The Objective
Improve influencer marketing efficiencies
Influencers are a key component of Clif Bar & Co.’s marketing mix. Before working with Later, the company was running influencer programs for three of its brands (Clif Bar, Clif Kids and Luna), using spreadsheets to manage multiple unconnected programs.
Without a proper tool, the company’s influencer efforts proved to be time-consuming and inefficient. The brand struggled to activate influencers at scale and across use cases but was also unable to understand holistic performance across multiple brands.
Clif Bar & Co. needed a platform that would allow each brand to activate influencers on an ongoing basis, at scale, across many use cases to build brand awareness and love for Clif’s brands, products and values.
The Solution
Activating influencers at scale
Through Later Influence™, Later’s influencer marketing platform, Clif Bar & Co. is now able to activate micro and macro-influencers at scale to efficiently and effectively drive communication about its brands, company, values and products.
Specifically, with Later’s all-in-one platform capabilities, the Clif Bar & Co. brands can activate influencers for three distinct use cases:
- Creating campaigns;
- Reviewing products; and
- Launching its first-ever ambassador program.
Creating campaigns
For Clif Bar & Co., each influencer marketing campaign is created with a purpose, whether it’s a new product launch, a brand equity campaign, or promoting an existing product.
With Later’s advanced search capabilities, Clif Bar & Co. can quickly sort and segment influencers across several dimensions, which allows Clif’s brands to discover relevant influencers quickly and efficiently.
Specifically, Later’s advanced filtering and keyword searches allow Clif Bar & Co. to discover influencers unique to each brand’s influencer personas and target audiences. Once sourced, Later’s inbox management capabilities make it easy for Clif Bar & Co. to customize campaign briefs and messages according to unique brand objectives.
Reviewing products
With ratings & reviews being a critical component of the eCommerce purchase journey, Clif Bar & Co. knew they needed to be prioritized as a component of every influencer marketing campaign.
By leveraging Later’s ratings & reviews integrations with PowerReviews and BazaarVoice, Clif Bar & Co. was able to collaborate with influencers in two major ways: for new product launches and reviews of existing products.
Both strategies have resulted in improved efficiencies, eCommerce launches and better integrated social proof across different touchpoints. To date, influencers have submitted 800+ reviews with an average of 4.8 stars.
Launching an ambassador program
Based on Clif Bar & Co.’s business goals, they worked with Later to build and execute its first-ever ambassador program. The overall strategy was geared to optimize towards objectives like branding & awareness, education & consideration, content generation and performance.
Through Later’s easy-to-understand performance dashboard, Clif Bar & Co. was able to identify top-performing influencers across brands who they had previously worked with. Top-performing influencers were identified based on the number of campaigns participated in, engagement rate, quality of content and responsiveness to brand/strong copy and voice.
To start, 10-15 influencers were contracted and activated monthly for a trial period of 90 days. During this time, the brands continued to run several campaigns on the side as a way to create new content and find new talent. Each month, the team analyzed best-performing content to provide further best practices to all of the influencers, and to inform monthly briefs.
The Results
Scaling programs & streamlining efficiencies
In the last year, Clif Bar & Co. successfully scaled its influencer activations, resulting in 138% more content created than the previous year, totalling 12M impressions (+137% YoY) and 1.3M engagements (+167% YoY).
The brand was also able to improve its efficiency with this significantly larger program. The brand was able to save 2,591 hours in time savings and $265,000 in content savings.
The Clif Bar & Co. team proved that, with Later’s advanced platform, they could drive efficiency while also scaling and growing their three brand programs under the Clif Bar & Co. umbrella.
Clif Bar & Co. has now expanded into different influencer activations and types of content while maintaining quality. This allowed the brand to create the breadth and depth of content required to raise brand awareness among its audience by influencing multiple touchpoints with authentic and trusted content.
12M
Impressions
1.3M
Engagements
2,591
Hours in Time Savings
$265k
In Content Savings