Is PPC the Key to Super-Charging Your Influencer Marketing Campaign?

Marketers are always looking for new and exciting ways to market products and services. But trying to keep up with the never-ending merry-go-round we know as digital marketing, is bound to send you into a dizzying whirl… sooner or later.

Not to worry though — this happens even to the best of us.

It’s not easy to stay on top of it all, especially when you’re always chasing trends. Most businesses have come to grips with the fact that social media is an important marketing tool for helping brands get in front of customers. And when changes happen across the social landscape, we adjust… for our own sake.

In this post, we’re building on some of the other topics we’ve discussed on The Shelf Blog that show you how to use influencer marketing as part of a larger overall marketing strategy that includes stuff like site optimization, improving search engine rankings, email marketing, and mastering the art of creating other visual content. So, we’re dedicating the second half of this post to using PPC to super-charge your influencer campaigns (and vice versa).

Talk Topics:

• Here’s How Social Media Marketing Was Awesome… Then Not So Awesome

• Influencer Marketing as a Substitute for Limited Organic Reach

• Why PPC Works to Amplify Influencer Campaigns

• Step-by-Step PPC-Influencer Strategy

Here’s How Social Media Marketing Was Awesome Then… Not So Much

Not too long ago, the only thing brands had to worry about was choosing the best social network for their type of business and available resources (i.e. team members who knew how to manage social media accounts).

Facebook Delivers Targeted Reach with Real-Time Analytics…

Not surprisingly, Facebook has reigned supreme when it comes to social media marketing. The platform boasts and unmatched 2.2 billion active users and allows brands to create branded pages by which to build online communities and boost brand awareness. Businesses can extend their reach and raise their voices above competitors pretty easily and quickly on Facebook. AND Facebook offers a cadre of suped-up targeting and analytics tools that allow marketers to reach very specific audiences to drive better engagement.

…. Followed by Havoc and Dream-Crushing Confusion

Needless to say, it was heartbreaking to marketers when Facebook organic reach went into a drastic decline between 2016 and 2017.

Source: Medium

Source: Facebook

In 2018, Mark Zuckerberg announced Facebook Zero, the code name for the algorithm change that would now focus on drumming up more meaningful interactions for its users (i.e. way less branded content).

Didn’t read it? Don’t worry. The whole blurb just means the Facebook feed now shows you more content from friends and family than from brands.

(Emoji with heart eyes for individual users. Emoji with tears in its eyes for brands.)

This major shift affected every brand on the platform, pushing their posts to the outskirts of the web — in many cases never to be seen by their intended audiences. But it’s not just Facebook unleashing anarchy on brands — other networks are doing the same. For example, Instagram decided to switch to a chronological order feed to deliver fresher content.

Instagram also prioritizes content from the users you engage with most frequently on the platform. So, for brands who have figured out how to deliver quality content that engages their audiences then the chances your Instagram content will be seen by your intended audience increases.

That’s good news… but it can also be seen as just another hurdle for brands to clear.

(But… glass half full, guys.)

For a lot of brands, the fix for the algorithm issue is crafting smart influencer campaigns.

Influencer Marketing Did Save the Day

You can say the shift in brands’ ability to win with organic reach caused a gold rush for the next best thing — influencer marketing. Influencers are well-liked by their followers, so partnering with influencers automatically solves the problem brands have of creating content that compels engagement.

If a brand is able to get an influencer to talk about its product or service genuinely, that brand can reach thousands or even millions of engaged users. Influencer marketing provides businesses with a way around the roadblock a changing algorithm presents so they have a chance and boost visibility substantially.

And influencer marketing is growing a marketing tactic. Between 2016 and 2017, there was a 200% increase in search volume for the term “influencer marketing”.

Source: Google Trends

Once brands got a taste of how impactful influencers are, they went all out with their spending. According to Smart Insights, 85 percent of marketers use influencer marketing and an astounding 90 percent of them say it’s one of THE MORE effective forms of marketing. Within the next year, expect to see influencer marketing spend to surpass $8 billion.

But it’s not all sunny days in palazzo pants in the influencer marketing world.

A lot of marketers who came from PPC backgrounds into influencer marketing had a hard go of it making influencer marketing make sense. While both techniques deliver similar outcomes, they work differently. They were trying to make influencer marketing work the same way as PPC when the real power is in running PPC and influencer campaigns together as part of one big, butt-kicking digital marketing strategy.

The ROI Thing Still Trips Up Many Marketers

ROI. A lot of brands and marketers still aren’t sure how to measure the success (or failure) of an influencer campaign. About three in four marketers who run influencer campaigns say this is their biggest obstacle. (I don’t have the time to get into that too much here, but we just released a guide on this very topic that will demystify ROI for you. Download it by clicking this link right here).

Now, if marketers don’t understand how to measure the ROI of an influencer campaign, why would they put more money into something if they don’t know if it’s working?

Well, they know influencer marketing works to increase engagement and boost brand awareness. I think the problem is they aren’t sure how to shape campaigns to do anything else (again, download our guide on this), or how to build on the traction they’ve already gotten… and move customers further along in the sales funnel.

For instance, once the influencer campaign is over and all the numbers have been logged in whatever influencer marketing platform they used, how does the brand continue to stay at the top of their audience members’ feeds without having to keep running campaigns?

Like I said earlier, algorithm adjustments on Facebook and Instagram have made staying top-of-mind a little harder for brands… UNLESS brands learn how to consistently produce the type of content their audiences want to see (hello, UGC campaign).

So, is influencer marketing a one-and-done type of thing? No. It’s not. So, let’s get into the PPC part.

Why PPC May Be the Key to Amplifying Your Influencer Marketing Campaigns

If you’ve never used pay-per-click (PPC) ads in the past, then you may be wondering why you would include it in a social media campaign. You may even be thinking that people sorta hate ads so why on earth would you invest in content that clearly looks like ads. Well, do they really HATE ads? No.

People Don’t Deliberately Click on Ads Anymore, Do They?

Yeah. They do.

People don’t mind being sold something if it’s on their terms. Nearly 50 percent of people say they click on text ads, while another 31 percent say they click on shopping ads. And if you’re thinking users don’t click on ads in Google, stats show 63 percent of people do. Many ads even outperform organic search, receiving 65 percent of the clicks compared to 35 percent for organic results.

PPC advertisers typically earn $2 for every $1 they spend. And it’s not just search ads generating results. Roughly 80 percent of B2B companies acquired customers through LinkedIn paid ads. Seventy percent of social marketers are reaching their goals with Facebook ads.

And one of the key factors for getting people to click on your ads – at least for 57 percent of Millennials – is personalization. You have to make ads more relevant. (Keep that in mind when you develop your PPC strategy.)

PPC offers some very real, very measurable benefits for influencer campaigns. In fact, one of the main benefits of influencer campaigns for many brands is that it gives them lots of user-generated content to reuse in paid ads. Pay-per-click ads can deliver the same benefits as an influencer campaign:

• Increase your visibility and reach. With paid ads, you’re not subjected to being pushed to the bottom of the feed.

• Easily track and monitor your campaigns.

• Retarget specific audiences. Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn all allow you to target relevant audiences based on their location, gender, and interests then retarget them when they click on your ad but don’t complete the required action like schedule a demo, or complete a download or check out a cart.

• Reach more users. You don’t only want to attract those who know about your brand. With paid ads, you can get more exposure and reach audiences you wouldn’t have any other way. Even with the visibility of influencers.

Running PPC ads to supplement your influencer campaign fortifies the strength of your influencer campaign and vice versa.

How to Create a Sales Funnel Using Influencer Marketing + PPC

What makes influencer marketing + PPC such a great combo is how well they work together.

Set Campaign Goals

Your marketing goals can take a number of different forms. You already know that. A lot of marketers get a little turned around with influencer marketing, because they don’t really know how to structure campaigns to reach specific goals.

For instance, they don’t really know which social media platforms to use to reach different goals (Danielle actually wrote a post on that here… but there are a couple of really good infographics in that post you can refer to if you don’t have time to read the entire post). The point is there ARE specific types of influencer campaigns to run for different types of outcomes. So, know what outcome you want to see is the first step in planning your influencer campaign.

Get Really Picky About Your Targeting

When you’re managing a paid ad campaign, you target your audience based on factors like:

• Demographics (millennial, Gen Z, baby boomers, etc.)

• Industry (fashion, fitness, health, etc.)

• Platform (Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, etc.)

• Geography (city, state, region, country)

The same is true of running an effective influencer marketing campaign. Campaigns have to be correctly targeted to work well. And we always suggest to our clients that they do deeper targeting based on the outcomes they want to see (which they can do on The Shelf platform).

So, in addition to the above list of criteria for filtering potential influencer partners, we further sort with criteria like family size, brand mentions, affinity, talent for storytelling, audience sentiment… In fact, here are just a few of the criteria we’ve created before vetting influencers through our database.

Test Your Messaging

The key to any type of marketing is to know what you want to see happen and continually optimize your campaign to make sure you can achieve your desired outcomes. And that means testing your messaging to see which posts resonate with an influencer’s followers.

Some influencers are better than others at creating content that “lands”. Some influencers rely on images, others create high-impact videos, others have a way of captivating followers with long-form text captions. So, part of rolling out effective campaigns is knowing how each influencer adds value to his or her audience and letting them find creative ways to share your message in a way that’s authentic to the influencer’s personal brand.

It also means you’ll have different types of UGC that you can repurpose on your own channels to reach potential customers. So, provide influencers with guidelines, let them create, and watch the numbers to see which posts perform best.

Promote What Performs, Trim What Doesn’t

For past campaigns, we’ve included PPC as part of influencer campaigns to make sure influencer posts and pins are getting as much traction as possible. This is a good strategy to use. Like, we could have a dozen influencers working on a campaign and the influencers whose posts perform well – like, exceptionally well, are prime candidates for getting the post boosted.

That’s why we position this as PPC being integrated into the influencer campaign, so you’re putting additional resources behind concepts that are already performing well.

If You Haven’t Already, Add CTAs to the Messages That Work

Add an action to the posts that are working. Let’s say you have a product that appeals to Millennials and Gen Z. This crowd is normally on Instagram and YouTube. So you reach out to influencers on Instagram and YouTube who also target this demographic. At the same time, you can create ads on Instagram, Google, YouTube (and even some in-app ads).

When the influencer’s Instagram followers see your product, they may go to Google to search for your product or brand, which takes them to your paid search ad.

Or maybe, they see your social ad on Instagram and decide to look for your product on YouTube (the place we all go to find out how stuff works), and they find the video posted by the influencer showing how your product works.

What you’re doing here is creating a funnel to drive leads towards a conversion. Plus, you’re widening your reach by directing more traffic to your influencer content.

By using paid ads, you’re able to measure the impact of your campaign across multiple channels. For instance, you can see conversion rates, click through rates, cost per customer acquisition, and your ROI.

Monitor Your Campaigns

The performance of your paid ads and influencers will help you to learn more about your customers and their desires, which can help you to improve future campaigns.

If you’re worried about learning which influencers are generating an ROI, then you can always implement custom URLs or unique discount codes per campaign. This will allow you to identify which influencer’s responsible for your increase in site traffic and sales.

You may find that influencers and social ads are the perfect tools for branding and discovery. You can use this to drive more searches and website traffic, which can then fuel your ad retargeting campaigns.

But there’s only one way to find out — experimentation and lots of it. Social ads are definitely on the rise, especially with the recent announcement from Instagram.

According to an Ad Age report, there will be a new ad format for brands to play with — “branded content ads”. This will allow you to sponsor influencers’ posts, promoting them like they were your own ad.

Before, when you compensated an Instagrammer to promote your brand or product, they had to include a visible hashtag like #ad or #sponsored.

Like this one.

Source: Instagram

Not hiding it in the mix of a hundred hashtags. Like this one.

Source: Instagram

There are FTC guidelines brands and influencers must follow to stay out of trouble (and keep your posts from being ghosted).

But no more worry about FTC woes. Now, all influencers have to do is tag the brand in their post and it’ll show “Paid partnership with…”

Like this influencer did.

Source: Business Instagram

Both and Instagram allow you to promote the content of the influencers you’re collaborating with (without needing access to their account).

Facebook has a branding tool you can use to keep track of the posts from the influencers you’re collaborating with. Once they tag you, you’re able to monitor their user engagement. And now that Instagram is allowing brands to create branded content ads, it’s going to take content promotion to the next level.

So make sure you’re ready. Meanwhile, you can start planning how you’re going to tie together PPC ads with your next influencer campaign.

Don’t forget — social and search ads can boost your influencer content and vice versa.

Wrapping Up

It’s time to stop siloing your marketing efforts and start linking them together. Hopefully, you can now see how PPC ads are golden pieces of the influencer marketing puzzle. This is especially true now that stunted organic reach is affecting both brand and influencer content.

Together, you can use PPC and influencers to magnify your reach, engagement, and conversions.

One of the major trends we see in marketing today is that of using branded experiences to sell goods and services. If you happen to be in the business of selling actual experiences – specifically, travel experiences – you need a strategy that dives head first into building remarkable experiences for your current and future customers.

We’re not talking about making sure product packaging looks cool… though that’s important. We’re talking about using your marketing smarts and a little inspired creativity to craft the types of experiences that today’s consumers are looking to have.

They’re memorable.

They’re enjoyable.

They’re grammable.

They also help brand forge potentially lifelong relationships with prospective customers.

The Experience Economy: How Brands (and Especially Travel Brands) Are Getting the Attention of that All-Important Young Adult Market by Creating Remarkable, Branded Experiences

Fun fact: Millennials outnumber all other (living) generations with a population of 76 million in the US alone. Why does this matter? Because Millennials will have $1.4 trillion (yes, with a T) in annual spending power by this time next year.

And guess what else…Millennials love to travel. And they’re using Instagram to find travel destinations. Not only that, but they’re sourcing travel ideas then reposting themselves traveling to destinations they found on social media! And often post pics of them doing the same activities featured in the picture they saw that inspired the trip.

Whether the inspiration post was the work of a sponsored post or just another grammer sharing a cool experience, this is an example of experiential marketing… and for Millennials, it’s all about experiences you rack up. But let this be a lesson to brands and marketers: Experiential marketing is a powerful strategy that you can leverage to inform, inspire, and attract your customers to your business.

What is Experiential Marketing (and What Does it Have to Do with My Brand)?

Experiential marketing is a form of advertising (duh), but what makes it different is that it focuses on creating a branded experience that strengthens the brand-to-customer bond.

So rather than plastering your logos and taglines all over the place, hoping it’ll stick to people’s minds long enough for them to someday purchase from you…

You have another option — create an experience consumers can’t get anywhere else so they come to you in droves (we see you, Disneyland!).

You’ve likely heard the term experiential marketing before… but maybe you glazed over it without much thought. But take a look at this…

Source: Weforum.org

In the 20-year period between 2005 and 2025, the rate at which people spend on experiences ( or “enrichment” – I love that) will be nearly 3x what they spend on material things.

Now, let’s look at a campaign.

Orangina is Better When the Pulp is Shaken

Orangina is a soda company that decided to do the exact opposite of most brands — tick off their customers (but all in good fun, of course). And it paid off. They decided to create an experience that many of us find irritating — having our can of soda held hostage by a vending machine.

So Orangina decided to do something different to create a unique experience. They created a vending machine that holds your drink hostage (on purpose) and then requires you to shake it out. The vending machine is light and easy to move (as you’ll see tiny women shaking the heck out of it like it’s nothing) so that you can get your drink out. As it turns out, people loved it and it made their brand stand apart from the Coca Colas and Pepsis of the world (really, it’s just those two).

Experiential Marketing ≠ Publicity Stunt

Experiential Marketing ≠ Publicity Stunt

You’re thinking it, right? Experiential marketing sounds synonymous with publicity stunt. But the two are definitely not the same. To put it simply, a publicity stunt is something companies use to gain mass amounts of attention from any and everyone. It creates a wow moment, maybe even boosts sales for a time, but then fizzles and dies out.

Here’s an example:

Jeff Goldblum’s weird, awesome fire aside… it was a statue of Jeff Goldblum.

With experiential marketing on the other hand, you’re paving the way for engagement by creating moments and long-lasting memories. These experiences aren’t one-night-stands that leave you confused or uncaring about your interaction. Instead, they make you want to tell all of your friends and family about what happened, and whenever you get the chance, you return to get the experience again.

Stunt → Attention

Experience → Attention + Engagement

Why is Creating Experiences So Important for My Marketing Strategy?

I get it, you think experiential marketing seems like just another advertising fad. And you may be wondering why you would spend your marketing budget on it. So, we’re going to take a deeper dive.

But first, let’s take a swim back to the shore — with the Millennials discussion.

Why Millennials Are the Most Important Consumer for Travel and Tourism

Best-selling author and Millennial personal finance influencer Ramit Sethi once told a quick story about a guy he knew who earned a sizable raise at work. Know what he did with it? Downsized his apartment so he could allocate more resources to traveling the world.

…

That story above is why marketers talk so much about the fact that Millennials spend money differently than their Boomer and Gen X parents did. Millennials are drawn to experiences because they are unique, culturally-rich, and offer the opportunity for a transformational moment. Even if it’s just for a short while. That’s why you find many of them traveling the world whenever they get the opportunity.

Millennials Make Use of Their Time Off

Millennials look forward to their vacation time. We all do, but they use more of their vacation time (and I would imagine negotiate more vacation time as part of their benefits package) than did previous generation — most taking an average of 35 days of vacation each year when the average American worker took 17.2 days of vacation in 2017, according to CNBC.

Already, there are 40 percent of Millennials planning to take a trip with friends within the next year. And they don’t cheap out either. Around 35 percent of Millennials stay in upscale and luxury resorts and hotels (places that are grammable, no doubt…)

In 2017, Millennials (ages 18-34) vacationing during the summer spent an average of $1,373. On week-long trips, 56 percent of them spend an additional $500 to $1,500 on top of airfare.

Yeah, Saphia… but we’re talking about single people with no kids, right?

Nope — 62 percent of Millennial parents travel with children under 5 years old.

So it’s pretty clear that Millennials are serious about (and willing to spend on) their travels. But what about that “experience” we keep talking about?

Connecting with Millennials Through Experiential Marketing

When you speak to most marketers today, they’ll tell you that reaching Millennials is tough work. But it’s not because they’re ineffective at creating outstanding advertising campaigns. It’s because their advertising campaigns aren’t connecting with Millennials.

In the past, all you had to do was splash your ads all over television, radio, billboards, and newspapers to catch the eye of customers.

But let’s be real — Can you really picture workers in their 20s and 30s rushing to the office with a Yeti cup in one hand, and a folded copy of the daily times in the other?

No. We need that other hand for our phones!

Newspapers come to your phone now as Google News, and you subscribe to follow TOPICS, not entire papers. (eye roll)

And any commercials that made it through your ad blocker can often be skipped on YouTube. Besides, most Millennials eye that five-second countdown and “Skip” button like a hawk watching its prey… though YouTube is the platform most likely to have ads that get watched all the way through (algorithms are spot-on these days with predictions…)

And you see billboards… but you don’t SEE them because you’re mid-laugh listening to the Joe Rogan Experience podcast.

Some may even LEAVE a video that forces them to watch an entire 15 seconds of an ad (or if it’s really worth it, they’ll just switch devices and check Instagram as they wait).

Or maybe that’s just me… (it’s not though)

The point is, traditional and even modern methods of advertising aren’t attracting Millennials. This is where experiential marketing becomes really useful.

Seventy-eight percent of Millennials would rather spend money on travel, music festivals, and unique events than stuff. What does that sound like to you?

Experiences…exactly!

A lot of young adults aren’t looking to buy “things.” So if you’re able to tie in an experience with your product or service, then you can capture their attention and possibly even earn their lifelong loyalty.

Oh, one more thing… Millennials can smell b.s. from a mile away so if your brand isn’t authentic, you’ll lose their trust at the gate. BUT if you can create an engaging experience that feels genuine with your brand, then you can take advantage of Millennials social media-fueled FOMO (fear of missing out).

Here’s What Makes Instagram So Important for Experiential Marketing

Instagram has grown from a photo-sharing platform to being the go-to resource for sharing experiences. THAT’S what makes it so captivating. Not only that, but most brands don’t get that people use Instagram to establish and share their social brand… and often their professional brand. Instagram isn’t just about pretty pictures, it’s about understanding the person in the pictures, the person who captured the picture, and even the person engaging with the picture.

Keep that in mind as you look at the next few stats…

Nearly 60 percent of American Millennials are active Instagrammers. Instagram is the most popular platform among Millennials and Gen Z. Instagram is one of the only social networks out there that’s seeing growth (Tik Tok is another one, just for a younger audience).

Not only is Instagram the best place to connect with today’s consumers, it also connects you with the next generation of shoppers. Instagram is influencing not just our choices in what we wear and the type of lipstick we buy, but also our travel decisions. Adweek called it a modern day travel agent.

Sixty-seven percent of travel enthusiasts use Instagram for inspiration in finding new travel destinations. Another 40 percent say they actually value the Instagrammability (yes, this is a word) of a vacation destination. A whopping 97 percent of Millennials say they share posts of their vacations on social media.

So not only are people sourcing vacation spots on IG, and actually booking these experiences, they’re also documenting their experiences Instagram-style! Just look at the sheer volume of use of these popular travel hashtags:

• #travel – 384.7 million posts

• #travelgram – 93.8 million posts

• #travelphotography – 69.5 million posts

• #travelblogger – 38.8 million posts

And counting…

Imagine having thousands of Instagrammers sharing their great experience with your brand during their travels. What do you think will happen next? A flock of new travelers will likely come to check you out.

But while sharing and tagging experiences on Instagram come with its benefits, it also comes with some drawbacks for certain destinations.

Let’s take a look at the power of Instagram and why it should be used responsibly.

A Cautionary Tale About the Power of Instagram

(Why the “Tag Responsibly” Movement is So Serious)

Who’d a thunk that a social media platform could lead to the potential demise of some of the world’s most beautiful destinations? Well, it’s gotten so bad that people (and the authorities) are coming out to ask tourists to tag their experiences responsibly.

And it’s starting a movement. If you haven’t heard of it, then let me paint you a picture.

You’re an avid traveler who loves visiting the most obscure destinations on earth. So you scour Instagram looking for your next destination. You see an Instagrammer taking selfies in front of a gorgeous waterfall in a little-known-place in the Amazon. She geo-tags it, and then you look up the exact location. Next, you book your tickets, plan your itinerary, and pack your bags.

When you arrive, you see the place is jam-packed with hundreds of tourists taking selfies in front of the waterfall, nearby rocks, and other settlements. You also notice the scene looks a bit different than the photo you “liked” on Instagram. Instead of the pristine and tranquil setting you expected, you see food wrappers, water bottles, and other trash littering the ground.

There are even some floating in the river…

And cut.

See the problem here? Because popular Instagrammers are sharing and geo-tagging their travels, it’s leading to the vandalization of natural wonders. Unfortunately, this is happening all over the world. Just to give you an idea of the impact Instagram has:

In 2017, 1.5 million people visited Horseshoe Bend. And it was expected that another 500,000 would visit by the end of 2018. That’s a stunning 5,500 tourists each day and lots of potential for vandalism.

In some national parks, it’s against the law to take Instagram shots.

So to protect these destinations, places like Jackson Hole are asking traveling Instagrammers (specifically) not to share exact locations.

And while this is a serious situation and has my full-backing, I can’t help but notice how he put the spotlight on Instagrammers. Is it because of the far-reaching influence the platform’s content has on Millennials, Gen Z, and the travel industry?

You betcha.

It’s gotten to the point where folks are contacting Airbnb hosts to request hourly rates just for photo opp sessions. I have to admit, you can find a fair share of beautiful Airbnb homes in scenic places around the world — so I completely get it.

But again, this just goes to show how big of a deal Instagram is and how it’s affecting travel and tourism.

Take for example @icelandic_explorer, who’s tracked the hashtag #iceland since 2014. In just the last five years, #iceland as a travel location and destination has gone from being featured in 300,000 posts to now over 10 million.

Source: On Instagram

Instagram is like an endless resource of untapped exotic destinations ripe for the picking.

Source: On Instagram

4 Strategies Experience Brands Are Using to Grab the Attention of Millennials on Instagram

Now that we have the digital marketing equivalent of a surgeon general’s warning out of the way, we’re going to help you get eyes on your travel brand because the first Gen Zers will be embarking on summer break in just over a month. Don’t worry… that’s long enough to put together a smashing campaign (I just wrote that in a British accent).

The best way to learn is through the examples of others in the travel and tourism industry. There are five Instagram marketing strategies you’ll see that work really and that are relatively simple to roll out as part of your campaign.

1. Inspire

2. Collaborate

3. Be unique

4. Promote community

5. Engage

So we’re going to show examples of what these brands did and how you can do the same.

#1 Inspire Your Audience

When travel enthusiasts jump on Instagram to find their next vacation spot, they want to discover photos that will immerse them in the destination. I like something that Scott Barry Kaufman wrote in Harvard Business Review said about the importance of inspiration:

“Inspiration propels a person from apathy to possibility, and transforms the way we perceive our own capabilities. Inspiration may sometimes be overlooked because of its elusive nature. Its history of being treated as supernatural or divine hasn’t helped the situation. But as recent research shows, inspiration can be activated, captured, and manipulated, and it has a major effect on important life outcomes.”

You can inspire your audience with the right images and multimedia content, like the one. Maybe you have a restaurant or hotel that sits right along a beach. Instead of capturing shots of your lobby, rooms, cafe, or (dare I say) even your plates, if your goal is to inspire people, show off the sunset and waves.

Source: On Instagram

Another excellent example of this is Airbnb (on Instagram @airbnb). The image below captures a phenomenal, who-does-that moment. She’s in the JUNGLE, bro! This little pic garnered nearly 70k instances of engagement.

70,000.

Source: On Instagram

Airbnb not only takes and shares beautiful photos of homes and natural attractions around the world, it also share experiences and inspiring stories that entice their audience to plan for the next dream getaway.

One such tempting offer was posted March 22nd. Take 71 seconds and watch this video on Instagram. It’s worth it. And yes… that says this one-minute video has garnered 343,282 views… including mine. This video effectively turns inspiration into aspiration.

I want to scream my guts out as I’m going down into the crevasse.

Source: Click to watch this video on Instagram.

#2 Collaboration with Influencers

Sometimes, it’s not enough to be in the sight of Millennials. You also need a pathway to their heart. This is what makes influencer collaborations ingenious. They help you gain visibility and trust.

You have to remember influencers can charge brands money because they already have relationships with their audience. When you partner with an influencer, it softens their audience to hear and accept you as well.

In case you didn’t know, ninety-two percent of consumers trust influencers over digital advertisements and traditional celebrities. This is why the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas decided to team up with not one, but 20 rising star Instagrammers. The hotel invited these influencer to stay at the hotel. That campaign received over 50,000 positive mentions (and it took less than two months!).

Source: On Instagram

Now, it’s ideal to create a campaign around your collaborations vs. opting for a one-off promotion of your destination.

This is what makes events so promising, especially in the travel industry. Plan something for your restaurant, hotel, or retail shop to get the community and influencers involved.

The idea is to make your collaborations authentic, or it’ll just look like another paid promotion. If you can’t do an all-out big event, then consider just inviting your selected influencers.

This is what the fashion brand, Revolve, did. Revolve teamed up with luxury fashion and travel influencers like @ofleatherandlace and did an AMAZING job at aligning the edgy, cool girl vibe the influencers portray to their audiences.

Source: On Instagram

One influencer had such a great time that she created Stories on Instagram. The only thing better than Instagram photos are Instagram videos.

#3 Create a Sense of Community

If there’s anything Instagram teaches us, it’s that people are highly social. They like being seen and doing fun things together. So why not capture this in your experiential marketing campaign?

Lululemon, an athletic apparel brand, is known for hosting free in-store yoga classes. The company created an event for the opening of a new store in Westfield Sydney. And it was massive. There were 400 yogis and a large crowd of participants wearing their Lululemon gear.

Source: On Instagram

Consider doing something like this for the grand opening (or re-opening) of your business. Or make it a yearly thing! Allowing your audience to interact with your brand offline, in the real world, while creating a memorable moment is what experiential marketing does best!

#4 Do Something Unique and Engaging

Thinking outside of the box is often hard work, but it does work. Of course, doing something outlandish isn’t guaranteed to get you the results you want. But if you know your audience and know your brand, you can craft a campaign that can not only forge stronger (read, lifelong and loyal) ties with you target customer, you can also get your campaign in front of millions of other buyers.

We go to a JetBlue campaign for this example…

The company knows their customers love to travel to warm and sunny destinations during the winter. So JetBlue found a unique and engaging way to promote flights from NY to Palm Springs.

In the middle of winter, they placed a 6 x 6 block of ice amid a busy avenue. Inside, there were a variety of summertime accessories.

Source: Event Marketer

JetBlue told New Yorkers they could take whatever was inside, but they’d have to work at it. So passersby began chipping away at the ice to claim items like golf clubs, beachwear, and even free plane tickets.

See what I mean? Unique and engaging.

Now, Get Out There and Create Some Instagrammable Experiences!

I could go on and on about how your business can combine Instagram and experiential marketing to build impressive and high-converting campaigns. But for now, you can take the above and start applying it to your upcoming marketing strategies.

Maybe you can plan an event, collaborate with an influencer you’ve been eyeing, or make a whacky, new prop to engage your audience.

Or maybe you have better ideas (or a campaign you’d like to share) — if so, let’s chop it up in the comments below! Or call to schedule a demo of The Shelf platform.

30-second pitch…

If you want to work with influencers in 2019, you’re going to need a strategy

The Shelf is an influencer marketing company that designs and implements the highest performing campaigns in the lifestyle space (fashion, beauty, mommy, food, travel, home, DIY, health, and fitness). If you’re reading this post and wondering how to use Snapchat, Instagram, IGTV, Facebook and YouTube to breathe new life into your social media marketing, we’ve got you covered. Sign up for a demo to get your custom proposal.

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Or give us a quick call : (212) 655-9879