Wahl, a leading manufacturer of men's grooming, pet grooming, and massage products, tasked Hoffman York with raising mass awareness, sparking engagement, and creating relationships with a variety of established influencers. Hoffman York developed and executed an influencer program on behalf of Wahl, establishing relationships and getting Wahl product in the hands of almost 400 influencers who provided high quality content and acted as brand advocates by posting and recommending products to their communities, with no monetary exchange or obligation.
HY measured the success of the Wahl Influencer Program using a conversion rate goal of 40% across all value streams. Conversion rate is calculated based on the total posts that went live divided by the total packages sent.
HY knew they had to design a program including mass outreach and aggressive follow up. They created a five-step approach:
Compile influencer candidates: HY searched for candidates, reviewed content, evaluated influencers against program criteria, vetted the influencers, and revised their outreach list as needed.
Outreach: HY initiated contact and requested shipping information, outreach follow up, if necessary, and updated their database with lead status and addresses.
Ship product: HY knows personalization is key when reaching out to influencers, so they crafted unique cards to each influencer. They produced custom boxes for select influencers, prepared and shipped packages, and sent out tracking information to the influencer.
Monitor for posts: HY monitored social media channels daily for mentions, responded to and shared posts and followed up with drip messages to insure they met their high conversion rate goal.
Report: HY captured and evaluated all activity and reported to their client.
Execution:
Creating Buzz: Hoffman York handpicked each influencer based on personality, content, and brand alignment. This curated list of influencers embraced Wahl’s products and created impactful content their communities could relate to and engage with.
Authentic Outreach: Hoffman York’s organic approach to identifying and contacting influencers allowed for control and insight to ensure that influencers matched brand standards. Personalized messages to each influencer identified what made them a match for the brand and feedback proved this approach fostered goodwill.
Personalization is Key: HY wanted to put a personal touch on our communication. The team designed personalized digital cards to be sent with tracking information to keep influencers engaged and updated.
Always Optimizing: To ensure success, the team kept a pulse on all interactions and pivoted where necessary. Between updating criteria, adjusting messaging, cross promoting between value streams and ordering branded swag, the team identified ways to keep influencers engaged and increase conversions.
The program exceeded the conversion goal of 40%. At the end of 2022, the program wrapped with a conversion rate of 52%, exceeding our goal by 12%.
We engaged with influencers with followings as high as 2 million, with no monetary exchange and generated an estimated reach of 2,102,561.
Influencers posted a variety of high-quality content across both Instagram and TikTok platforms.
