Launching a new product or product line is a long process. Prototyping, brand positioning, development, SEO… Many investments are needed, and sometimes major ones. Influencer marketing and influencers are great for boosting your visibility and sales as well as advertising your product to a large audience! In this article, we’ll explain why.
Influencers’ role in the purchasing decision
Influencers play an important role in the consumer decision-making process. A general population survey conducted by Episerver in Sweden, Germany, and the UK shows that consumers were between 20 – 30% more likely to purchase a product following an influencers’ recommendation.
According to MuseFind, 92% of consumers trust an influencer more than an advertisement or traditional celebrity endorsement.
For these reasons, we strongly recommend that your product launch marketing plan includes influencers. Even if your brand and your customer base are established, consumers are going to need reassurance and reviews before they buy your new product or product line. According to Podium, 93% of consumers say that online reviews influence their purchase decisions. Customer referrals are therefore a key factor in growing or sustaining your business.
Relying on influencers for tests, tutorials and reviews, especially during the product launch phase and when trying to cover the cost of investments is a smart decision. Getting your first customer review might take a while as consumers must first be tempted to buy your product!
A great opportunity to showcase your new product
Introducing your new product or product line via influencers is a great idea as they’ll be able to share their experience with your brand. They usually start with unboxing content. As a result, the packaging of your product is not something to neglect, especially if you primarily sell online. Good packaging will make influencers and subsequently your customers want to share their shopping experience – think Instagram or Tiktok stories, YouTube videos, etc. – with their communities.
It’s interesting to note that unboxing videos originated on YouTube and are still very popular. Every day more than 1 billion hours of video content is viewed worldwide on YouTube and 720,000 hours of fresh video content is uploaded.
If you want to work with influencers for your product launch, it’s important that you plan ahead. For instance, you can send them a pre-launch product so that they can test it and share their feedback to their community. Some companies in the high-tech or video game industry ask Twitch streamers to try out the product live before launch. This is a great way to tease the upcoming product and to build anticipation and increase sales.
Twitch is a social network that is on the rise. Today, in the US, 37.5 million people stream video on Twitch at least once a month and nearly 71 million hours of content are viewed every day. As for the audience, it mostly consists of young adults aged 18-35.
Be guided and use the right tools
When you hire an agency like Influence4you to run your influencer marketing campaign, all kinds of tools and strategies are put into place such as social media calendars and backwards planning. Products are sent to influencers that are carefully selected for their audience, their preferred social media platforms, your sector, shared values and also your budget! In the campaign brief sent to them we can include the desired posting dates. This way you can make sure everything is ready on your side and that your suppliers, your website and/or your distributors are all prepared.
A great way to easily find posts about your launch is to pick a hashtag. It’ll also help you create content around your brand. You can also choose to set up unique discount codes for each influencer, in order to accurately track sales generated.
Creative content
Influencers are trend setters and are often very creative people. Promoting your new product or product line with them will generate a lot of content. This is perfect for your own social pages, but also excellent for your future clients. If your new product is innovative then YouTube is the platform for you. You can ask influencers to test your products and make videos about it, including tutorials to show how to use them.
If you’re targeting a very young audience, TikTok is the place to be! The app is become increasingly popular. In the UK in 2022, there are around 17,464,020 TikTok users. This number is expected to increase by 20% in 2026! Gen Z is really fond of this app with 34% of users being in the 16-24 age group.
You’d be surprised how creative Tiktok influencers are! They’ll be able to promote your new product in ways you might not have even imagined! With them, there’s no need to hire a traditional advertising agency to come up with an innovative concept.
Measuring the success of an influencer marketing campaign
Influencer marketing campaign’s results are actually easy to measure both in terms of ROI and EMV.
ROI: (Return on investment) This is where you calculate how many sales were made as a result of a campaign. In the context of a product launch or a new product line, this figure may not be a reliable indicator. By setting up a promo code for each influencer you can track the actual sales generated. But remember that indirect sales must also be taken into account. Many consumers will want to wait before purchasing a product. Perhaps they don’t need it immediately, for example. But they’ll remember a positive review when they see the product in store or online.
EMV: (Earned Media Value). This is the media value of the influencers’ posts (calculated from Ayzenberg’s index). According to Influence4You, for every €1 invested as part of an influencer marketing campaign, €11 of EMV are generated.
Organise an event
Depending on your budget and your goals, you can decide to accompany your launch with an event where you invite influencers. Be creative, anything is possible: Special evenings, breakfasts, brunches, the aim is to completely immerse the invited influencers in your product or service. You could for example invite a specialist in your field. If you’re in the food industry, you could invite a chef for a professional demonstration. This type of event allows you to bond with the influencers you’ve invited and to create the buzz around your product. Indeed, your guests will be able to share their experience in an Instagram or TikTok story. Worldwide over 500 million users watch Instagram stories daily! 51.1% are women.
Be creative, hire an agency specialised in influencer marketing and launch your campaign to promote your new product or product line! Contact us to get started on your campaign right away.
