In this age of #ads, influencer marketing campaigns still be widely adopted by both upstart and traditional companies around the world.
So far, though, it’s a technique that has mainly been related to brand-building goals. With more dollars than ever before being invested in influencer marketing, the large question many of us have is: Can it also cause bottom-line growth?
Two recent campaigns from Edgewell care — one for Schick Intuition, a well-known razor brand for ladies, and another for Bulldog Skincare for Men, a breakthrough men’s skincare brand — proved that the solution is yes. Edgewell developed a digital-first, full-funnel video influencer marketing strategy for major launches from both brands, seeing strong results at every customer touchpoint.
For other marketers looking to do something similar, here are three steps for building a full-funnel influencer marketing campaign, with lessons from Edgewell.
Raise awareness with content that feels native to the platform
When people come to platforms like YouTube, they often do so in discovery mode — they’re hospitable hearing about new trends, creators, and even brands. for instance, 90% of shoppers say they discover new products or brands on YouTube.
Knowing this, for the launch of a replacement razor, Schick partnered with Google’s in-house branded content platform YouTube BrandConnect to spot relevant mid-sized and skilled creators. Influencers just like the LaBrant Fam, Kbaby, and Asia Jackson incorporated the merchandise into videos that felt native to their channels, like nighttime routines and skincare tips, showing viewers the way to use the new product.
By staying faithful to the sort of content produced by the creators they worked with, Schick was ready to capture the eye of viewers in discovery mode. In fact, quite 50% of the campaign’s organic views came from people exploring content via YouTube’s browse features.
Edgewell replicated this approach with Bulldog, which is that the leading men’s skincare brand within the U.K., but it faces low awareness within the U.S. “We wanted to seek out a various array of male influencers spanning fashion, gamers, comedy, adventure, sports, and music to market Bulldog Skincare for Men,” said Matt Bell, chief marketing officer of Edgewell care. “By that specialize in these passion points, we could reach our key audiences.”
Increase your reach with paid promotion
By their very definition, influencers have already got a loyal following — people that address them for advice and inspiration. But that doesn’t mean influencer marketing campaigns should only believe that. even as successful social media marketing requires a mixture of both organic and paid reach, so too does successful full-funnel influencer marketing.
In addition to partnering with influencers, both brands amplified their organic content with paid promotions to succeed in even more people and increase awareness and consideration of their products. They did so by creating six-second bumper ads and 15-second cutdowns that they served up to people that had already watched the branded creator videos and people who hadn’t but were among their audience.
The combination of branded and paid content also proved to be a hit for both brands. Schick Intuition saw a 229% lift in ad recall and a 113% lift in purchase intent. Bulldog saw a 127% lift in purchase intent and a 2X increase in click-through rate to the location, compared to the benchmark.
Make it easy for browsers to become buyers
It’s one thing to boost brand or product awareness through the facility of influencers. But what good is awareness if it doesn’t increase the rock bottom line? to maneuver people from simply being conscious of a product to truly buying it, the experience has got to be as frictionless as possible.
Both Schick Intuition and Bulldog made it easy for shoppers to form a sale by integrating the new YouTube BrandConnect Shopping Shelf, a product feed under the YouTube player that permits viewers to buy directly on their favorite influencer videos. This feature helps convert an already engaged audience by bringing the products featured within the video to the forefront, driving site traffic and sales.
For both Schick Intuition and Bulldog, the shopping shelf click-through rate was quite 2X above the TrueView for Action Shopping benchmark, and therefore the brands saw high site traffic and powerful sales results attributed to both campaigns.
“The campaign delivered against our campaign goals, proving the facility of the connection that creators have with consumers,” said Bell.
Source: Google