Managing and growing a large influencer program can be both rewarding and challenging. Some brands, however, are finding innovative ways to get more from their influencer programmes without increasing complexity. With Impact an official partner of The Influencer Marketing Show, I was joined by Fipe Gougemerrall, Team Leader, Affiliate Marketing at Ideal, and Nathalie Edström, Head of Influencer Marketing, from Ideal of Sweden for an intimate fireside chat to discuss tactics on scaling their influencer program.
Here are some of the key takeaways from the session, with tactics that you can apply to scale your influencer marketing campaigns.
How brands make decisions on influencers and budgets
As a premium phone accessories retailer, Ideal of Sweden understands the power of influencers and how much they contribute to a consumer’s purchasing decisions.
Nathalie was initially tasked with building a strategy from scratch and was confident that a successful influencer campaign would guarantee Ideal Sweden a healthy return on investment.
I spoke to Nathalie and Fipe about how the brand has managed to gain a high recruitment rate to their influencer program.
“We need to get the influencer to buy in to Ideal’s products so we pitch a presentation of the brand when we reach out to influencers. This promotes the products and features other notable influencers they would be aware of. We also stress our sustainability values, that we are 100% vegan, cruelty-free, and use recyclable packaging, all of which really resonates with influencers,” said Fipe.
Nathalie added that with a clearer offering, Ideal was able to target key influencers whose values align with the brand to gain a clearer picture of how to allocate their advertising spend across a campaign.
Understand the link between brand, influencer, and technology
With a large volume of influencers to manage, Ideal was faced with the challenge of how to scale their program effectively. Seeking practical ways to get more from their burgeoning influencer program, the brand turned to Impact’s partnership technology.
“When it came time to scale our influencer program, we decided to use Impact’s affiliate platform. Many influencers are interested in affiliate platforms as it gives them the freedom to choose campaigns that they’d like to be a part of and earn commission easily through tracking along with smoother payouts. Working with Impact specifically has given us the opportunity to reach out to influencers so they can sign up to the Impact platform themselves,” explained Fipe.
Nathalie also shared her positive experience with Impact’s platform, particularly about features such as reporting and automation.
“We created our own internal system where influencers could choose the products they wish to promote, then the item goes directly to the warehouse to be assigned a discount code, which is automatically set up in the platform. As well as slick email automation for enhanced communication with the influencers, Impact’s platform enabled us to eliminate time-consuming tasks, freeing up more time to focus on revenue-driving activities. Now we have workflows, templates, and faster influencer onboarding to streamline the whole program. It’s also helpful to have access to data reporting in Google data studio, which greatly decreases manual administration,” she added.
Know when and how brands can scale influencer programs
Ideal experienced organic growth, which enabled them to strategically plan their influencer program and build it at scale. So how can other brands follow their lead to scale their own successful programs and launch them internationally?
“Ideal has 30 employees managing our influencers across the globe. Staff are divided into different regional teams to provide a more tailored strategy, then into different areas of responsibilities such as managing macro and micro-influencers. Ultimately, the international team manages all influencer activity through platforms like Impact, and it’s very important to continuously analyse, strategise and build relationships with external partners so that we can increase sales and brand awareness,” Nathalie explained.
I finished up the fireside chat by asking the pair what they’re looking forward to in this industry over the next six to ten months.
Nathalie spoke about the boom in social media platforms like TikTok giving rise to more authentic content and her excitement about what this means for influencers. “The personal relationship and engagement from influencers to their followers are super important, and we look forward to providing them with more quality content they can repurpose in an authentic way for their followers.”
Fipe finished by saying she is optimistic for the growth of the Ideal brand, adding, “Having a global mindset will help us branch into different markets and ultimately experience increased international success.”
Want to scale your influencer program like Ideal of Sweden did? Contact a growth technologist at grow@impact.com.
