketing push.

by Jonny

Why Should Brands Use Influencer Marketing?

Ask any marketer and they’ll tell you they wish it was easier to make genuine connections with their customers. It’s a seemingly endless task keeping up with an ever-changing dynamic, but the rewards can be well worth it when things begin to click.

Influencer marketing is one such path you can take to not only establish those connections, but to nurture them into fully-fledged professional relationships, too. If you’re responsible for growing a brand, it can be a great way to tell better stories and forge stronger emotional connections with your customers.

Let’s take a deep dive into influencer marketing, what its benefits are and why you should (or shouldn’t) start embracing it as a brand today.

What Is Influencer Marketing?

Influencer marketing connects brands with people who will help promote their products or services to engaged audiences. It can take many forms, from micro- to macro-influencer strategies to paid, earned and owned media campaigns. The common thread that connects all influencer marketing is that it aims to boost the authority and trustworthiness of both the brand and the influencer by introducing customers to products they love.

How to find and approach influencers as a marketer differs from brand to brand and niche to niche, but when you land on the right relationship, it can be rewarding and lucrative for both parties. Brand and personal reputation are boosted by increased reach and engagement with the customers who are most likely to relate to a story or gain something from a product or service.

Why Should Brands Use Influencer Marketing?

Good marketing is all about strong connections and working with influencers is one of the best ways to achieve them with would-be customers. Brands that enjoy strong relationships with influential people in their sectors stand a better chance of enjoying the custom of their faithful followers. By ‘influential’ here, we don’t mean ‘celebrity,’ but simply those whose opinions are trusted by people who choose to follow them.

It’s easy to see how a strong connection with the right influencer can deliver better results for you via social media or blog content, for instance, but what about the numbers? According to the Influencer Marketing Hub, the sector itself grew to a remarkable $16.4 billion in 2022, which was up from $13.8 billion in 2021—a great indicator of the purchasing power of influencers.

When we dig into the influencer marketing statistics around core channels, we see that Instagram typically rules the roost. An estimated 79% of marketers prefer the platform for their influencer marketing needs. Moreover, a global Ipsos survey uncovered its direct impact on engagement with and sales of products, too, with 87% of respondents saying they “took action after seeing product information on Instagram.

The power of putting your products in the hands of the right influencers is palpable and perhaps even stronger than ever. Depending on your niche, the returns you can get from influencer relationships can transform your marketing, content output and commercial sales. 

When you work with a paid macro-influencer, for example, you could get 2-3 pieces of product-related content out to 300,000 people and, for argument’s sake, get 12,000 engagements from 120,000 impressions. When you work with micro-influencers through gifting, you can stretch your budget even further and work with 100 people with 1,000,000 followers in total. From them, you might get over 400 pieces of content and 40,000 engagements from 400,000 impressions, meaning an even greater return on your investment.

Of course, that’s a super simplified example of influencer marketing, but you get the picture. The important thing is to do your research, pick your relationships carefully and craft your messaging personally—remember that you are marketing to the influencers themselves in the first instance, so your communications have to be on-point. Get it right and you’ll be getting more from influencer marketing than you ever thought possible.

When Should Brands Not Use Influencer Marketing?

As fruitful as it can be, influencer marketing isn’t a panacea for all marketers. There are times when it could backfire if you’re not doing it for the right reasons. If you need quick results, let’s say, you’ll almost definitely be left disappointed. The meaningful relationships required to make it successful can’t be snapped into existence quicker than a double tap on a burger recipe—they take time, patience and respect (much like a good burger).

It won’t fix your marketing woes if you’re simply in need of some positive reviews either. Influencer marketing isn’t an easy route to good publicity—it’s a long road to well-earned brand credibility.

You shouldn’t entertain the idea of influencer marketing until your brand, your strategy and your objectives are ready. Don’t rush into it in desperation because most influencers and, indeed, customers will see right through the content. If you’ve taken the time to prepare your plan, however, you’ll start to see the best of influencer marketing in no time.

Why Use An Influencer Marketing Agency?

One way to make sure you get the most out of influencer marketing is to opt for an agency that’s well-versed in the approach across a range of sectors. Gifta has years of experience in single-brand and multi-brand campaigns that cover paid social, email, offline, PR and print for all your influencer needs.

We’re logistics specialists, too, in that we handle everything from the processing of branded products in our warehouse to the delivery of personalised packages to our influencers. What’s more is that we’ll work with the influencers you choose at every step and track and report all content to ensure you get maximum output and invaluable insights from each campaign.

The micro-influencers we work with are carefully selected according to the products you want to promote, too, so you know you’ll get engaging content from people who genuinely love what you’re doing as a brand.

What Does An Influencer Marketing Agency Charge?

The fees involved in influencer marketing vary from industry to industry, so it’s best to get in touch to discuss your specific needs so we can create a bespoke quote for you. 

We can help you refine your strategy to make sure you’re working with the perfect influencers for you and getting in front of the most likely customers to convert. 

Interested in finding out more from Gifta? Get in touch at hello@gifta.co.uk today and we’ll be more than happy to help.

by Jonny

What Are Micro-Influencers And How Can I Become One?

by Jonny

The Difference Between Paid, Earned and Owned Media [With Examples]

One thing you need in your arsenal as a winning marketer is a strong grasp of paid, owned and earned media and the differences between them. Finding that perfect combination for your brand can work wonders, but it certainly takes plenty of time and lashings of that proverbial elbow grease.

Good things come to those who wait and, well, do their research, so we’re here to help you get started. Whether you’ve got an opportunity to start influencer marketing or you want to ramp up your ad spend to complement other organic activities, this is the guide for you. 

What Is Earned Media?

Earned media are examples of other people talking about your brand via the likes of social channels, blogs and news and review platforms. They occur when the coverage is earned because of the experience the person or brand has had with your products or services. As you can imagine, they can be pretty rewarding results for any keen marketeer, such is the effort that goes into securing them.

This kind of publicity can come from PR campaigns or factoring influencers into your marketing strategy, especially through tactics like gifting. This is a way of naturally promoting your products through nano- or micro-influencers who genuinely love them, as opposed to simply paying macro-influencers to post about them regardless of their personal tastes.

Earned Media vs Owned Media

The main difference between earned media and owned media is in whose voice they represent. The former can be the earned voices of influencers, for instance, while the latter can be the owned voice of the brand itself. 

Owned media typically appear on your site, your blog or your social channels because they’re platforms that are owned and controlled by you. There’s no need to pay a fee to publish content on any of them. 

This ownership has its benefits, of course. You have free will to post what you want, when you want, so there are essentially no restrictions on your content output on owned channels. 

It also has its limitations, though, in that it can be extremely difficult and laborious to gain any sort of traction on what you post. It can take months or even years for you to see the commercial benefit of a well-executed content strategy on your website, so owned media are usually part of the long game when it comes to building your brand and online visibility.

Earned media can often provide quicker wins when you work with influencers, for instance, but don’t be fooled into thinking you’ll get overnight success with such a strategy. It’s called ‘earned’ for a reason, of course, so the groundwork to find the right influencers, build a level of trust and nurture the relationships needs to be done. 

Earned Media vs Paid Media

It’s a different story when you bring paid media into the mix. This kind of coverage comes in the form of ads on social media, search engines, websites and apps online and on TV, billboards and in print form offline. Naturally, you have to pay for the privilege, but this approach can reap rapid rewards when executed correctly.

Your paid ads can appear anywhere you want them to be and in front of anyone you want to target, given you’ve got enough budget to pay for it. You don’t have to earn the coverage or own the platform, but you do have to get your creative right if your ads are going to resonate.

Paid media campaigns can lead to quicker results than their earned and owned counterparts, but they shouldn’t be rushed by any stretch. In much the same way as you would take your time finding the right influencers for your earned campaign, you should carefully narrow down your list of ideal platforms for paid promotion to make sure you’re hitting the right eyes at the right times.

Ideally (but budget-permitting), you want your paid, earned and owned campaigns to be working together and supporting each other throughout your varied and often complicated customer journeys. Being active where your prospective customers are active and speaking to them through the appropriate voices, be that your brand or that of an influencer or an existing customer, will set you up for success as part of a long-term marketing strategy.

Paid Media Examples

Paid placements can come in a range of formats and are usually instantly identifiable as an advert. Existing formats include: 

• Display ads
• Paid search ads (PPC)
• Paid social ads
• Sponsorships
• TV advertisements
• Newspaper ads
• Billboards

Earned Media Examples

Earned media can take a little longer to come to fruition, but the hard graft can be worth it when the likes of the following start to roll in: 

• Word of mouth
• Influencer outreach and content
• Shares and retweets
• Mentions 
• Reviews
• Testimonials
• Editorials

Owned Media Examples

Owned media are essentially any channels or platforms that are owned and controlled by the brand behind them, such as:

• Websites
• Google Business Profile
• Blogs
• Social media profiles
• Apps

Once you understand the range of media at your disposal, the possibilities seem endless. This is especially true when you consider paid, owned and earned media in a Venn diagram—combine all three and make use of the overlaps between them and you’ll be onto a winner. 

To find out more about working with influencers on your paid, earned and owned media needs, get in touch at hello@gifta.co.uk today.

by Jonny

What Is The Difference Between Micro and Macro-Influencers?

The influencer industry is by now well-established, but there are many nooks and crannies that brand marketers can explore to know how to make it work for them. The concepts of micro-influencers and macro-influencers are among them.

If you’re looking into partnering with influencers to boost your brand, it’s important to understand the distinctions before you start your influencer outreach strategy.

Here, we’ll run you through the differences between micro- and macro-influencers, the benefits of working with each type and how to choose which one is right for your brand. 

Micro-Influencers vs Macro-Influencers

Perhaps the most obvious difference between different types of influencers is follower count.

There’s no hard-and-fast rule for it, but micro-influencers typically have tens of thousands of followers, while macro-influencers tend to have hundreds of thousands, if not millions. As you might expect, it can vary between industries, but there are often differences in engagement rates between these types of influencers, too.

Massive audiences might look more attractive on the surface, but they rarely translate to actual interactions and, crucially, conversions. In most industries, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a genuine and honest conversation between a macro-influencer and a potential customer of a brand because they’re not built on two-way conversations.

That’s not to say that brands can’t benefit from partnerships with multi-million-follower influencers—many do, but mainly because they have the marketing budgets to get them there.

Micro-influencers often prove to be an appealing option for brands with more modest budgets because they’re generally paying to reach smaller audiences. As we said, though, size isn’t everything, so there are mutual benefits to be had with this approach if brands are connected with the right storytellers.

The Benefits Of Working With Micro-Influencers

Broadly speaking (but also from a tonne of experience), micro-influencers enjoy more natural interactions with their audiences because their relationships with brands are built on gifting and not advertising. This means that they are carefully selected and gifted products they are more likely to love, rather than being paid a lump sum to post an ad, regardless of their feelings towards the item.

They’re not obliged to post about the products they’re gifted either, so they’ll only get their cameras out for the ones that resonate the most. This might feel like a risk if a chosen influencer doesn’t particularly love your product, but it means you stand to benefit from only the most authentic content if you find one who does.

You might sacrifice sheer reach, but you can often make up for it in engagement and conversions as a result of this carefully crafted and emotionally motivated content.

Working with micro-influencers also has cost-saving benefits when you consider the levels of reach and engagement you can achieve. Let’s say you gift to 100 micro-influencers with 10,000 followers each and 80% of them post four pieces of content about how much they love your product. At an average engagement rate of 4%, they enjoy 40,000 engagements and 400,000 impressions from 300+ pieces of content. 

In the current market, you’ll part with a similar amount of cash to have just one macro-influencer posting about your product. They might have a following of 300,000 and they might be guaranteed to post three or four pieces of content, but, at the same engagement rate of 4%, their total interactions might only hit 12,000.

It’s a hypothetical scenario, of course, but it’s an indication of the bang-for-your-buck marketing you can enjoy if you work with the right micro-influencers. Those with smaller followings aren’t always perfect for certain big-hitting brands, though, so this is where macro-influencers might enter the fray.

The Benefits Of Working With Macro-Influencers

The clearest and most obvious benefit of working with macro-influencers is the fact that they can turn millions of heads to your brand with a single piece of content. Everyone knows this comes at a significant cost—one glance at this Instagram rich list shows you just how much the biggest stars are raking in per post on the platform. 

At these levels, you’ll be looking at crazy amounts of awareness by virtue of association with such celebrities, so you’ll typically see them used by well-established brands to maintain their stellar statuses. 

Of course, the likes of Kylie Jenner, Leo Messi and Selena Gomez are top-of-the-pile stuff. Not all macro-influencers cost millions, nor do they need to have millions of followers. Some influencers with 100,000-500,000 are still of the macro mould and they might be the right fit for your brand (and your budget).

If your goal is strengthening your brand’s authority in your niche and widening your reach in the process, the right macro-influencer can add credence to your voice. It’s important to choose carefully here, though, as the partnership needs to make sense to both your and your chosen influencer’s audiences. Any hint of artificiality and your marketing activity will likely backfire. If the partnership is perfect, though, you could be reaping the rewards of reaching thousands of new prospective customers in one fell swoop. 

Sometimes, working with only one influencer can also make life easier when it comes to campaign management. The tracking and reporting might be simpler if you’re flying solo and you can often see the impact immediately. 

The prospect of working with 100 micro-influencers might seem pretty daunting by comparison, but that’s why we do all the legwork for you at Gifta, from outreach and packaging to tracking and reporting back. Interested? You can find out more about our approach for brands here.

Which Type Of Influencer Is Right For Your Brand?

Some brands use a combination of micro- and macro-influencers to achieve their marketing goals. The direction you take will depend on your own objectives, so be sure to take the time to map these out before you start any influencer outreach.

The most important thing is to avoid jumping in at the deep end with a big sackful of cash—this usually only goes one way. Consider what you want to achieve in the short, medium and long run and craft your influencer strategy accordingly. 

You might start off small with a few micro-influencers to test responses in your niche and build up to 100 with a new product launch a year down the line. You might choose a macro-influencer to achieve brand awareness goals within a couple of months. Whatever you do, don’t rush it—the right influencers for you are out there.

Get in touch with our experts at GIFTA to see how we can connect you with the storytellers who’ll love your brand today.

by Jonny

What Is A User-Generated Content (UGC) Creator?

You may or may not have noticed a post or two containing the hashtag #UGCcreator on social media these days.

The practice has well and truly blown up over the past few years. Thanks to the astronomical rise of TikTok and the like, brands and content creators have undergone something of a transformation in their relationships as a result.

There was a time when brands could rely on a stream (or, in some cases, a trickle) of UGC from actual customers for nothing, but these days, the demand for quality content is far higher. That’s why the user-generated content creator has become a fully-fledged career choice in itself.

So, what does it involve? UGC creators craft content that is paid for by a partner brand and designed to look genuine and organic on their branded social feeds. This gives the brand an extra stream of photos and videos for marketing, but with a slicker look and feel than the UGC of old—something more akin to the content you might see on an influencer’s feed.

Whether you’re a brand in need of top-notch content or a creative in need of an outlet that’ll help you earn a living, you’ve come to the right place. Let’s take a look at what user-generated content means and how it can be mutually beneficial if you hit that nail on the proverbial head.

Why Is User-Generated Content Important?

UGC can be a really effective way of demonstrating the impact that a product or service has on people’s lives. By highlighting emotional connections with customers, whether they’re macro, micro or nano influencers or everyday social media users, brands can make themselves more culturally relevant and appealing to the would-be customers of tomorrow.

The content technique is also what helps creators make names for themselves as trustworthy and engaging storytellers for brands. You don’t have to become a multi-million-follower influencer to create influential and impactful content—you simply need the knack of turning a product or service into a sticky story for a brand’s audience.

Ultimately, user-generated content is becoming insanely important for brands that can’t live without TikTok and Instagram. The algorithms prefer personality- and lifestyle-driven content over heavily branded content and—shock horror—so do people, so there’s been a noticeable shift towards UGC on the platforms in recent years.

User-Generated Content vs Brand-Generated Content

Of course, that’s not to say that UGC has taken over and the days of brand-made content are done. For the right brands, there’s a rightful spot for both in a diverse content marketing strategy because they perform different roles. 

Brand-generated content is typically anything created by an internal team to promote a product or service and send traffic to a website or social shops. It’s a way of keeping control of the narrative and branding in any consumer-facing content, whether it’s in photos, graphics, videos, blogs or something else.

User-generated content gives brands an alternative route to promoting their products with more real-world relatability. It still takes the form of photos and videos, but is created by someone who’s unconnected to the brand—an outside voice—to work on those emotional connections that can’t quite be achieved with branded content.

There are tonnes of studies that have found that UGC is more authentic and trustworthy (just take a quick look at this HubSpot list for an idea), so brands have predictably gravitated towards it in an attempt to better engage their customers. Not only can it boost their image, but it can also be more efficient and cost-effective for marketers to outsource content creation when they don’t have the internal capacity or, indeed, skillsets to create it themselves.

UGC creators have become a hot commodity for that reason and more, so there’s every reason to chase it as a career path if you’re a gifted storyteller.

How To Become A UGC Creator

Remember, you don’t need to become a full-blown influencer to be a top creator. Brands that hire UGC creators are paying for content, not community, so you can make it happen even if you have a low follower count. At GIFTA, we work with all sorts of talented content creators, so we know what great looks like. Here’s how you can get started on your UGC journey:

Top Tips For User-Generated Content Creators

Do Your Research

One of the first things you’ll have noticed is that there’s a whole heap of competition out there. Making beautiful content is almost the easy bit—standing out is where the hard work starts. 

Do the due diligence before you dive in so you can find your opportunities. Look at what’s working and for which kinds of brands and get a good feel for what audiences are engaging with out there. 

Pick A Niche

Doing plenty of research will help you narrow down your list of target industries. You’ll probably already have a good idea of the kind of things you want to help promote, but there might be subgenres and subcategories that haven’t been touched by UGC creators yet. Pick yours and run with it. 

Pick Brands You Love

Within your chosen niche, you might select a few brands to start reaching out to about UGC creation. You’ll naturally lean towards the brands that speak to you and your interests and values, but try to understand why that is—what is it about their content that hits different? What part of their story can you help them tell? This bit’s all about the prospect of long-term relationships, so don’t focus on making a quick buck. They’ll see straight through it.

Choose Your Content Specialism

Next up, you’ll want to hone in on your content creation skills themselves. What are you best at and where should you apply your specialism? Are you more TikTok than Instagram? Would you rather be in front of the camera or behind it taking photos? Define your skillset, craft some examples on your own accounts and work up a portfolio to tuck neatly into your pitches.

Create, Create, Create

We’ve said it three times and we’ll say it again: get creating. It’s the only way you’ll get better at what you do and the only way you’ll get on the radars of your dream clients. Don’t forget to keep your portfolio up to date as well—it’s easy to neglect it once you start winning clients and working to content calendars, so keep it fresh with all your latest creations.

Being a UGC creator can be an incredibly exciting and rewarding way to earn a living, but, as with most work, it relies on a solid set of foundations to succeed. Trust us, you’ll be thanking future you if you do the groundwork first.

How To Find UGC Creators For Your Brand

If you’re a brand looking for UGC creators, your luck is in because we’ve done all the hard work for you at GIFTA. 

We have a vast network of content creators and storytellers who engage audiences with high–quality content on the regular. Through our unique product gifting approach with top creators, brands like yours get beautiful content that’s authentic because it’s only ever created by people who love your products or services.

Get in touch today via hello@gifta.co.uk to find out more.

by Jonny

Influencer Outreach: How To Approach Influencers You Want To Work With

You’ve got the products, and you want to work with influencers to promote them, but how in the name of TikTokkery do you start making it happen?

It’s a new-age-old question that troubles many a brand owner or manager, so you’re not alone. You might be alone in the marketing wilderness, though, if you rush into it without a plan or a suitable approach for the right influencers. 

Here’s how to best prepare yourself for influencer success as a brand:

What Is Influencer Outreach?

Influencer outreach is a marketing tactic that allows brands to start forming meaningful relationships with people who have established audiences in their field of interest. These audiences may include potential customers, sometimes for the long term, so it’s becoming increasingly worthwhile for brands to nurture such relationships. 

Note the emphasis on meaningful relationships here—we’re not talking expensive, one-off celebrity endorsements for little in return. We’re talking lasting partnerships with people who love your products and subscribe to your philosophy as a brand. These people are often called micro-influencers because they have a smaller and typically more engaged audience than macro-influencers with millions of followers.

Picking and engaging with the right people can be a powerful way to build your own reach, especially when their audiences already trust what they have to say. Influencer outreach is about naturally fitting your product(s) into their feeds without a single hint of insincerity. 

It’s easier said than done, of course, but here’s what you need to think about to get started with your plan: 

What To Include In Your Influencer Outreach Strategy

If you think your products are the perfect fit for influencer outreach and you’re raring to go, that’s a great start. At this stage, though, both a deep breath and a step back are your friends. Take a moment to approach your strategy in the right way with these steps, so you can put yourself on the right path from day one.

Knowing Your Goals

With a brand story defined and a target audience in your sights, you’ll have commercial objectives to meet with your products. It’s important to remember, however, that not all influencer relationships have the same end-goal of selling products.

While some inevitably will help you shift that stock, you might choose some influencers to help build your audience engagement and others to strengthen your brand narrative. Pick carefully and attach internal targets to each relationship so you can track your progress.

Understanding Your Brand’s Place and Personality

It’s no use trying to shoehorn your brand into a feed that doesn’t fit. Do your research to develop a deep understanding of both your target influencers and your target audience(s). Where do they hang out online? Which social accounts, blogs and podcasts do they follow? Whose opinions do they respect?

In all likelihood, you won’t be the only brand reaching out to them, so knowing where and how and why you’ll fit is the key here.

Making the Influencer Feel Valued

There has to be something to gain for the influencer, too, and free products alone just won’t cut it. By making them feel wanted and valued for their opinions and not their numbers, you should start nurturing a real relationship. This means doing the groundwork before you reach out—instead of going in cold on who you think are the right influencers, follow them and engage with them for a while to get to know them. That way, you can reach out to the right people with a much more personalised and meaningful message and get off on the right foot.

Gifting the Right Gifts

Influencers will only engage with the brands that are right for them, so don’t undo all your hard work by pummelling them with products they might not love. Take the time to talk with them to see if there’s a genuine opportunity to bring your products to life in a believable way. The gifting approach will help you explore the relationship naturally at this stage—it helps match the perfect products with the most suitable content creators to tell their stories.

If the opportunity isn’t there and they don’t love your products, don’t take it personally—the right influencers are out there and you will find them. Trust us, it’ll be all the more rewarding when you do.

Having Honesty and Humility

Most micro-influencers aren’t interested in desperate brands who go all cloak-and-dagger about their ‘agreements’. Remember, it’s a two-way relationship with mutual benefits, so be honest about your goals from the start—you could even involve the influencers in your strategy development if there are, indeed, mutual benefits to be had.

How To Craft Influencer Outreach Messages

If you keep the above in mind at every step of your influencer outreach strategy, you won’t go far wrong, but it can all fall apart with poorly executed communications. The key, as we’ve alluded to, is in the ‘softly softly’ personal touch.

Go gung ho and you might as well go home. It’s important to start with a quick enquiry that shows you’ve thought about why you could be a good match. 

Reference something you know they like and why you think they might be interested in your product, too. Don’t force it upon them and don’t assume anything.

Don’t go into any detail about what you might want out of the relationship either—that can come later when you both know there’s an opportunity to work together. 

Save the proposal details for another time and concentrate on striking up natural conversations with your chosen micro-influencers. They’ll see right through bravado like you see through unannounced salespeople who turn up on your doorstep. 

Time your first approach correctly and try to use their preferred method of communication, such as direct messages on Instagram. Avoid the comments section like the plague—it’ll make you look desperate if you do it in public.

At GIFTA, when we reach out to influencers for brands, we personalise everything, even down to the handwritten notes we include with the beautifully packaged products we send. Relationships take time, so be sure not to rush them.

If writing your own influencer outreach emails fills you with dread, you can leave it to our experts, who’ll even sort the postage and reporting for you. To discover more about approaching the right influencers with the right products and the right messaging, get in touch with GIFTA today.

by Jonny

Everything You Need To Know About Using Influencers To Create Content For Your Brand

by Jonny