Hi friends,

If this was a TED Talk, I’d open it with a question and judge the responses by the volume of the applause. Thankfully, this isn’t a TED Talk, and I can just ask you to vote.

A Q FOR YOU

Why am I asking?

Because in our latest survey, 90% of influencer marketers said they run gifting campaigns.

And 10% are considering running them in the near future. That’s a lot of brands doing or thinking about doing gifting campaigns.

It seems like a good topic to focus on for a few ROI issues.

We’ll start at the beginning: why do brands even do gifting?

The short answer? It (still) works.

80% of marketers told us that gifting is ROI-positive.

The longer answer.

Brands do gifting because it can increase brand awareness, improve direct sales, and help warm relationships with new influencers.

A small percentage of brands do gifting to get content for paid ads.

I’m going to focus on the top 3 reasons. 👇

WHY GIFT #1

To increase brand awareness

48.4% of the marketers we polled said that brand awareness is the primary goal for running gifting campaigns.

A brief primer on brand awareness: When we talk about brand awareness, we’re talking about how familiar consumers are with your brand.

How well do they recognize and recall your brand's name, logo, products, and other assets?

• Coke-Cola = high brand awareness

• Boke-Bola (A brand I just made up) = low, low low brand awareness

Influencer marketers usually measure brand awareness using proxy metrics like views, impressions, new followers on brand accounts, web traffic, and earned media value.

But why use influencers for brand awareness?

Gifting is a more affordable way of moving the needle on all those proxy metrics.

For many brands, offering free products (either as a no-strings-attached gift or as a barter) is much more affordable than working with the same amount of influencers on paid collabs.

Because it’s more affordable, gifting also allows you to cast a wider net. You can recruit a higher number of influencers. More influencers = higher reach.

And because your main KPI will be something like views or new followers on brand accounts, content that comes out of gifting campaigns, doesn’t have so much pressure on it. You can skip content approvals altogether and only focus on getting your name and product out there.

WHY GIFT #2

To boost direct sales

Influencer marketing is a full-funnel channel.

It can impact all your growth levers, from brand awareness initiatives to customer acquisition and retention. Despite this, it’s still important to have a primary goal. Because different goals demand different approaches.

A quarter of the surveyed marketers (25.8%) said they use gifting campaigns primarily to boost direct sales.

To boost sales, you want to cast a deeper net. For example, instead of letting influencers choose whichever product they like from your catalog, you’ll want to gift them your best-selling items or an item you’re currently promoting.

Matheus Ribeiro, an Influencer Marketing Coordinator at Brazilian retailer Cia. Hering told us:

Instead of taking a pure gifting, no-strings-attached approach, you might want to consider a barter deal with specific deliverables when your main KPI is sales.

Give ‘em a discount code. Use some of your budget for paid ads.

This is just one way to run a gifting campagin. You want your goals to inform the way you manage said campaign.

🔗 See how 31 brands manage their gifting programs

WHY GIFT #3

To start relationships with influencers

Creators not responding to your outreach emails or DMs is just the cost of doing business in influencer marketing.

I’ve heard that response rates in a typical outreach sequence range between 10% and 20%.

This means that if you want to have 100 new influencers on your roster for this quarter/year, you’ll need to reach out to 1000 people.

That’s a lotta outreach!

Or, you can improve your response rates.

The higher your response rates, the fewer influencers you’ll need to find. Giting can be one way to improve them.

16.8% of marketers said they use gifting as a way to start relationships with influencers.

It’s a positive way to open a conversation and gives you the opportunity to assess enthusiasm for your product. Think of it as an additional vetting factor.

If creators don’t like your product or aren’t jazzed about it, you might not want to work with them, saving a lot of time and effort recruiting them.

If they love your product and post about it through the gifting campaign, you’ve got yourself a test. Creators who perform well can be graduated to a paid collab with less risk.

Now, using gifting as a way to start relationships won’t always be viable for higher-cost products. And it doesn’t guarantee a partnership.

But it can open doors for you and is one more tactic to have in your pocket.

HANDPICKED JOB OPENINGS

• Deckers is looking for a UGC Talent Relations Manager in their London, Paris, Amsterdam offices.

• Vita Green Health is looking for a TikTok Influencer Partnerships Associate in the US (Remote).

• MoBurst is looking for an Influencer Marketing Manager in Manchester or London, UK.

• Zappos is looking for a Senior Social Media Specialist in Las Vegas, US.  

• HOLY is looking for an Influencer Marketing Manager for TikTok and an Influencer Marketing Lead in Berlin. (German & English speaker is a must)

See you in the next issue of ROI!
Eleni Zoe xx
Marketing @ Modash. Say hi on LinkedIn or visit Modash.

 📌A NOTE ABOUT WHAT YOU JUST READ

The tips in this newsletter might not be right for your specific case. Use good judgment when deciding whether to take advice from the internet—even mine. My team and I survey & interview influencer marketers whose advice and observations come from their direct experience. ROI is meant for you to connect the dots, be inspired, or challenged to think about your influencer marketing in a way you haven’t before.