If you’ve been following influencer marketing for the past few years, you’re probably already aware that it’s highly effective for promoting brands and products. Businesses can work with influencers to drive product awareness, boost engagements, and increase sales.
Check out these eight influencer marketing case studies to learn how influencers have delivered impressive results for leading brands;
8 Influencer Marketing Case Studies with Incredible Results:
1. Nike Air Vapormax
Nike is the world’s leader in manufacturing and supplying athletic wear and sports equipment. And in 2017 alone, they generated more than $34 billion globally. But they’re not just one of the leading brands in the world; they’re also among the top users of influencer marketing. The brand has worked with both celebrities and social influencers for several campaigns to promote their products.
When the brand wanted to promote their new Air Vapormax series, they decided to team up with the popular YouTube channel “What’s Inside?” The channel is run by a father-son duo, and is famous for cutting up everyday objects to showcase what’s inside. The duo has been able to garner almost 6 million subscriptions for their two channels.
For their campaign, the YouTubers create a series of seven videos in which they integrated the brand’s messaging into the individual themes of both of their channels. They used their “WHAT’S INSIDE? FAMILY” channel to create vlogs and Q&As. And for their original “What’s Inside?” channel, they created a video in which they cut up a Nike Air Vapormax to show their viewers what’s inside.
This video alone has been viewed more than 3.6 million times, and has received 32,000 likes. The Nike Trip videos playlist has had more than 50,000 views. And the campaign helped build buzz for the new line of products from Nike.
2. Subaru
Subaru has been experiencing significant growth over the past few years. And influencer marketing has played an important role in this growth. In fact, their sales increased by 10% during 2016 alone. One of their most successful influencer marketing campaigns was the, “Meet an Owner” campaign. The goal was to raise brand awareness, and improve their brand sentiment.
For this campaign, Subaru worked with 20 influencers across various categories ranging from fitness to art. Each influencer created unique pieces of content centered around a Subaru car, and infused their authentic voice into the content.
Zach King, for instance, created a video in which he tried to impress his date with a Subaru car. This video alone has more than 8 million views till date.
The Meet an Owner campaign had an overall engagement rate of 9%, generating thousands of comments and millions of likes for 58 sponsored posts. The brand has reported an increase in brand awareness as a result of the campaign.
3. Youfoodz
Youfoodz is an Australian fresh meal company that wants to make healthy eating easier for everyone. When they wanted to promote the launch of their new winter menu, they decided to work with Instagram influencers who specialize in health and fitness as well as in food.
They partnered with a total of 81 influencers to highlight their healthy and convenient menu options. These influencers created 167 pieces of content for the campaign. In addition to this, they also shared more than 162 Instagram stories during the campaign.
Here’s an example of one of the posts created by influencer Brittany Daisy, who has more than 10,000 Instagram followers.
These pieces of content generated almost 70,000 direct engagements, and more than 500,000 impressions. The campaign was able to reach almost 1.5 million people across Facebook and Instagram. With the help of Instagram Stories, the influencers were also able to create authentic and “in-the-moment” content that engaged the target audience.
4. Pottery Barn
Pottery Barn wanted to promote their new collection of decors created in collaboration with interior designer Ken Fulk. They decided to work with an influencer who has an eye for interior design to showcase their pieces in a highly appealing manner.
The brand chose Holly Becker, who runs the blog Decor8, for the campaign. The influencer used pieces from the collection to showcase different ways in which her readers could incorporate them in their own homes.
She also hosted a giveaway in which readers had a chance to win a $500 gift card. And to boost engagement for the contest, she asked readers to name their perfect companion for a dinner party.
Source: decor8blog.com
Through one influencer alone, the campaign generated 500 reader comments, and more than a thousand engagements. The social reach of the campaign was close to 4 million, helping the brand successfully promote the new Ken Fulk collection.
5. Gerber Lil’ Beanies
When Gerber wanted to launch their Lil’ Beanies product, their goal was to raise awareness and drive sales in their key target markets. They wanted to reach customers at Walmart, Kroger, Publix, and Target.
So with the help of Linqia and Catapult, the brand launched an influencer marketing campaign where influencers created authentic content positioning their product as a nutritional and delicious snack for toddlers.
For this campaign, Gerber worked with 324 influencers specializing in different niches – from travel and active living to food and parenting. What all these influencers had in common was that they all had children below two years of age.
Each of these influencers created original blog posts and social media posts in which they told an engaging story about their kids enjoying the Lil’ Beanies product. They also encouraged their audience to visit the official Lil’ Beanies landing page in order to download a digital coupon.
Here’s a blog post created by Amber, who runs Busy Creating Memories.
Source: busycreatingmemories.com
The 300+ influencers created a total of 9,400 pieces of content, which resulted in 9.2 million potential impressions. The content also inspired almost 260,000 clicks, likes, comments, social shares, and retweets. While the campaign was active, the campaign resulted in a national sales lift of almost 5% for Gerber’s Lil’ Beanies products.
6. Maybelline Falsies Push Up Drama
Maybelline wanted to drive awareness and sales for their new Falsies Push Up Drama mascara, which was launched at Walmart. To accomplish this goal, they decided to work with beauty influencers who helped create content related to beauty tips and tricks as well as beauty hauls.
These influencers worked to drive in-store traffic and promote the in-store displays to highlight the product.
Here’s an Instagram post created by Kimberly Pavao.
The content created by these influencers garnered 73,700 views and 35.7 million total impressions. There were 10,900 engagements to the influencers’ blog page. And the brand’s total media value increased 1.3 times.
7. Society6
Society6, an ecommerce store and online community that allows artists to sell their artwork through various products, wanted to boost awareness of their brand. Since they have a very broad product offering, their target demographic was also equally broad.
So they decided it would be best to focus on a single demographic profile, and work with influential millennial women who are fashion conscious and in college.
These influencers created videos that highlighted the unique products available at Society6, which college-going women can use to decorate their dorm rooms. They wanted to build the idea that these products can help in personalizing their living space.
Here’s one of the videos created by YouTuber Katherout, who has more than 100,000 subscribers.
With the help of 21 influencers, the campaign resulted in 24 pieces of content published. The campaign videos have been viewed more than a million times, and have an engagement rate of 5.68%.
8. GOODFOODS
For GOODFOODS, the reason they wanted to work with influencers was to raise brand awareness for their natural guacamole and dips, and to eventually drive sales. The brand wanted to build a program in which influencers provide their audience with helpful tips on healthy snacking, party planning, etc.
They decided to work with 60 influencers with an expertise in food, parenting, lifestyle, and home verticals. These influencers were tasked to create original recipes and stories that feature products from GOODFOODS.
Here’s one of the recipes by Michele, who runs West via Midwest. She created a recipe for a white bean tortilla pizza implementing the chunky guacamole from GOODFOODS.
Source: westviamidwest.com
The 60 influencers created more than 2,000 pieces of content, ranging from blog posts and recipes to photos and videos. The campaign had 34 million potential impressions, and 71,000 engagements. It also returned a conversion rate of 34.2%.
The content created by influencers was also republished through Nativo, a native advertising platform. It managed to return a much higher conversion rate than the original campaign, delivering a conversion rate of 44.5%.
Conclusion
These are some highly impressive influencer marketing case studies that show just how much influencers can boost business. As you can see, these brands had varying goals and expectations out of their influencer marketing campaigns. While some wanted to raise brand awareness, others wanted to promote new products. And each time, influencers were able to deliver incredible results for the campaign.
Which of these campaigns did you find the most intriguing? Or do you know any other campaigns that you found particularly memorable? Let us know in the comments below.
