Should Your Marketing Strategy Include Influencer Seeding Kits?
A well-rounded marketing strategy utilizes a variety of different channels: social media, email marketing, digital and/or print ads, content strategy, event marketing, and search engine optimization (SEO). Just about every brand nowadays knows the importance of social media marketing, but what type is right for your strategy? Organic content, paid advertising, ecommerce (shoppable posts), brand partnerships, and influencer marketing all fall under the social media marketing umbrella but have vastly different benefits. In this blog, we cover a particular type of influencer marketing: seeding kits.
INFLUENCER SEEDING KITS 101
Influencer seeding kits are personalized product packages that brands send to high-profile individuals — i.e., influencers — whose personal interests and audience align with that of the brand. Seeding kits are different than a paid sponsorship; they’re a no-strings-attached gift that’s generally sent with two goals:
- Impress the influencer enough that they choose to voluntarily post about the seeding kit on Instagram and/or TikTok.
- “Plant a seed” (hence the term “seeding kit”) that grows into a long-term relationship between the sender (brand) and recipients (influencers).
Seeding kits are also commonly referred to as personalized PR packages, press kits, brand experience kits, product launch kits, media kits, and product seeding.
The Goonies LEGO set was designed to evoke nostalgia for the 1985 film. LEGO could’ve chosen to send the collectible kit to social media influencers in a plain brown shipping box. Instead, we helped them elevate the gift with Goonies-themed packaging and inserts that are not available in stores or online.
THE BENEFITS OF INFLUENCER SEEDING KITS
Brand Awareness & Trust
Successful influencer seeding kits result in free social media promotion for your brand. Influencers with a substantial following on Instagram or TikTok may choose to post an “unboxing” video (more on that later) to their feed or story where they share your gift and product with their followers. The more influencers you can meaningfully engage as an informal brand advocate, the more potential new customers you’ll reach.
Content that influencers choose to create often comes across as more authentic than scripted content they’re contractually obligated to post. Therefore, well-crafted and targeted influencer seeding kits are more likely to result in brand trust than formal paid sponsorships.
Organic User-Generated Content
Organic user-generated content, as opposed to scripted ads or sponsored content, allows influencers to speak freely in their own brand voice. While this means they probably won’t use your company’s exact product marketing language, they will sound authentic to their followers. And if you’ve done your research well, there will be a substantial crossover between the influencer’s following and your target audience.
Influencer Relationship Building
Generally, the ultimate goal of influencer seeding kits is to build a long-term relationship with high-profile individuals who genuinely like your brand and want to repeatedly share your product with their followers. Footing the initial cost of product seeding can be a powerful first step towards developing a mutually beneficial relationship for years to come.
IDENTIFYING THE RIGHT INFLUENCERS
Influencer selection plays a key role in determining the success of product seeding campaigns. Social media creators fall into four different categories based on following size: nano-influencers (1,000-10,000 followers), micro-influencers (10,000-100,000 followers), macro-influencers (100,000 to 1 million followers), and mega-influencers (over 1 million followers). The smaller the following, the more likely the influencer is to post about your seeding kit, and the more engaged their audience tends to be. But fewer people will see your product than if a larger creator, such as a macro- or mega-influencer, shares it. When you move up to mega-influencers, you’re much less likely to receive any kind of free promotion and their audience has been primed to expect that product reviews are paid sponsorships instead of personal recommendations. That said, if your seeding kit did impress a mega-influencer enough to post about, your branding and product would be seen by millions.
Once you’ve determined an influencer category, you need to identify specific people to target. There are two different possible approaches:
- Influencers whose existing social media content is directly relevant to your brand. If LEGO were to use this approach, they would target social media creators whose content focuses specifically on LEGO sets.
- Influencers whose existing social media content is not directly related to your brand but has some similarities. If LEGO were to go this route, they could capitalize on The Goonies’ 1985 release date and target social media creators whose content focuses on ‘80s trends and memorabilia.
The second is harder to achieve but can have a much larger pay-off, enabling you to reach a large swath of people who may be new to your brand but have existing interests that are similar.
CREATING A UNIQUE UNBOXING EXPERIENCE
Once you finalize your epic product — in this case, a limited-edition Goonies LEGO set — it’s time to talk seeding kit creation with your large-format printing and fabrication company. Seeding kits are exclusive and should look the part regardless of whether you use premium or economic materials. LEGO decided on a standard corrugated box that we then wrapped in cave rock-inspired printed vinyl. But the real magic happened inside. Upon taking off the lid, recipients could extract a dimensional faux skeleton key and metaphorically unlock the box, giving them access to the illusive treasure map and LEGO set.
The holy grail of influencer seeding kits are “unboxing” videos, where high-profile social media creators record themselves opening your gifted box to share with their followers. Carmen Quintanilla Gollihar, a macro-influencer who posts 80’s and 90’s nostalgia comedy, recently shared a Goonies LEGO seeding kit unboxing video with her 180,000 Instagram followers!
YOUR NEW INFLUENCER SEEDING KIT PARTNER
Whether you’d like to impress a celebrity, professional athlete, or social media influencer, Infinity Images has a long track record of creating high-impact, custom seeding kits for a wide variety of brands. With design, engineering, printing, cutting, fabrication, and fulfillment all under one roof, our project managers can oversee each step, ensuring your wildest seeding kit dreams become a reality. If you’d like to chat kits, give us a shout!
