Influencer marketing has grabbed the attention of marketers around the world. It is easy to set up and offers stellar returns. By partnering with prominent influencers in their niches, brands have increased their reach, generated leads, and increased sales.
If you’re planning to start your very first campaign, it’s a good idea to take a look at how others have done it. Here are some of the best examples of brands using influencer marketing.
1. Bach Flower Remedies
Bach Flower Remedies collaborated with influential bloggers such as A Girl Named PJ and A Clothes Horse. The influencers published posts that promoted the brand’s range of natural products. This increased their brand awareness.
At the same time, they offered a “buy one, get one free” coupon. This was added to every sponsored post as well to encourage the influencers’ followers to try the products for themselves.
The campaign generated more than 6,000 clicks and 133 million social media impressions. Because of the campaign, the brand’s follower count increased by 258% too.
2. Lynda
One of the top brands using influencer marketing, Lynda, is one of the biggest online learning portals. It was acquired by Amazon in 2015. It is one of the many e-learning brands using influencer marketing. They chose to partner with YouTube influencers such as Rooster Teeth and The Fine Brothers.
Through this campaign, they reached out to about 46 million people who were the subscribers of these YouTubers. Jack Douglass incorporated the content from Lynda into his regular videos. Many of these videos got over a million views too.
The Fine Brothers, on the other hand, created numerous sponsored videos in which they inserted a link to Lynda. Some of their videos even generated over 25 million views.
3. Sprint
Sprint is also one of the brands using influencer marketing. For their #LiveUnlimited campaign, they collaborated with Lele Pons, Bradley Martyn, and other influential personalities. All of them are social media influencers with a massive following.
Additionally, all of them have lifestyles which are similar to the campaign’s name. This made them the perfect people to partner with. Sprint created a video ad which had all five influencers in it. This video got over 200k views on YouTube. Additionally, Lele Pons created a video and put it up on Instagram. This itself generated over 7.4 million views.
What made the campaign succeed even more was the cross-cultural promotion. Sprint worked with Latin marketing teams so that they could integrate both American and Latin elements. They also worked with influencers who were followed by loads of millennials and Gen-Z kids. This allowed them to reach and influence them as well. Through this campaign, Sprint could outpace Verizon and AT&T as well.
4. Bigelow Tea
To promote their range of teas, Bigelow Tea launched a campaign in partnership with some prominent influencers like Ashley Thurman.
Through her blog, Cherished Bliss, Ashley provided readers with the recipe for iced tea that she used Bigelow Tea to make. Similarly, other influential bloggers such as Jess created beautiful decor pieces from the tea sachets.
Through this campaign, Bigelow Tea was able to get more than 32,000 blog engagements. Their sales increased by 18.5% and their media value increased by 3 times as well.
5. Audible
One of the many Amazon brands using influencer marketing, Audible is the go-to place for all audiobook lovers. They collaborated with various YouTube influencers to promote their brand and drive conversions.
They collaborated with influencers from a variety of niches such as gaming, style, and entertainment. Through the campaign, they were able to generate more than 83 million views.
One of the influencers they collaborated with was Grace Helbig. She created a sponsored video in which she included a link so viewers could download their first audiobook for free.
6. Bonobos
No list of brands successfully using influencer marketing would be complete without mentioning Bonobos. To promote their 2016 Summer Collection, they decided to partner with influencers on social media.
They launched the #BetterThanAC campaign with Foster Huntington, who created several posts. All of the posts included clothes from Bonobos’ Summer Collection. And all of the photos and videos were taken in natural outdoor surroundings to show the summer environment.
The posts generated over 5.1 million impressions combined. Additionally, they got over 68,000 engagements, which increased their engagement rate by almost 3 times.
7. Adidas
Adidas is one of the most famous brands using influencer marketing to promote their products. Adidas got in touch with influencers to increase their reach on social media.
They wanted to focus on a younger audience, so they chose to do an Instagram influencer marketing campaign. That worked well because nearly 70% of Instagram users are aged below 35.
They collaborated with influencers like Iga Wysocka and Selena Gomez and introduced the #MyNeoShoot contest. Through this campaign, they were able to get over 12,000 entries for the contest. Additionally, their hashtag got a tremendous number of mentions, and their Instagram account’s follower count increased by 41,000.
They also managed to achieve their goal of increasing sales. Their sales increased by 24.2%, and at the same time, Nike’s sales dropped by 9.1%.
8. SmarTrike
SmarTrike is a brand that makes products for children. Children’s brands using influencer marketing usually collaborate with mom influencers. This is because their followers are usually young parents, especially mothers.
They collaborated with 3 influencers, including Giuliana Rancic. She came up with a post that showed off a baby stroller from SmarTrike.
This single post generated almost 20,000 likes. Through the entire campaign, SmarTrike was able to get nearly 76,000 likes and reached over 12 million people. This happened only because the brand carefully targeted these influencers who had a major chunk of young mom followers.
9. Blue Apron
Blue Apron is a brand using influencer marketing to build brand trust and increase awareness. They partnered with famous bloggers like Naomi and Anne, who have blogs named Love Taza and Fannetastic Food, respectively.
What they wrote were simple reviews of Blue Apron and why they like the service. Both highlighted the recycling program that they felt was great. The brand also gave a link to each of the bloggers. The first 100 readers to click on the links were able to get 2 free meals from the brand.
This campaign worked so well for them that they did it again the next year with another set of bloggers. They now sponsor various podcasts of influencers to gain traction and attract the attention of people.
Final Thoughts
There are many brands using influencer marketing to promote their products and services. If you’re ready to try your hand at influencer marketing, make sure that you focus on collaborating with the right influencers. They should have a large chunk of your target audience as their followers.
When they vouch for your products and services, their followers will start trusting your brand. To drive sales, you can offer a discount code to your influencers. When they share it with their followers, it can encourage them to make a purchase. You could also give away freebies to the influencer’s followers to generate more buzz. By taking inspiration from the brands using influencer marketing above, you can create your own successful campaigns.
