Close your eyes and picture an influencer. What comes to mind? Maybe they are at a luxury hotel, maybe they are sporting the latest FashionNova, or their favorite high end alcohol products. Influencer marketing helps make a lot of products seem more glamorous than they actually might be. But how do you get those glamorous influencer shots when your brand is not…well, sexy?
Everyone is Doing It
We’re talking about toilet paper, tampons, diapers, etc. We all need them, but no one wants to talk about them. For a lot of brands, influencer marketing can seem exclusive, and only effective for certain industries like travel or beauty. But, we are now seeing more and more brands embrace influencer marketing and prove they work for even the most regulated industries such as pharma and finance. We’ve even run campaigns for marijuana dispensaries and sports betting apps. The difference is that those targets are niche, and luckily for you, your target is the opposite of niche. Your target is nearly everyone, everywhere. The problem is your product, although a necessity, may not be the most appealing to talk about.
Why Should You?
For most brands the biggest advantage to influencer marketing is the incredible engagement and inevitable awareness that comes from leveraging influencers. But, for your product, you can kill two birds with one stone. Not only will you gain that engagement and reach for your brand, you are also helping kill the stigma around talking about your brand by leveraging people that are professionals at making things look desirable. Social media also gives you the opportunity to start over with new audiences. Influencer marketing is the number one way to reach Gen Z so show them a new way to see your products. Afterall, they are a generation that has become vocal about a lot of things that used to not be talked about.
When you are a brand that is used by a huge population, chances are there are influencers out there already using you or more than willing to give your product a try. And, there are many ways to go about influencer marketing when you don’t have the most attractive products to share. If your product has little differentiation, a nudge from an influencer might be all it takes to gain a lifetime customer.
Examples
Remember when Lisa Rinna became the spokeswoman for New Depend® Silhouette for Women? Although the jokes were inevitable, the conversation around the partnership became about female empowerment and totally changed the conversation about women being more open about these kind of products. As time goes on, more and more millennials and Gen Zers are becoming unafraid to talk about most anything. One huge benefit to influencers vs celebrities is that they are unfiltered. This word can scare a lot of brands away, but because of this, stigmas around many different topics are disappearing and we are able to more openly have conversations about subjects that were not discussed much in the past.
Influencers can make your product more exciting. For example, take the Ballinger family, who by the way have over 1 million subscribers on YouTube, and their partnership with Scott toilet paper. They found a way to promote this product in a fun way through their channel by incorporating it into a family road trip. You can even find more subtle and natural ways to incorporate your products into influencer content, even if it’s not a completely dedicated post, like what ob tampons did with this “What’s In My Bag” YouTube video by content creator Allana Davison
Conclusion
The bottom line is that people need these things; actually most EVERYONE needs these things. They are necessities of life and not only can influencers get them in front of your target, they can help make them look cool! Or, at least, help normalize the conversation around them. Influencer marketing, especially with the rise of Gen Z consumers, gives you the opportunity to rebrand your product to be cool–and who better to help you do that by using those that are experts in the art of making things cool: influencers.
About MATTR: MATTR, leaders in influencer campaigns for highly regulated industries, is the only full-service influencer marketing provider with detailed audience insights from PersonaMesh™. We go beyond demographics into psychographics such as values and interests so that your influencer campaigns align with your campaign targets.