Influencer marketing…most brands incorporate this into their overarching strategy without a second thought, but how do you make sure you’re doing it right? Influencer marketing is all about being authentic, ensuring you’re tapping into the right audience and maximising exposure with relatable, engaging content.
In the past few years, brands have started to leverage the power of the influencer even further with ‘edit’ style campaigns that benefit both brand, influencer and consumer. With audiences wanting to know exactly how to buy into their favourite content creators lifestyle easily and instantly, brands with a strong social presence have successfully utilised the ‘influencer edit’ as part of their marketing strategy. When done right, they can bring a new level of engagement to a brand and create a story that appeals to the masses. This was the strategy when eComplete brand, Neon Beach, launched their first influencer edit with Megano Welsh this year.
Neon Beach is a trend-led, LED neon sign company that creates vibrant art pieces for every space, be it home or business, big or small. With 100’s of pre-set designs to choose from and the option to ‘create your own’ too, Neon Beach has a neon sign for everyone. The business was acquired by eComplete in October 2021 and since then a key focus has been driving a ‘social-first’ strategy and breaking into the creator space by implementing a robust influencer program - targeting key creators across Instagram, TikTok, YouTube & Twitch.
The Aims
A key focus for Neon Beach has been identifying key target markets and raising awareness in these circles. One main focus was around maximising the purchase power of the social-first audience, made up of younger Millennial and Gen Z audiences. Neon Beach’s main aims were to provide a product that appeals to the market and identifying a voice that can speak directly to this market, in turn making Neon Beach to go to for LED neon signs within this audience and maximising sales growth.
The Strategy
Neon Beach enlisted influencer Megano Welsh for the first ever influencer edit after already establishing a relationship with her earlier in the year, interest in the custom design she had created in partnership with Neon Beach had been high so the partnership was a natural fit.
The edit was eComplete’s first 360 influencer edit campaign: from product development, creative strategy, social execution and influencer marketing support. eComplete recognised that Megan Welsh had the potential to tap into the target demographic, due to her engaged Gen Z audience and charismatic personality.
With knowledge of trends across social, interior and lifestyle, the edit not only tapped into Megan’s personality and style, but the ever-growing Y2K resurgence. Appealing to Gen Z was key, so Neon Beach ensured the product offering appealed to the creativity of the audience, evoking a sense of nostalgia.
Another key part of the strategy was ensuring the collection was at an accessible price point. Taking into account the lower disposable income of the Gen Z market, Neon Beach needed to ensure the collection was accessible to Megan’s audience and was also promoted as renter friendly. Neon Beach successfully created the most accessible price point to date, whilst still maximising margins and ensuring the highest of quality.
Influencer Support
Knowing the Gen Z audience look predominantly to influencers for their inspiration for fashion, interiors and lifestyle; the edit tapped into several creators who were closely associated with Megan to support the launch to give an organic, natural feel.
With a combined audience of 850k, the edit was successfully driven across social platforms, generating over 70 pieces of content within the first 5 days of launch.
The Results
Results from the campaign were instant, Neon Beach experienced the most sessions onsite YTD in the first 24 hours of launch and the category remains one of the most popular on site. The edit drove a 38% increase in new users and a 137% increase in gross sales within the first week.
With continued support across all channels and from Megan herself, the edit drove 18% of total users in launch month and accounted for 11% of total sales.
With Neon Beach continuing to grow in markets all over the world, a robust and ever-evolving influencer strategy will continue to form a key pillar of the overarching strategy, helping to maximise brand awareness and aid growth for the business. Influencer ‘edits’ will continue to be utilised in order to tap into new target markets, provide new product development streams and help achieve the goal of becoming the go-to brand in the market for LED neon signs.