Every authentic brand-creator partnership is developed when the creator becomes truly passionate about the product they are promoting. If they really like the product, their genuine enthusiasm produces engaging content that attracts more and more people to that product. A brand with a considerable online presence can easily reach out to not only the fans but also the creators who have already promoted engaging organic content about it. But if your brand is relatively new, you might find difficulties in reaching new fans.

In this regard, sending free products to creators or influencers is an effective way to expand the reach of your brand on social media. And this process of creating brand awareness with influencers is known as influencer seeding.  It is undoubtedly treated as an effective influencer marketing strategy to increase or even deepen your brand’s identity. But if you are still unaware of this influencer marketing technique to scale up your business, don’t worry. In this article, we will define everything you need to know about influencer seeding.

What is Influencer Seeding?

Influencer seeding refers to the process of sending free products to social media influencers like famous vloggers, influencer YouTubers, and so on without any obligation of promoting the product. You can consider it an exchange of free products in expectation of getting positive reviews and other actions from the influencers’ end. No doubt, the ultimate goal of influencer seeding is to promote those products with the help of influencers in order to attract their loyal audience base towards the product.

However, there is a wide range of opinions about influencer seeding among digital marketers. Many of them perceive influencer seeding as the process of sending a no-string attached product to any influencer in the expectation of getting positive organic posts about that product. They believe the ultimate goal of influencer product seeding is to create a strong relationship with any influencer through a credible affiliate marketing program.

Why Should Brands Need to Think about Influencer Seeding?

Influencer seeding has been proven a great way to build a strong relationship with micro and macro influencers. It also enables businesses to build brand awareness by reaching the right audience with the help of influencers. For this reason, businesses selling physical merchandise have viewed influencer product seeding as a cost-effective way for their brand to get the maximum attention through their influencer marketing efforts. So, influencer seeding provides them with the opportunity of finding influencers who really love your brand.

However, influencer seeding does not provide any guarantee of any kind of social media promotion to build brand awareness. But most of the time, influencers personally feel they should do at least something to pay back the brand due to their willingness to provide support. That is why they engage themselves in creating organic content to promote the product with positive and honest feedback.  So, this may be viewed as an optimistic approach for many marketing experts to achieve success. But businesses that use this influencer marketing approach have found it to be an extremely cost-effect way with great ROI.

How to Run Influencer Seeding Campaign?

Running an influencer seeding campaign has proven very much helpful for companies when it comes to increasing their sales figure. Frankly speaking, every successful influencer product seeding campaign uses content creators and their content to introduce the product to their fans.  As the cost of running an influencer seeding campaign is only limited to shipping the product, the benefits it provides outweigh that. But running an influencer seeding campaign is not easy as there are many important details that need to be tracked and paid attention to. That is why it is important for every digital marketer to follow a step-by-step process for a successful influencer seeding campaign. Let’s explore the steps you need to follow for a successful influencer gifting campaign.

• Identify the main goals of your influencer seeding campaign

It is always important for you to identify the main goals of your influencer seeding campaign before diving into the nitty-gritty of the influencer seeding process and its execution. You should consider what you want to accomplish with your influencer seeding campaign. You may be trying to increase brand awareness, receive consumer feedback, drive sales, or generate revenue through an influencer product seeding campaign. No matter what it may be, you should always keep it in your top-of-mind while making any decision for your campaign.

• Choose the right influencer and platform

Every successful influencer seeding campaign starts with finding the right influencer for its brand. That is why it is important for digital marketers to make sure the influencers they have chosen and their audiences are relevant to the brand they want to promote. For example, it would always be inappropriate for a cosmetic company to promote its products with the help of a sports influencer. That’s why it is always important for businesses to clearly define the goals and objectives of any brand-creator partnership with the influencers.

Apart from that, businesses should consider which type of content is proven most effective for their influencer marketing strategy.  

• Carefully select your products to send

Most of the time, influencers and creators are more likely to promote products that they like. If they promote a product they don’t like, viewers can tell the endorsement is inauthentic. No doubt, new products create the most buzz in the market, but popular products try to grow by getting more feedback from influencers and consumers. However, both of them are ideal for sending as samples.

You can always expect to receive positive posts from the influencer’s end if they find your product really unique. That is why it is essential for you to put your utmost importance on creating a positive experience for the influencer about the product, irrespective of the goals of your influencer seeding campaign. For example, you can send a hand-written influencer gifting note to impress the influencer. This will truthfully make sure that your influencer seeding campaign gains a good beginning. 

• Check the outcome of the influencer seeding campaign

As the final step, you should evaluate how much the influencer seeding campaign succeeds. You should pay attention to the increased or decreased follower count as well the engagement rate following the influencer seeding campaign. In case you observe a decline in follower count or engagement rate, this will definitely help you to determine the positions where you need to improve.

Apart from that, you should carefully watch out for all the feedback received from the influencers’ end.  No doubt, both positive and negative feedback will help you to understand how your audience feels about your product or brand. So, make sure to take note of common likes or dislikes.  

Which Type of Influencer is Ideal for Influencer Seeding Campaign?

At present time, influencer seeding has become an increasingly popular influencer marketing strategy to reach out to social media influencers and affiliate marketers in a quick and cost-effective way. However, it may take some time to reflect on the outcome. But before starting the influencer seeding campaign, it is important for every business to find the right influencers for their brands.

Now the question is which type of influencer is ideal for an influencer seeding campaign. Well, social media influencers with smaller followings are ideal for influencer seeding campaigns. Most of the time, nano and micro-influencers tend to respond best to influencer seeding propositions.  

Typically, macro influencers with more than 100000 followers tend to be very much busy, and they are not interested in anything that does not offer payment. However, if you are desperate to work with them, don’t be afraid to reach out and get in touch.

5 Influencer Seeding Strategies to Get Amazing Content

No matter whether you sell beauty, fitness, food, or any other products, an influencer seeding campaign is always proven effective for brands of all shapes and sizes. We should not forget that the ultimate goal of influencer product seeding is to encourage influencers to promote your products authentically and enthusiastically. However, it is important for you to be aware of some smart influencer seeding strategies to get amazing content. Here are some tips to get amazing content from influencers.

• Always personalize your product packages before shipping them to the influencers
• Choose a product that influencers will actually use
• Always send the best products to your influencer
• promote all the influencers’ posts and positive feedback as your success story

Brands that have Become Successful with Influencer Product Seeding

Today, product seeding has become an integral part of influencer marketing strategy.  This practice helps brands to bolster their influencer programs by identifying creators who cater to the same niche and are in line with the brands’ core ethics and values.

This practice of sending products to chosen creators to get high-quality content in return has resulted in many long-term partnerships. Further, for many brands, it has emerged as a powerful marketing tool, making more people interested in buying their products. Some brands that have become successful with influencer product seeding are MVMT Watches, Zaful, GoPro, LUSH, House of CB, etc.

• MVMT Watches

MVMT Watches took its Instagram influencer marketing strategy to the next level with product seeding. Ethan Frame, the former influencer marketing manager of MVMT Watches, explained how product seeding became a successful marketing tool for the company. He found the influencers whose content aligns with the MVMT brand. He then developed a personal rapport with them and sent them watches. He also requested the influencers to post a picture of them wearing MVMT watches and share that on social media for their followers. As of today, MVMT Watches has 1.1m followers on Instagram.

• Zaful

Fashion brand Zaful is another example of successful influencer product seeding. It got tremendous responses and carved a bigger niche in its web-based marketplace with its many campaigns, including Zaful Hauls. In this campaign, the influencers can pick a Zaful creation and post a picture of it on Instagram. Further, each partner creator gets an exclusive promo code from Zaful to be shared among followers. The followers can use this code to get Zaful outfits at a discounted price. Currently, Zaful has 5.5m followers on Instagram.

• GoPro

GoPro collaborates with creators of extreme sports content. The brand sends tiny attachable lenses to these creators, who can use the lenses to capture exciting moments and create content during their sports activities.

In January 2022, the brand became the sponsor of the Natural Selection Tour in Jackson Hole. Among the twenty-four participating riders, four riders represented the GoPro Snow Team. They also had many GoPro gear to record their exciting journey. Today, this brand possesses an impressive follower base of 19.8m.

• LUSH

A handmade cosmetics company, LUSH, has made it to the list of companies that have grown because of influencer product seeding. The brand gifts its newly launched bath and skincare products to influencers. It also makes sure that the products sent to the influencers are already used and loved by them. So, LUSH always customizes the packages for product seeding according to the preference of every influencer. Because of its smart influencer marketing strategy, it now has 642k followers.

• House of CB

This brand, with 3.6m followers on Instagram, has penned a success story with influencer product seeding. This British brand, dealing in luxury apparel for women, sends its creations to influencers before the label’s release. The influencers then collaborate with the brand and post social media content in these outfits to evoke interest among their followers. This luxury fashion brand has also sent gifts to big names like Demi Lovato, Vanessa Hudgens, and the Kardashians.

Final Thoughts

We hope now you have gained a solid knowledge of influencer seeding, why brands should think about it, and how to run a successful influencer product seeding campaign. No doubt, influencer seeding is proven very much effective for a new brand to build brand awareness among potential clients. Just make sure your approach is thoughtful as well as strategic to have a community of fans who love your brand.

However, consulting with any reputed influencer marketing agency is always better to reap the maximum benefits of influencer seeding. They can engage content creators and bloggers to reach and engage millions of consumers on behalf of your product/brand with their influencer marketing services.