Experienced marketers are well aware that there are numerous smart ways to boost revenue with social media. Anyone who has ever used any social media platform has noticed sponsored posts, tagged stories, and different types of endorsements from social media influencers.
Influencer-based campaigns can be very successful for companies, as businesses are making an average of $5.20 for every $1 spent on influencer marketing. Anyone in the fashion business can especially benefit from this type of marketing, as social media is filled with fashion influencers.
If you’re looking to make your own campaign, you can find inspiration in these examples of successful fashion influencer marketing campaigns.
Lil Miquela for Prada Fall ‘18
Lil Miquela is a computer-generated virtual influencer who was based on a 19-year-old from Los Angeles and currently boasts over 600k Instagram followers.
Prada partnered with her to promote their Fall 2018 collection through Instagram Stories via animated GIFs. These GIFs were inspired by Prada’s current collection, but also gave nods to some old-fashioned pieces such as the SS11 banana print and the SS10 flame shoe.
Miquela announced this partnership alongside Prada’s Milan Fashion Week runway show by posting a series of short Instagram videos that featured the GIF. The posts were paired with a caption that read “Go off!! #pradagifs are live in stories! Start posting and tag me.”
When users went over to Prada’s account, they were given a mini-tour of the show space by the CGI avatar
H&M
H&M is a fashion brand with one of the largest Instagram followings because they know how to get influencer marketing right. They only partner with influencers who reflect the style of their brand themselves and whose followers will most likely take inspiration from their posts.
The company did just that when they partnered with the model Ela Velden and fashion blogger Julie Sariñana for their fall 2017 catalog. In fact, Sariñana enjoyed the partnership and loved H&M’s clothing so much that she posted pictures of herself wearing them on her own Instagram account.
Revolve
Revolve took fashion influencer marketing to the next level in order to improve the visibility of their clothing brand and made a somewhat non-traditional advertising campaign. The brand invited key opinion leaders to travel the world and promote their clothing at the same time.
These people would go to parties wearing Revolve outfits, get photographed in them, and then later post those pictures on their social media accounts using the #RevolveAroundTheWorld hashtag.
Not only that, but Revolve also rented a huge villa during the extremely popular Coachella festival and invited influencers that were popular among Millennials. After several Snapchat stories and Instagram posts, the hashtag blew up and was used over 6,000 times during just one weekend.
The end result was more than successful, as the brand made over 3 billion impressions and significant growth in sales.
Daniel Wellington
Daniel Wellington is an impressive example on this list because the brand’s only type of marketing is fashion influencer marketing. This watch manufacturer managed to build brand recognition around a careful selection of influencers and a fixed hashtag structure.
Some of their regular tags such as #DanielWellington and #DWPickoftheDay are very popular among Instagram’s fashion-related tags. They also incorporated sponsored posts from influences into their campaign, which led to engaging and rewarding content followers could trust and relate to.
Since the people they partner with only post genuine images without too much photoshop, Daniel Wellington comes off as a community-respected brand that knows the value of their products.
Brandy Melville
Brandy Melville is a fashion label whose target audience consists mostly of teenage girls. Seeing as how Instagram is the most popular traditional social network among U.S. teens, it’s no wonder why they used this social media platform for their marketing campaigns.
The brand worked with influencers who have a following that consists mostly of teenagers and posted pictures that celebrated free-spirited millennials. Ultimately, the campaign proved to be a huge success and during one month, they acquired 53,000 new followers, their fan base expanding to 3.3 million.
Not only that, but they also managed to set the record for most likes on Instagram in March of 2016 with 9.3 million likes.
Zara
Zara is a high-street retailer that wanted to show their items can be both stylish and accessible at the same time, so they launched the #iamdenim campaign. For this campaign, they partnered with popular fashion influencers to get their message across and they did this with regular Instagram take-overs.
One of the influencers they partnered with was Teesh Rosa who created raw and honest content around their pieces. This way, Zara managed to show that their jeans and denim jackets are fashionable and well-liked by popular influencers, but also that they are for everyday people to wear in everyday situations.
By putting an emphasis on accessibility, this campaign brought Zara 4.6 million new followers in just eight months.
Fashion Nova
Fashion Nova’s strategy for their marketing campaign was to pair up with as many influencers as they could. However, they didn’t sacrifice quality, but they partnered with almost every fashion blogger with a significant following.
Not only that, but they also formed partnerships with many influential celebrities, including Kylie Jenner, Amber Rose, and Cardi B. This type of no-holds-barred marketing approach may be ambitious and it certainly isn’t affordable, but it shows results.
In just three years, Fashion Nova managed to increase its sales significantly and reach six million followers on social media.
Yeezy
Getting recognition and attention for a product before it’s even released can be a challenge, but Yeezy managed to do this with carefully thought out fashion influencer marketing. Before the shoe was even released, the brand carefully selected a small number of influencers to be their representatives.
Adidas decided to collaborate with Kanye West and this saw the launch of the Yeezy Boost campaign. Instead of sending boxes of shoes to a variety of popular influencers, Yeezy decided to show exclusivity and that not everyone can get these shoes easily.
This made customers realize that Yeezys weren’t average Adidas shoes, so the waiting list to purchase these shoes was endless. Adidas managed to establish Yeezys as a sought-after product, and influencers who managed to get their own pair posted pictures of them without any monetary compensation.
Forever 21
Forever 21 decided to engage social media audiences with a fashion influencer marketing campaign that doesn’t revolve around a classic photoshoot. The brand partnered with established influencers who were known for having great communication with their followers to create a unique campaign.
Instead of taking pictures where they would show off clothing from Forever 21 in traditional poses, influencers created content that revolved around the process of trying these clothes on. They later provided both positive and negative feedback, both of which the brand welcomed and didn’t edit.
These efforts proved to be successful, and 21 was able to show off their new collection while also creating an atmosphere of shopping with a close friend.
Coach
Many brands are under the impression that this type of marketing only works for companies that are trying to target a younger audience. However, a high-end brand Coach still managed to create an amazing fashion influencer marketing campaign on Instagram by partnering with Selena Gomez.
In 2016, this actress and singer became a brand ambassador for the company and their collaboration paid off for the brand. Reportedly, this campaign cost Coach less than 25 cents per impression.
Marc Jacobs
Marc Jacobs is a world-famous fashion designer who took a different approach to influencer marketing. Instead of finding another famous person to represent his brand, Marc decided to do it himself and started the #CastMeMarc campaign to find new faces for the upcoming campaign.
The only thing aspiring models had to do to be entered for consideration was to tag a photo of themselves on Instagram with this caption. Unsurprisingly, the campaign was an instant hit and spread like wildfire while Marc Jacobs managed to find new faces for their upcoming fashion season.
Another positive outcome that came out of the campaign was that Marc Jacobs created a real sense of agency and engagement, and #CastMeMarc was named Marketing Week’s campaign of the year.
Final thoughts
There are many different ways you can engage fashion influencers to promote your brand. As social media marketing keeps evolving, it’s becoming more obvious that it’s not enough to have regular sponsored posts. If you truly want to stand out, you need to be unique.
To ensure your campaign is successful, you need to implement all the best practices. This means you need to know where to find the right influencers, go high if your budget allows it, but still put more focus on quality over quantity, keep it visual, and encourage and enforce disclosure.
