Influencers and content creators are all the rage right now. Being able to put your offering in front of hundreds, thousands, or even millions of eyes via a content creator’s platform is one of the most sought-after strategies in current marketing trends.
According to CreatorIQ’s 2024 Influencer Marketing Trends, 66% of marketers invest in influencer gifting, with 28% spending $10k-50k on influencer gifting and another 25% spending $50k-200k.
More than 90% of marketers said gifting products has increased their brand awareness and 76% said it has led to sales.
But is influencer gifting right for your business? It may very well be the key to taking your brand to the next level, but this type of marketing strategy or promotion won’t make sense for all business types.
For a cosmetics ecommerce business, for example, it’s perfect but for a family solicitor, influencer gifting isn’t quite so relevant. That’s why it’s so important to consider your options before hopping on the bandwagon.
We look at what influencer gifting involves as well as the pros and cons so you can decide whether or not it’s something you want to pursue.
What is influencer gifting?
Influencer gifting is a specific strand within the wider realm of influencer marketing. This is where businesses collaborate with content creators with sizeable online followings to help spread brand awareness and, ultimately, boost sales.
Influencer gifting is where a brand sends its products, or provides services, to an influencer (AKA content creator) in the hopes they will like it enough to share it with their online audience. This is what’s known as ‘product seeding’ in marketing lingo.
If a brand doesn’t have physical products to send influencers, they can share other gifts or experiences instead. So, what does the influencer do with that?
User-generated content
When an influencer creates content about a brand or product to share on their own platforms, this is what’s known as UGC marketing, which stands for user-generated content.
This means the brand hasn’t created the content on behalf of the influencer and therefore has less control over what is being shared but it does boost authenticity and trust among audiences.
Examples of popular UGC styles that are relevant to influencer gifting include:
- ‘Unboxing’: The influencer opens (‘unboxes’) and talks through the gift on camera, mentioning your brand.
- ‘Get ready with me’: The influencer shows a video of themselves getting ready for the day. This daily routine could incorporate your product or experience.
- ‘Spend the day with me’: The influencer films (‘vlogs’) their day. This could include an experience or product gifted by your brand.
- ‘Outfit of the day’ (OOTD): The influencer shares what they’re wearing. If you are a fashion or cosmetic brand, this could feature your product.
- ‘What I eat in a day’ (WIEIAD): The influencer shares what they have eaten or cooked that day. If your product or experience is relevant, this could include your offering.
Pro tip: If you plan to use an influencer’s UGC content on your own brand channels, make sure to figure out a copyright agreement with the content creator before doing so. Be aware that they may request payment for this part.
Influencer gifting vs. paid influencer collaborations
The difference between influencer gifting and paid influencer collaborations is that with gifting, there’s no obligation for the content creator to promote the product, gift or experience.
Paid collaborations are transactional agreements where a content creator promotes a brand’s offering in exchange for pay. With influencer gifting, there isn’t the same agreement or guarantee that the content creator will share the brand’s offering across their online platform(s).
The pros and cons of influencer gifting
Before deciding whether or not you want to invest your time, gifts and energy into this type of marketing, it helps to understand the pros and cons.
Explore the possible advantages of influencer gifting for your business, as well as some key things to consider before going full steam ahead.
- Expanding your reach: Making more people aware of your brand and your offering.
- A more engaged audience that is more likely to trust in your brand: Research from Marketing Dive revealed that 69% of consumers trust influencers, friends and family over information coming directly from a brand.
- Meeting consumers where they’re at instead of relying on them finding you: The same research also saw 81% of consumers embraced influencer marketing in the past year.
- A great alternative to annoying ads: 42% of customers are now using ad-blocking to prevent ads and pop-ups. Influencers are an effective way to still reach them.
- Keeping up with the competition: 94% of small businesses planned to increase their budgets, which demonstrates how hot influencer marketing tactics are right now.
- Tapping into new markets: If you want to test demand for your offering in a new marketing (a different age demographic or geographical location, for example), promoting through an influencer in this niche is a good way to gauge reception. Influencers can explain and demo your product or service by speaking in the target audience’s language.
Things to consider before gifting items to influencers
Like every business decision, there are other factors to consider too.
Less control over the content being shared
Because you aren’t paying for the content like you would in a paid collaboration, you don’t get much say over how it’s made or what it contains – or when it’s posted, if it’s posted at all.
You can’t guarantee the quality of the content or that the influencer is going to love your gift and say all the things you’d like them to say.
ROI can be tricky to track
Due to the lack of control over content and timeline and the lack of obligation for the influencer to post content, it can be hard to monitor or forecast the performance of the campaign.
If the influencer does share your gift on their platform, it’s not always easy to attribute sales to this channel without tracking links or promo codes. This also leads to inconsistency in tracking your marketing metrics, which can be a struggle to navigate.
Knowing which influencers to work with
To get the most value from your influencer gifting campaign, you need to find the best content creators to work with. Finding these can take a lot of time, research and a bit of trial and error.
How to run a successful influencer gifting campaign
Fancy seeing how an influencer gifting campaign could impact your marketing strategy? Follow the tips and tricks below to set yourself up for success.
Work with the best influencers
In this context, ‘the best’ doesn’t necessarily mean the ones with the highest number of followers. Look for the influencers with the most engaged and active followers instead. When outreaching to influencers, you could ask to see their media pack, which should provide you with details about their engagement metrics.
Check out what other brands influencers are working with or promoting to see if you’re in the right ballpark. Also, assess which channels the influencer is most active on and choose the ones with high engagement on the platforms your target customer uses most.
Make sure your gift aligns
A poorly aligned influencer gift is like silly socks at Christmas. They may put a smile on their face but they aren’t likely to be a good long-term investment. So, make sure whatever you plan to send to an influencer is something they’re going to enjoy and want to talk about to their audience.
Consider your target audience
When finding the influencers you want to gift, focus on content creators that your own target audience is going to be watching and following to ensure your brand reaches the right people.
Don’t just think about what the content creator would love to receive – also think about what your target customer will want to buy and let this steer your gifting strategy.
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