Influencer Trips 101: How to Get It Right
Influencer Trips 101: How to Get It Right
Influencer brand trips are back in full swing! Let's discuss how it works and the benefits.
Influencer brand trips are back in full swing! Let's discuss how it works and the benefits.
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If your TikTok For You Page is anything like mine, you’ve been seeing a wave of brands taking influencers on all kinds of lavish vacations, ranging from the F1 Grand Prix in Miami to a dreamy villa stay in the Italian countryside.
It’s safe to say that influencer brand trips are back in full swing, as the world has slowly recovered from the pandemic. But are influencer trips still worth the investment for brands? Let’s talk about it.
How do influencer trips work?
Influencer trips became popular largely due to the trailblazing fashion retailer, Revolve. Since the beginning, Revolve leaned heavily into influencer activations, such as exclusive events and its famously extravagant #RevolveAroundTheWorld trips, to spread brand awareness and foster community — and it was wildly successful. In fact, Revolve’s Chief Brand Officer, Raissa Gerona, revealed in 2019 that a whopping 70% of the brand’s sales were driven by influencers.
Typically, rather than paying influencers to attend, brands will plan an enviable itinerary and offer influencers to come for free, with everything from flights and accommodations to food and excursions covered by the brand. While it is dubbed as a “free” trip, most times, influencers will be required to produce specific content deliverables during the trip.
Content creator Alisha Marie explains all the ins-and-outs in her YouTube video below.
The influencer trip controversy
Lately, influencer trips have been shrouded in controversy, as consumer reactions have started to vary from excitement to outrage. While many are happy for the influencers who get the opportunity to have these amazing experiences, some audiences feel that these extravagant trips are out of touch and distasteful — especially during a time when many are struggling financially. Some also feel that lavish influencer trip content is overdone. Even Revolve’s Raissa Gerona revealed that the brand will deprioritize influencer trips from now on. She explained, “Trips will always be a part of what we do, but we’re not going to do them as frequently — just because that content is over-served to the consumer on social media, across every single platform.”
However, it’s clear that many brands still see a lot of value in influencer trips. If there was little business impact, brands like Tarte Cosmetics, Benefit, and NARS wouldn’t dish out seven-figure budgets for these grand activations.
The benefits of influencer trips
It’s no secret that influencer trips cost a pretty penny. Think about it: the brand is footing the bill for all of the first class plane tickets, the luxurious accommodation fees, the decadent meals, the exciting activities — and typically not just for the influencer, but also for their +1.
Believe it or not, influencer trips are a bang for your buck.
Although brands may be cashing out thousands, if not millions, of dollars on these influencer trips, oftentimes, it’s still cheaper than working with each individual influencer to post 1-2 times on behalf of the brand.
For example, Tarte Cosmetics invited TikTok’s “it-girl,” Alix Earle (5.6M followers), to its Turks and Caicos influencer trip. In a standard sponsorship, Tarte most likely would’ve had to pay her hundreds of thousands of dollars alone for the amount of content she created on the trip. Instead, Alix got a free vacation, and Tarte was able to build a buzz online through the content created by Alix and dozens of other popular creators.
Influencer trips are a content goldmine.
These trips add a camera-ready backdrop to the content creation process, ensuring influencers will produce high-quality content for your brand. Plus, these trips are chock-full of Instagram-worthy moments. Because of this, each influencer will most likely post an abundance of non-sponsored content on top of documenting the getaway for their required deliverables.
Influencer trips skyrocket brand awareness.
With a schedule jam-packed with fun activities, influencer trips can yield some of your brand’s most viewed and talked about content — which undoubtedly will boost your brand awareness. Content from influencer trips are getting millions of eyeballs as influencers constantly live-document the trip and give plenty of exposure to the brand before, during, and after the event.
Influencer trips are the perfect place to start building deeper relationships with creators.
Influencer marketing is a relationship game. By hosting trips for your top influencers, you can reward them with cool experiences, meet your favorite brand partners in person, and ultimately build deeper relationships. Tarte CEO, Maureen Kelly, says: “Every day, brands make decisions about how to spend their marketing budgets. For some companies, that means a huge Super Bowl commercial or a multi-million-dollar contract with a famous athlete or celeb. We’ve never done traditional advertising, and instead we invest in building relationships and building up communities.”
In sum, influencer trips are still worth the investment. But it’s important to focus on authenticity and relatability, even as you plan a nice getaway for your influencers. Focus on providing meaningful experiences for influencers so that you can build a community of brand loyalists, all while boosting brand awareness and collecting a goldmine of content.