Santa Claus delivers countless presents, but buzz isn’t one of them.
As the holiday marketing stampede begins, beauty brands are hustling to package their social media campaigns for the critical gift-gifting season. The battle to attract the attention of influencers is fiercer than ever, and brands may have to shell out more money for content than in the past as they clamor for pieces of a Christmas business expected to be strong.
“As soon as Halloween is over, you should be talking with influencers. It would be beneficial for brands to do it even sooner to try to compete with a huge big box brand that has a gazillion dollars and help their product not get lost in a video with 100 other products,” says Megan Jones, senior director at January Digital. “A lot of these brands aren’t going to be able to compete because they don’t have the money.”
During the holiday season, Jones estimates paid media costs will lift 30%. Simultaneously, Ted Murphy, founder and CEO of IZEA, anticipates influencer rates for sponsored posts could rise 10% to 15%.
“You aren’t just competing against brands in your field, you may compete against a broader range of companies. There might be a high-end speaker manufacturer connecting with a beauty influencer because the influencer has a chic audience the manufacturer wants to get in front of,” says Murphy. “It doesn’t really matter what kind of influencer you are now, there’s crossover from products that may be outside of your vertical that still want to connect with your audience.”
Amid the intense rivalry for influencer affiliations, crafting a compelling pitch to content creators is crucial. Jones proposes possibly viewing the holiday season as the start to a continuing partnership with an influencer. Longer-term arrangements may be bigger influencer draws than one-off payments.
“Brands can go to influencers they are huge fans of, and present a relationship that may kick off over holiday, but build over time. The initial investment might be the same,” says Jones. In general, she continues, “There’s a trend toward what I call consolidation where brands are working with fewer influencers and influencers are working with fewer brands because it’s very difficult to be authentic with one-and-done features.”
“You aren’t just competing against brands in your field, you may compete against a broader range of companies. There might be a high-end speaker manufacturer connecting with a beauty influencer because the influencer has a chic audience the manufacturer wants to get in front of,” says Murphy of IZEA.
Magda Houalla, senior campaign success manager at Revfluence, suggests brands reach out to roughly 10 influencers about their key gift merchandise. The influencers shouldn’t be new to brands. “Work with your tried-and-true people, so you know they are going to perform well and drive results,” she says. “Deviating too much during the holiday season can be off-brand.”
Kristen Wiley, founder of Statusphere, advises brands to hone in on specific requirements for the influencers they pitch. Influencers will skip muddled solicitations especially because they’re likely facing a deluge of intriguing requests.
“I don’t find that holiday campaigns are that different from typical campaigns, there is just less room for error,” says Wiley. “If you are not clear what you want from the influencers and what you will provide them in exchange, many will not respond. Although this is important for influencer marketing collaborations all year, it is especially true during the holidays because they are getting so many pitches.”
Black Friday and Cyber Monday are heavy on promotions, and brands can capitalize on the deal frenzy, especially those that don’t have standout gift options. Wiley recommends providing influencers coupon codes to share with followers and mandate they incorporate codes in posts. “If you give a deadline for the promotion, it creates more of a sense of urgency, which drives more conversions,” she says. “For example, ‘You can get free shipping on all orders through the end of the month,’ or ‘Use coupon code HOLIDAY for 20% off through Dec. 15.’”
Discounting, however, can be perilous for brands that don’t usually rely on low prices to propel sales. Jones isn’t a big fan of Holiday promotions on social media. “Discounts can be a really slippery slope. While you get an immediate push from them, you have now taught your customer you are going to do that. For brands of this size, holiday is a huge moment to define the sort of brand you are, and what you are going to do in the future of your business,” she says. “Obviously, a brand is going to have to anniversary a discount.”
The benefit of discounts is they stoke immediate responses. Captivating product offerings, though, should do that as well. Last year, Jones seeded influencers with a limited-edition palette. The palette wasn’t specifically geared to holiday, but shimmer in the shades positioned it for Christmas makeup looks and the restricted quantities revved up interest over the holiday season. “The more you can think about how you can make your marketing message have a ‘I-have-to-have-it-now’ feeling, that can be very helpful in the crowded space,” says Jones. “Timing is everything. You have to think about what your product is and what timing makes the most sense for it.”
Houalla counsels brands to step on the social media gas over the course of the entire holiday season. “It’s good to have posts going throughout the holiday season to be able to reach the early shoppers and the late shoppers,” she says. “There are definitely going to be those last-minute people and, when they see something promoted by their favorite influencer and they are in a jam, they will purchase at that time.”
Last minute shopping or not, a customer isn’t going to buy a product if there are hurdles to do so. Murphy tells brands to pay attention to mobile experiences and Amazon. Don’t drive customers via social media to a website that has a clunky mobile e-commerce interface and do drive customers to Amazon. “If your product is available on Amazon, and it doesn’t absolutely kill your margin, I would suggest pointing directly there because you are going to make it easier for the person to follow through and make a purchase,” says Murphy. “Especially if someone is getting your brand for the first time, that can be incredible important.”
“Discounts can be a really slippery slope. While you get an immediate push from them, you have now taught your customer you are going to do that,” says Jones of January Digital. “For brands of this size, holiday is a huge moment to define the sort of brand you are, and what you are going to do in the future of your business.”
Fully leveraging the holiday opportunity is also important. Jones strategizes social media efforts that generate brand exposure beyond holiday items. “Use this moment to say, ‘Here’s my eye palette that you can use for metallic holiday looks, and here’s my concealer that I’ve won many awards for. You can use it with the eye palette.’ The concealer is going to move your business forward,” she says. “It’s about marrying foundational products with holiday merchandise to generate substantial sales and build your brand under the products you want to be your cornerstones.”
Holiday means a great deal for beauty brands’ bottom lines, but it doesn’t change the dynamics of influencer ROI substantially. Direct ROI remains difficult to pin down. “The main misconception I see is business owners thinking that if they just do influencer outreach that they will get customers and ROI instantly,” says Riley, who points to reusable content, engagement, brand awareness and sales as elements of ROI calculations. “Influencer marketing should be one part of your full marketing strategy, and you be doing many things in conjuncture with your campaign to make it successful.”
Jackie Paulino, vice president of customer success at Pixability, is optimistic brands can yield lucrative results from their social media holiday initiatives. “It is definitely the most expensive time of the year, but you probably get the highest return on your investment,” she says. On YouTube, Pixability finds engagement rates for holiday videos beat engagement rates for non-holiday videos. “It is definitely a crowded space during the holiday, but we see increased searches and watch times during holiday,” says Paulino.
Jones takes a comparatively reserved approach to holiday. She directs brands that are tardy jumping on the influencer bandwagon for the Christmas shopping season to perhaps not board the bandwagon at all. “For a lot of brands, if they don’t have a good-sized budget behind them, I really push them to stay out of [the timeframe] between Thanksgiving to Dec. 15. The amount of money you have to spend to get noticed is really dramatic,” says Jones. Concentrating on New Year’s is a decent alternative to weighing in on the Christmas hubbub. Jones reasons, “It’s going to be a significantly smaller holiday and those brands that are focused on gifting are going to quiet down, so that can be your moment.”
TAKEAWAYS
- Brands should be jumping on influencer outreach if they want to spark content creator posts featuring their products during the holiday season. They can focus on holiday merchandise and promotions, but veering into the discount arena poses a risk for brands that want to steer clear of cheapening their image.
- Social media campaigns may be costlier over the holiday season. The rates for influencers are climbing no matter the season, but they could surge 10% to 15% over the in-demand period. Paid media costs may escalate as much as 30%
- The dynamics of influencer marketing ROI don’t shift dramatically during the holidays. It remains challenging to ascertain the direct ROI of influencer partnerships. Sales driven by influencer posts should be measured to the extent possible, and brands should also think about reusable content, engagement and awareness.
- Avoiding the holiday season social media rush isn’t the worst decision a brand can make. New Year’s offers another opportunity for social media exposure and is a particularly advantageous holiday for wellness-oriented brands that can piggyback on New Year, new you messaging.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.