5 Unique Influencer Campaign Brief Ideas You Haven’t Thought of Before: Part I
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When it comes to influencer marketing, your ROI is often only as good as your brief. Having managed hundreds of collaborations between brands and bloggers, we have identified a clear correlation between a brand’s brief and the success of their campaign. The collaboration type selected, compensation offer, requirements and timing all impact the number of applications received, as well as more intangible factors, such as the information you include about your brand.
This should perhaps come as no surprise. Your brief is your chance to sell yourself to creators who might be weighing multiple offers. The enthusiasm you generate with your brief can not only influence the quantity and quality of applications you receive, but also the payment that bloggers are willing to accept. Even prominent influencers will relax their rates to work with brands that align with their personal aesthetic and values, so it’s important to put your best foot forward. Here’s how to write a brief that attracts the best influencers for your brand, achieves your KPIs, and results in a greater long-term ROI.
1. Become Part of the Story
The best influencer collaborations demonstrate how bloggers are using brands in their everyday lives, rather than simply “displaying” a product in a one-off Instagram post. Organic integration is not only more engaging for followers, but it also leads to more conversions. We see far more collaborations lead to sales when influencers integrate products into an authentic scenario than when products are displayed promotionally. Making your brand part of a broader story can help you leverage this advantage. For example, an athleisure brand might collaborate with a travel influencer to show off different outfits for every phase of a trip, from the plane ride to beachside cocktails. A home decor brand might follow a remodeling project that incorporates their products. Finding a way to make your brand an integral part of an influencer’s story allows you to increase visibility and trust with their audience. Australian baby essentials brand b.box does this well. Its influencer collaborations embrace the chaotic, messy, wonderful moments that come with raising kids by showing real parents in real homes:
2. Share Your Values
Sparking a conversation around a cause that your brand supports is a great way to attract the right influencers. If your leadership is passionate about environmental issues, invite influencers who share that passion to apply for your collab. If your brand supports body image positivity or women’s empowerment, design a brief that generates awareness for these issues. Esprit is a great example of a brand that seamlessly incorporates its values into content collaborations. The brand recently engaged Shopping Links to identify influencers who share its passion for women’s empowerment in a campaign during International Women’s Day. The collaboration centered on a Signature Scarf, for which the brand donated 100% of sales to UN Women Australia. Collaborations featured influencers throughout Australia wearing their scarves in support.
It is worth noting that Esprit’s campaign worked well because women’s empowerment is already a value of the brand. Whenever you create a value-centric collaboration, it’s important to choose causes that you consistently support.
Want to add unique codes and affiliate links to your influencer marketing collaborations? Get in touch for a demo!
3. Leverage a Holiday
Another way to make your brief stand out is to leverage an existing event or holiday, which adds an element of time-sensitivity and gives your brief a theme, which can make your direction feel clearer to bloggers. American shoe brand Fitflop recently ran a collaboration for National Flip Flop Day that attracted hundreds of applicants. Running the collaboration in conjunction with a one-day-only promotion on its website, the brand leveraged the power of product seeding with six bloggers who generated buzz about the holiday through an Instagram post and Story with a swipe-up to shop FitFlop’s sale. This kind of brief works because it’s engaging, timely, and has mass appeal, both in terms of the range of styles and the price point.
Above, @themagnoliamammas generate buzz in the sandal-friendly Florida market. FitFlop also engaged influencers in New York, Utah and North Carolina. Our Product Seeding collaboration type is an easy way to generate buzz for a promotion or event by gifting at scale. This collaboration type allows you to choose either 10 or 50 influencers to gift at once with guaranteed brand exposure within 30 days of an influencer receiving product. You receive delivery details for every influencer. Only influencers with 10k or more followers on Instagram are eligible for this collab type, allowing you to add Instagram Story requests using the swipe-up feature.
4. Incorporate Discount Codes
Another effective brief idea is to include discount codes. Not only do unique codes incentivise shoppers to take action, but they also help you track which bloggers have made the greatest impact. We find that sales-focused collaborations are particularly effective after you have run several posts featuring the same product before you run the promotion. We also find that multi-channel collaborations, incorporating Instagram Stories and blog posts, can make sales-driven campaigns even more effective.
Above, fashion blogger Laura Budryte gives her followers two ways to take advantage of discounts from nutrition brand Liquid Health: by linking to her blog post from Instagram or using her discount code. To make your discount codes even more effective, consider offering affiliate commissions to bloggers through unique codes. You can generate unique links on Shopping Links with SLINKS.
5. Swipe Up for Success
To animate your collaborations in a way that drives conversions, we recommend incorporating Instagram Stories. We are finding that Instagram Stories drives major traffic for brands looking to boost eCommerce sales, making it one of the most effective channels you can add to a brief. We are seeing Instagram Stories with a reach that eclipses traditional media channels, including 1 million potential customers in a 7-day period and as many as 25 million impressions over the same period. More importantly, we’re finding that these impressions are converting into sales. To get the most out of your Story, add enough detail to your brief that influencers will easily understand what elements you want to see, including how you want your brand to be tagged, the URL you want to use for each swipe-up and the number of Stories you expect to see in a campaign.
The bottom line for any brief is to add enough detail that no assumptions need be made. Make sure you detail every requirement, from hashtags to messaging, in a way that someone unfamiliar with your brand can follow and execute. Taking a little extra time to communicate ahead of your collaboration will save much more time resolving miscommunications later on.
Final Thoughts
- Running one-off collaborations with streamlined deliverables will attract a large number of applicants
- Run longer-term collaborations with multiple deliverables and due dates will attract fewer influencers, but applicants will be more targeted
- Using Shopping Links’ parameters to filter your search will help to attract more targeted responses
- Adding a high level of detail, including your brand handles, hashtags and key messages, will help to avoid miscommunication and ensure you reach our KPIs.
Stay tuned for templates, examples & results from leading global brands in Part 2!
Need help crafting the perfect creative brief? Shopping Links can help! Request a demo to receive personalised advice and learn how to find the right influencers in our network of 15,000+ leading bloggers. To contribute to any of our future stories, contact us at hello@shoppinglinks.com or follow us on Instagram at @shoppinglinks.