From small boutique brands trying to enter the market to the largest brands in the world, influencer marketing is becoming a pillar of every brand strategy.
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When influencer marketing hits the mark, the result is a highly engaging campaign that resonates with audiences in ways that other marketing channels can’t match.
However, not all campaigns achieve this success and some can fall flat, failing to achieve the intended results and in some cases even backfiring and putting the brand in a bad light.
This can cause some brands to be nervous when constructing new campaigns. The result is that they can play things too safe and choose to do standard paid promotions or product mentions. These safer and simpler campaigns can achieve good results, but they don’t always play to the strengths of influencer marketing.
To help you get the best results, we wanted to cover 5 inspiring influencer marketing campaigns that really leverage the full power of influencer marketing to engage an audience and deliver results.
Below, we’ll explain the ingredients that go into a successful influencer marketing campaign and then give 5 examples to help inspire your own creativity and marketing efforts.
What Makes A Great Influencer Marketing Campaign?
Every successful influencer campaign must have the same key aspects to be effective. There is an unlimited way to achieve these core aspects, and that’s where the creativity of different marketers comes into play.
But in the end, the campaign has to have these attributes for it to achieve the most success possible and truly leverage the power of influencer marketing.
Authenticity
Every influencer campaign should start with authenticity. When we say authenticity, we mean the connection that the influencer has with their audience and the way the messaging of the campaign fits into that framework.
The more aligned these relationships are, the more authenticity that a campaign will have.
This starts by carefully researching potential influencers that you want to partner with. Look beyond the follower count and analyze their content and their audience.
Look at how the influencer interacts with their audience and how the audience engages with content.
This includes metrics like comments, likes, demographics, and other signals. But it also involves manually scrolling through comments and looking at other platforms the influencer uses to gain more insight.
Choosing the wrong influencers will make it difficult to build an authentic campaign, even with the best creative team behind it.
Engagement
The next ingredient for a successful campaign is engagement. This starts with the right influencer, but it also requires that the campaign creatives fit the goals of the campaign and drive audience behavior as needed.
Although engagement can be measured with numbers and metrics, it requires creativity and experience to create a campaign that elicits engagement from followers.
In some cases, you can drive engagement by choosing a campaign type known for higher engagement. This includes contests, challenges, and giveaways.
This is probably the simplest way to increase engagement using a proven method.
Somewhat more difficult is to create a campaign that engages the audience on its own. This can result from a campaign that speaks directly to a pain point the audience has. It also can come from a campaign that tells a unique story.
An example of this storytelling style campaign is a brand awareness campaign that explains a charitable cause that the brand supports and why it matters to the brand’s founders.
The story engages the audience and makes an emotional connection.
Understanding Your Own Audience
We’ve already talked about analyzing an influencer’s audience, but how well do you know your own audience?
This is especially true for newer brands that are primarily e-commerce businesses. You may have a great product/market fit that leads to initial success, but there’s a chance you haven’t fully segmented your customers to reach new audiences and scale your idea.
Most larger brands have already analyzed this area of their business. But if you’re a smaller brand or startup, make sure you properly segment your customers, create personas, and fully understand your target customers.
Having this information will allow you to create customized campaigns and choose influencers that resonate with potential customers.
5 Influencer Marketing Campaigns To Inspire
Now that covered the aspects that every successful influencer campaign needs, let’s look at 5 influencer marketing examples that reached millions of potential customers
Nickelodeon & TMNT
Media network Nickelodeon reached out to HireInfluence to help create an influencer campaign for a new line of TMNT-themed bedding and accessories exclusively available through Walmart retail stores.
The #TMNTxWalmart campaign used 4 interior design influencers from Instagram and the IGTV network to showcase fun bedroom makeovers using TMNT-branded products.
The alignment between the influencer’s audience and the core shopper looking for fun and exciting child’s bedroom decor was a perfect fit.
Careful selection of each influencer created a campaign with a strong appeal to audiences with young children who are also interested in unique interior design choices that are fun and affordable.
The makeover-style campaign showed just how much the TMNT-branded products can create an entirely new space that would make any young fan of the animated series feel right at home.
Overall, the campaign attracted over 10 million views and garnered 300k engagements.
The careful selection of the influencers combined with an engaging campaign that showcased the product’s attainability and benefits were key to the level of success HireInfluence achieved with this campaign.
Salesforce
With influencer marketing, we often think of B2C products and services. But influencer marketing has matured and can achieve amazing results with B2B brands in virtually any industry.
Salesforce, a worldwide leader in business and sales CRMs, developed a campaign that was designed to showcase its newest AI-infused software products.
Instead of using stuffy buzzwords or technical jargon, they partnered with well-known business influencers and created campaigns filled with humor and approachable demonstrations of key Salesforce features.
Launched during the annual Dreamforce conference, the campaign attracted over 16 million views with over 1 million engagements.
The campaign showcases how a creative campaign can bridge the gap between influencer marketing and B2B audiences.
CeraVe
Skincare brand CeraVe tapped into existing meme and internet culture for this big-budget influencer campaign that included actor Michael Cera.
The campaign used 450 influencers along with press releases and teaser content leading up to a Super Bowl commercial featuring the actor.
While this was a big-budget campaign, it shows how influencer marketing can succeed by using existing trends and UGC as a basis for the campaign.
With its twist on the running joke that Michael Cera is secretly behind the CeraVe brand, it helped to engage audiences and provide a reason for users to continue following the campaign until its revealing finale.
GoldToe
GoldToe wanted to build brand awareness around their line of athletic socks which feature unique and innovative features for female athletes of all levels.
The result was the #MoreThanPretty campaign that used 12 prominent female athletes on Instagram to showcase the product.
The successful campaign combined micro-influencers and celebrity influencers to reach just the right audience.
Showcasing the benefits of the GoldToe athleticwear along with inspirational stories from each female athlete, the campaign attracted over 33 million views and 1.4 million engagements.
One of the keys to this inspiring campaign was the blend of smaller influencers with larger celebrity accounts to maintain precise targeting, resulting in high engagement even while reaching millions of views.
Southwest Airlines
Southwest Airlines wanted a campaign to build excitement and awareness for the pre-sale of their first-ever flights to Hawaii.
The result was the #SouthwestSaysAloha campaign which showcased the beauty of Hawaii along with stories describing the transformative effect that a Hawaii vacation has had on travelers.
The campaign used a takeover-style approach, with Hawaii-based influencers taking over mainland fashion, style, and travel influencers to showcase the beauty of the islands.
The 6 influencers combined created 55 million impressions with over 3 million engagements.
The key to this campaign was the use of the takeover-style UGC that created an “insider” guide to showcase the best that Hawaii has to offer.
The result was Southwest Airlines reaching new audiences and positioning itself as the airline that could make your Hawaii dream vacation become a reality.
Key Takeaways From These Successful Campaign Examples
Many of these inspiring campaigns featured some of the largest brands and successful influencers, but the same techniques can be applied to a campaign of any size and budget. In many ways, the smaller the campaign and budget, the more important these factors become.
Every successful campaign starts by first identifying the goal of the campaign. From there, the rest of the campaign can start to be assembled for maximum effect.
Finally, every campaign focuses heavily on partnering with the right influencer whose audience is perfectly aligned with the brand’s core customer targets.
By combining those core techniques with creative storytelling and engaging content ideas, a successful influencer campaign can be within the reach of brands of any size and budget.
