Looking for influencer marketing tips for the holiday season?
The holidays are just around the corner, which means it’s high time to start planning your Instagram influencer marketing campaign!
Partnering with Instagram influencers is a great way to introduce your business to new audiences, get on shopper’s minds, and get your customers into the buying spirit during the holidays.
Running a holiday campaign this year? In the following blog post, we share 7 key Instagram influencer marketing tips for the holiday season:
Why You Should Use Instagram Influencers This Holiday Season
The holidays are one of the most lucrative times for businesses — but they can also be the most competitive.
So how do you make sure your brand gets noticed? By incorporating influencer marketing into your strategy!
Influencers marketing is one of the best ways to increase brand awareness, grow your followers, and make sales during the holidays!
By partnering with relevant influencers who have an engaging and authentic voice, your business can reach so many more people and make real, lasting impressions.
#1 Instagram Influencer Marketing Tips: Establish Your Goals and Plan Ahead
With Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, and more, the holidays have become synonymous with shopping. And with so many people turning to social media for shopping inspiration, you need to make sure your brand is catching the eyes of eager customers.
The holidays also happen to be one of the busiest times for influencers, with tons of brands looking to partner up to promote their products. That’s why it’s crucial to get a head start on your strategy this season!
Here are a few questions to consider when planning your Instagram influencer marketing holiday campaign:
What’s the Goal of Your Campaign?
You definitely want to think about the goals of your influencer marketing campaign before reaching out to potential partners.
Are you looking to drive brand awareness? Generate more sales? Promote a new offer?
Considering the objectives and “why” of your campaign is a crucial first step that will help guide your partnership strategy.
What’s Your Budget?
Before you start pitching to influencers, it’s important to determine your budget for your Instagram influencer holiday campaign.
While there are many micro-influencers who are willing to exchange free products for promotion, today’s biggest Instagram influencers are charging major bucks to create posts for brands.
Unfortunately, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer to calculate the cost of influencer marketing. There’s a variety of factors involved that go well beyond an Instagram influencer’s number of followers.
However, many digital marketers adhere to the one cent per follower (or $100 per 10K followers) rule, but only as a starting point for their calculation.
From there, you can adjust and take other factors into consideration, such as engagement rate, client budget, campaign length, and other partnership specifics.
Wondering how much it costs to run an influencer marketing campaign? Check out our guide with tips on how calculate your influencer marketing budget.
Having a clear understanding of your campaign objectives will definitely help with determining whether an Instagram influencer’s fees are inline with the value they can offer and the outcome you’re looking for.
Never worked with Instagram influencers before? We have you covered!
Learn how to find the right ambassadors for your business and dive even deeper into Instagram influencer marketing with our free Instagram Influencer Marketing Strategy Guide:
#2 Instagram Influencer Marketing Tips: Get Creative with Your Holiday Campaign
As we mentioned above, the holidays are one of the most competitive times for businesses. That’s why it’s important to think outside the box when planning your Instagram influencer marketing holiday campaigns — it’s how you’ll get noticed!
Take Zales Jewelers for example. The jewelry company partnered with Jaci Marie Smith and her husband, Leif Carlson, to create a “Holiday Love Story”:
Instead of just creating a simple Instagram post for their holiday necklace, they brought the gifting experience to life with an engaging and memorable video featuring the influencer couple.
In the end, the video received over 65K views and hundreds of comments, capturing the eyes (and hearts) of their audience.
Another example is Freixenet, which partnered with Spread Fashion’s Ellenor Kim to show off their customizable bottles, which her audience overwhelmingly agreed is “the perfect gift”:
Ellenor shows off how she decorated the Cava bottle for her friend, giving her gift a personal and sentimental touch.
It’s important for your business to show potential customers what’s unique about your product and why it belongs on their shopping list.
By using a trusted and authentic voice to deliver your message, your business has the opportunity to create a story that makes sense for both your brand and resonates with your influencer’s audience.
Need some inspiration for your campaign? Check out these 7 Holiday Marketing Ideas!
#3 Instagram Influencer Marketing Tips: Determine Your Product Offerings
Once you’ve decided on the goals and budget for your Instagram influencer marketing campaign, you’ll want to consider what you’ll be sending out, and how you’d like it to be delivered.
Here are a few things your business should consider:
What Products or Services Will You Be Focusing on Promoting This Holiday Season?
Many businesses promote some sort of gift set or focus on a featured product during the holiday season. While your business may offer a wide-variety of products, the holidays are a great time to promote your best-sellers or seasonal products that are available for a limited time only.
For example, last year, Christie Taylor of NYC Bambi partnered with Maison Margiela to promote their signature winter fragrance, “By the Fireplace.” In the caption, Christine calls the perfume the “perfect holiday gift”:
Focusing on products that are the best fit for the holiday season will not only help you convert more customers, but will also create a more seamless experience for Instagram influencers promoting your product.
How Will You Be Sending out Your Products?
You’ll also want to decide how you plan on sending out your products.
Is there a specific mailing service your company uses? Where will you be shipping your product from? How long will it take for the products to arrive at the influencer’s address?
These are important questions your business should consider ahead of time to make sure you’re giving your influencer partners enough time to do what they do best!
What Packaging Will You Be Sending Your Products In?
This year, businesses are not only taking time to consider what products they’re selling, but also what they will be sending their products in!
Looking to spice up your product packaging during the holidays?
There are tons of different businesses that specialize in creating customized packaging that creates a fully immersive brand experience for your influencers. Curated mailers are typically branded with interactive elements that make the unboxing nearly as exciting as the product inside.
Businesses should also consider adding a personalized note to their mailers — your influencer partners will appreciate the personal touch!
By adding personal touches to your packaging, you’re much more likely to create a lasting impression with your influencers (and hopefully their audience!).
#4 Instagram Influencer Marketing Tips: Create a Set of Guidelines for Your Influencer Partners
The holidays can be a crazy time for businesses and influencers alike, which means you’ll need to be on your A-game when pitching your partnerships.
By setting clear guidelines, you can help ensure that you get the highest return on your Instagram influencer partnerships.
A good strategy is to build branding guidelines and communications packets for your influencers. Make sure to include campaign hashtags, inspiration from past campaigns, or anything else you think would help them create content that will align with your brand.
As we mentioned, the holidays are the busiest time of year for Instagram influencers, so you’ll also want to make sure to include deadlines in your proposal.
Instagram influencers are most likely getting flooded with pitches this time of year, so it’s important that your pitch be as clear and concise as possible. The easier you make it for your partners, the more likely they will be to respond.
Of course, most influencers are seasoned professionals when it comes to creating content, so don’t be afraid to let their creativity fly! Along with your list of guidelines, be sure to let them know you trust their expertise and are excited to see what they come up with.
#5 Instagram Influencer Marketing Tips: Find the Right Instagram Influencers for Your Campaign
Influencer marketing gives brands a unique opportunity to reach a niche and engaged audience. However, with so many varying rates and different types of Instagram influencers, how do you know who’s the right fit?
One of the easiest ways to find influencers who are a good match for your campaign is to seek out influencers who are already talking about products simply to yours.
Fashion and food blogger, Alyssa Ponticello, partnered with Truly Sparking last year to promote their new low-calories spiked drinks:
View this post on Instagram
‘Tis the season // To eat, drink and be merry…and keep it 💯. All the holiday snacks + sips can quickly add up, so I love that one of my fave spiked drinks @TrulySparkling only has 100 calories! It also pairs perfectly with light bites, making it great for holiday entertaining. One of the bites that I like to pair it with is an almost-too-easy-to-make white bean dip (1 16-oz can white cannellini beans, 2 tbsp. olive oil, juice of ½ a lemon, salt to taste and a pinch of chili powder blended until smooth in a Cuisinart) dressed up with herbs, nuts and fruit. Swipe left to see an example of how I made it look super festive with thinly sliced jalapeños, pomegranate seeds, chopped roasted almonds and fresh cilantro. Serve with vegetables, pita crisps, endive leaves or veggie chips and a @TrulySparkling (click the link in my bio to see where you can find some near you) to #LiveTruly this holiday season. {http://www.trulyholiday.com/tr41} #Truly100 #sponsored
Their partnership was a perfect match, as Alyssa often shares her favorite food and drink pairings, tips for hosting delicious gatherings, and more.
It may take a bit of scrolling, but it’s important to check out potential influencer partners past holiday campaigns.
What have their previous partnerships looked like? How did their sponsored posts perform?
Many bloggers, including Jacey Duprie, release a holiday gift guide each year, rounding up their favorite products for the whole family:
Businesses should make note of influencers who put together annual holiday guides, and reach out if they think they’re a good fit for the list! These types of posts are highly-shareable, generate a ton of interest, and can potentially bring a ton of exposure to your brand.
Searching for your perfect Instagram influencer matches may take a bit of work, so it’s important your start your outreach and negotiations early. Remember, this is the busiest time for influencers so you’ll want to make sure you’re on their schedule before they’re fully booked!
#6 Instagram Influencer Marketing Tips: Collect and Schedule Your Social Content
Instagram influencer marketing partnerships are a great way for your company to generate a ton of new content during the holiday season!
Influencers are pros at shooting products and have mastered the art of “getting the ‘gram.” It’s important your company take advantage of all the influencer-generated content during your campaign!
Since the Instagram influencers you’ve partnered with will be sharing content with your branded hashtag, make sure to keep tabs on all the new posts. Using a tool like Later’s user-generated content features can help you stay on top of the content by uncovering all of the photos and videos you’ve been tagged or mentioned in on Instagram.
Once the content for your holiday marketing campaign is ready to go, set aside some time to fully plan out your social media content calendar using Later!
Taking the time to schedule your posts will not only make your life less stressful during the holiday season, but it will also leave you more time to actually engage with your community, which is so important if your goal is to make sales or generate leads.
Once you sign up for a free Later account, you can immediately start uploading, storing, and managing all your photos and videos in your Later Media Library.
All you have to do is drag and drop all your photos and videos from your desktop, Dropbox, or Google Drive directly onto your Media Library and voilà, you can now schedule your social content with Later!
You can also plan the look of your Instagram feed with your holiday content with Later’s Visual Instagram Planner on mobile and desktop.
Simply drag and drop your content onto your calendar and click “Preview” to access the Visual Instagram Planner. Then you can easily rearrange or swap out photos to find the perfect balance for your feed!
Last but not least, thanks to Later’s Auto Publish feature, you photos will automatically post to Instagram at the scheduled time — no push notifications required!
That means you can spend more time celebrating and less time posting this holiday season.
#7 Instagram Influencer Marketing Tips: Measure the Results of Your Instagram Influencer Marketing Holiday Campaign
Once the holiday hype is over, it’s important to check in and see how your campaign performed!
Some of the most common performance metrics you can use for measuring the impact of your influencer marketing are:
- Engagement rate: likes, comments, shares
- Brand sentiment: how people are talking about your brand
- Traffic: customers visiting your website
- Sales: conversions and revenues generated
Download our free Instagram Analytics Strategy Guide to learn how to start tracking your account’s performance and make better decisions about your strategy.
Businesses can also track the effectiveness of their influencer marketing holiday campaigns using UTM parameters.
UTM parameters are simply tags you add to a URL. When your link is clicked, the tags are sent back to Google Analytics and tracked. You can even attribute your sales to specific social media posts:
Need help tracking your social media campaign using UTM parameters? Check out our guide on tracking ecommerce sales with Google Analytics!
Once you’ve measured the results for your campaign, you’ll want to put together a report you can refer back to next year.
Taking the time to evaluate your Instagram influencer holiday marketing campaign can help you better determine your budget and objectives for the next year.
Ready to switch off for the holidays? Plan, schedule and automatically publish all your holiday content in advance with Later — it’s free!
