6 Influencer Marketing Best Practices That All Subscription Box Brands Have to Know
Everyone loves receiving packages. It’s like Christmas Day when you rip through the tape, rustle through the bubble wrap, and uncover your long-awaited goodies. And perhaps this addictive feeling is why there has been extreme growth in the subscription box industry in the past decade.
Not only are these boxes extremely convenient and delivered straight to your door, but they’re also personalized to each customer’s taste and preferences. And because subscription boxes have such wide appeal, influencer marketing works incredibly well for brands who specialize in this area.
In this two-part series, we’ll explore influencer marketing strategies tailored to subscription box brands. In part one, we’ll walk through six influencer marketing best practices that we’ve gathered together after examining hundreds of successful collaborations on AspireIQ.
For more general information on influencer marketing, download The Ultimate Guide to Influencer Marketing. This helpful e-book covers everything from finding influencers and making contracts, to determining payments and tracking ROI. Or enroll in our free email course to learn how to plan and execute a successful influencer marketing campaign!
Otherwise, let’s start unpacking the six best practices!
1. Get creative with video content.
By now, we’re all aware that video is a very effective marketing tool. And in the case of subscription boxes, the easiest way to take advantage of this is by creating an unboxing video! In recent years, unboxing videos have become one of the most popular genres on YouTube. The trend racked up about 500 million views just in the fourth quarter of 2018.
Unboxing videos are a smart move for subscription box brands because they can span all categories, whether the box is filled with yoga pants or delicious snacks. The video will give consumers a look into exactly what they can expect when they get your subscription box into their own hands.
Below, an influencer unboxes her YogaClub subscription box. In the video, she thoroughly explains how the subscription service works, as well as why she loves the personalized products she received.
However, subscription box brands don’t just have to stick to unboxing videos. For example, if your box contains seasonal items, influencers can include it in a relevant “favorites” video. Or, if your subscription box is a weekly meal kit, influencers can make a heart-warming video of themselves cooking with their loved ones.
2. Form long-term partnerships with influencers.
Whether it’s weekly, monthly, or quarterly, subscription boxes run for a set period of time. Because of this, it’s important to have influencers who are long-term ambassadors for your brand. These influencers can then attest to the quality of your product over time, as well as show off the assortment of the items in your subscription box.
Below, an influencer reveals the products in her FabFitFun box. For added authenticity, she writes in the description, “I've been getting the FabFitFun Subscription Boxes for over a year now and I can honestly say that out of all of the subscription boxes I've tried, FabFitFun has the best subscription box for the money!”
Additionally, your long-term ambassadors can show exclusive previews of the items in your upcoming subscription box. In turn, your brand will build excitement and anticipation for your new products, especially around cultural and seasonal moments like the holidays or back-to-school season.
3. Give incentives to encourage people to engage with your brand.
Motivate people to try out your subscription box by giving out some boxes for free or at a discounted rate. An easy way to promote your deals is by using the “Swipe Up” feature on Instagram stories or by including a promo link in the description of a YouTube video. Drive engagements by giving coupon codes for influencers to share with their audience.
Or, for instance, you can run a contest and give away one month’s subscription box for free. Giveaways are the easiest way to grow your follower count and gain exposure to new audiences. Perhaps your subscription box is just what someone needed to discover!
4. Establish brand differentiation to stand out from the crowd.
The subscription box industry is a fairly competitive space. How do people decide which subscription box to try out when there are so many seemingly similar ones? Make sure to establish brand differentiation!
For example, if you want to stand out in the sea of meal kit delivery services, make your brand story or purpose well known. Perhaps your brand gives a meal to a child in need for every box sold. Or maybe all of your meals are vegan, sugar-free, and gluten-free. Be very specific about who you are as a brand and create a memorable brand experience that is worth sharing.
Freshly is a subscription service that delivers fresh meals that are healthy, prepared by chefs, and never frozen. Freshly’s influencers always inform their followers about the brand’s unique meal prep service.
If your subscription box has very specific products that appeal to some specialty niche, it’s a good idea to work with micro-influencers in that niche. Micro-influencers’ reliability, specialized content, and strong connection with their audience will help you hyper-target your desired audience.
5. Test and invest.
We typically refer to the “test and invest” method of influencer marketing when working with different types of influencers, but it’s just as important to experiment with different kinds of content. This will help you determine which content resonates with your audience the most and which drives the most engagement.
For example, Bitsbox used a variety of influencer-generated content (IGC) in their ads and found that images that included their subscription box performed the best on Instagram and Facebook. So, in their next round of content, they asked their influencers to include the box in their images.
Work with influencers to produce diverse and creative content. Everyone’s content should be different and dynamic so that you can test the performance of your various campaigns.
For examples of some amazing influencer content generated for AspireIQ subscription box clients, check out our Pinterest Board.
6. Repurpose IGC on your own feed and paid ads.
If you’re familiar with influencer marketing, you know that influencer-generated content (IGC) is a very powerful marketing tool. It’s a fast, inexpensive, and scalable way to produce eye-catching content for social media. But did you know that influencer content on social media earns more than 8 times the engagement rate of brand-directed content? Needless to say, IGC is highly appealing to consumers.
Luckily, IGC doesn’t just have to live on an influencer’s social media account. You can repurpose it onto your paid ads, website, and branded social media channels! YogaClub did exactly that.
And because IGC is diverse, you can strategically use the variety of content to target different audiences. With IGC, the content your brand presents can truly resonate with all of your different target markets.