Relationships are just better when they exist between two parties, don’t you think? I can’t remember the last time I heard anyone say “I’m my own best friend” or “I just want to marry myself…” So why would marketing be any different?
Together (because being lonely sucks) let’s explore the value of “co-campaigning” for an influencer outreach campaign.
How it Worked
Daily’s Cocktails, the original brand of frozen pouch cocktails, hired Rinck Advertising to break through in a market place that has become cluttered with competitors in their industry.
The goal: to earn broadcast and traditional media placements and utilize the power of bloggers as influencers to increase awareness of the brand amongst women ages 21-54.
For their client, Rinck Advertising decided to go with the “co-campaign” method and teamed up with Jennifer at Wholly Guacamole and together the two brands ran a campaign called “Red Carpet Ready” that centered on the 85th Annual Academy Awards (the “Oscars”).
Because bloggers are great springboards to score mentions across many digital channels, the team pitched about 150 bloggers and had 125 of those bloggers sign up for the campaign. What an amazing response rate; Katie must be the master of pitching bloggers!
Each blogger was sent a kit that included a variety of Wholly Guacamole products, a gift card for the blogger to pick up Daily’s Cocktails products (since it contains alcohol it can’t be shipped) and party snacks, branded promo items for both brands and the blogger’s very own roll-out red carpet.
Before pitching, the BlogBeat™ team had a very organized game plan making the execution of their campaign clean and easy. From the beginning, they told the bloggers what was required of them so both sides knew exactly what to expect:
- The bloggers were encouraged to host their own pre-Oscars movie night with friends with the idea being they would watch an Oscar nominated movie and enjoy refreshments from both brands
- Rinck asked the bloggers to share their review of their “Red Carpet Ready” movie night prior to the Oscars including their thoughts on the two brands’ products.
- Included in the posts were photos of their party, which included the brands’ items.
- Bloggers were asked to share their thoughts and photos about their “Red Carpet Ready” event on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest and develop a “Red Carpet Ready” Pinterest board repinning images from both brands.
- Though not mandatory, the bloggers were also provided with the opportunity to host a giveaway on their blog for one winner to receive their own “Red Carpet Ready” kit.
- Throughout the campaign, a #RedCarpetReady hashtag was promoted and monitored.
- On Oscar night, the brands hosted a Twitter party with the bloggers as special guests and posted Oscar-themed questions that tied into the brands. With both brands Twitter handles commenting on dresses and celebrity dream dates with the bloggers and participants, it allowed the brands to be a part of the conversation and helped to further humanize the brands with this audience.
- When participants answered questions such as “What @dailyscocktails drink would you whip up for a girls night w/ #Oscars nominee #JenniferLawrence?” a winner was selected to win a prize package from both brands. This opportunity encouraged a lot of excitement and “buzz” around the brands and multiple trending hashtags (#Oscars, #RedCarpet and hashtags based on nominees) encouraged even more participants.
The Results
According to Katie and Jennifer, “the campaign was extremely successful.” Rinck Advertising calculated that the campaign generated a 786% Return on Investment for Daily’s Cocktails, based on the digital advertising spend equivalent of the blog posts alone, not including the social media engagement.
Jennifer pointed out that campaigns like this helped both brands to become top-of-mind in areas of the store where they don’t have a presence. It was a great opportunity to talk about how the convenience of both products allows the hostess and party guests to focus on each other and their good time without involving tons of prep time-chopping, blending, stirring.
Tying Daily’s and Wholly Guacamole together with the Red Carpet event helped the brands be a part of the fun of a girls’ night in. So the next time these ladies get together for some fun, they’ll look at how to recreate that good time, and Daily’s and Wholly would very much like to be a part of that.
Here are some stats that made Rinck Advertising, Daily’s Cocktails and Wholly Guacamole pretty pleased with their campaign:
- They earned over 100 quality blog posts that were amplified across many social media channels.
- The blog reviews generated 4.7 million impressions.
- There were over 15,000 entries in the blogger giveaways
- They had over 1,300 participants in the Twitter party on the actual night of the Oscars which resulted in 14 million Twitter Timeline deliveries.
- Daily’s Cocktails Twitter followers increased over 35% during the campaign period.
- There was an increase in site traffic and SEO placement for both brands
- Not only was the campaign cost reduced but new relationships were made as a result of “co-campaigning” with Wholly Guacamole
Finding the Right Bloggers
From my experience, observations and conversations, one of the hardest steps in running a blogger outreach campaign is actually locating the bloggers who are a good fit. After this, pitching and actually getting the blogger to team up with a brand can be tough if not done well. Luckily Katie was willing to tell me all about how she found the bloggers for her client.
Many of the bloggers that Rinck teamed up with were bloggers that either Rinck or Wholly Guacamole had worked with before. Others were found using GroupHigh’s search function to pull lists of bloggers by context and reach. Here are some qualifiers that Katie looks for when making a list of bloggers to reach out to.
- Bloggers fall in to the lifestyle, product review, food, entertainment, parenting or couponing/deals space relevant to the brand/campaign
- The blogger creates quality, well-written content with visually-appealing imagery included
- Bloggers have at least 15,000+ UMVs (average was 20,000+ for this campaign) and 5,000-10,000 Facebook and/or Twitter followers *
- Blogger has demonstrated the ability to promote their reviews on their own social media outlets
*In addition to these far reaching bloggers, for all of her campaigns, Katie includes a handful of smaller bloggers to be in the campaign as well. These bloggers have demonstrated they can create excellent content, but may have a smaller reach. As the BlogBeat™ team looks to create long-lasting partnerships with bloggers, making these connections with bright bloggers early on can lead to valuable brand ambassador relationships.
Tips from Katie
In addition to making great use of the “co-campaign” technique there are other components we can learn from Rinck Advertising and their campaign for Daily’s Cocktails concerning teaming up with bloggers.
- Thoroughly research your bloggers before reaching out and set some qualifiers in place.
- Be respectful of the bloggers’ time investment.
- Compensate the bloggers fairly, their mentions are worth a lot.
- Provide downloadable brand assets and information on an easy-to-access website.
- Find a cultural event or other tie-in to give the campaign additional lift.
- Communicate. Katie has been told by her bloggers that what they appreciate the most about how her company works with bloggers is the active communication that takes place.
- Return the favor and share posts across your own digital channels.
- Have a sense of humor (this is my favorite).
Do you have an example of an awesome influencer marketing strategy to share? Whether it’s one you’ve seen or were part of I would love to hear about it in the comments below. Additionally, if you’d like to be featured in my weekly post contact me at kristen@grouphigh.com and let’s talk about your campaign!