8 Examples of Brands That Are Good at Product Seeding

Brand seeding (AKA product seeding) is the process of sending products to recipients to...

• Get more word-of-mouth referrals
• Gain feedback about your products
• Encourage influencer posts and UGC that your brand can promote elsewhere

No surprises here: sending products to influencers is a proven way for brands to get the word out and connect with their community of customers at the same time.

And while plenty of brands run successful product seeding campaigns, few nail them.

We totally understand why! With many moving pieces like fulfillment, tracking results and collecting your content, many brands are overwhelmed once their seeding efforts are underway.

Let's say you're set on handling everything yourself, though. We've got you covered. Below are a few quick tips and examples of product seeding to inspire your own strategy.

Quick Product Seeding Tips for Brands

Again, running an influencer seeding campaign in-house is a massive time-sink without the right team or a dedicated influencer seeding platform to do the heavy lifting.

Before we get into our product seeding examples, here are two quick tips to set up your campaigns for success. These tips matter whether you're doing things DIY or outsourcing your brand's seeding.

Tip #1: Picking the Right Products for Your Seeding Campaigns

• The easier it is for creators to feature your products in their content, the better. Think about products that are worth showing off and can be conveyed over a smartphone screen. For reference, check out how brands promote products on TikTok with creators.  The more relevant your product choice, the more enthusiastic your creator will be. That means better content!
  
  
• Consider product margins and price points to ensure you’re choosing the right product to give away. Choosing the right "right" items for product seeding is tricky. It's a balancing act between offering something at a low price with no buzz and potentially risking a whole lot of budget on seeding kits that don't actually result in UGC. 

Tip #2: Managing Influencer Relations While Seeding Products

• If you're only shipping to a handful of influencers, make yourself stand out by personalizing the package for each creator. You might include a hand-written card, thank you note and even embroider their names on the product you're shipping. Doing this really depends on your bandwidth and confidence that creators will actually post.
  
  
• Be prepared to check in with influencers once they receive your product. This can be deceptively time-consuming, especially if you're sending products without previous DMs or communication with your creators. Keep this in mind before you put together a single influencer seeding kit.
  
  
• Engaging with influencer posts is a must! Liking and commenting is a bare minimum. Ideally, you should offer them a repost and feature them on your own social feeds. Bonus points if you have a sizeable social following to serve as an incentive.

8 Product Seeding Examples to Inspire Brands

Now, onto the good stuff!

Below are eight examples of brands who know how to make their product seeding strategy work. These influencer seeding examples cover a variety of industries and highlight how brands of all sizes can succeed with their campaigns.

1. Glow Recipe

2. Magic Spoon

Magic Spoon's keto-friendly snacks are a high-protein and health-conscious spin on breakfast cereal.

Their marketing taps into the nostalgia of Saturday morning cartoon cereal commercials.

By seeding this product among their target audience, micro-influencers can literally give their users a taste of the action. Magic Spoon looks irresistible in this TikTok unboxing, which showcases the flavor while calling out the nutritional benefits (especially the cereal's protein content).

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Posted by a bodybuilder with a sizeable TikTok following, the video targets a specific audience that's super relevant to Magic Spoon. It’s a win for the brand and a win for their audience alike.

3. SuperGoop

 SuperGoop's mission is to bring its SPF-based products beyond the beach. Their sunscreen-infused beauty products are easy to get into the hands of creators who are likewise eager to share them with their followers.

In her fresh-faced post, this influencer applies the product on the screen and provides a stellar description of its benefits: “I’m really excited about it because I’ve heard such good things.” She then dishes on her positive experiences with other Supergoop products.

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This is one of your favorite product seeding examples because the creator doesn't treat the post as a one-and-done affair. She even follows up seven hours later for a fresh-faced “after” to show the longevity and how the product actually works. That's social proof in action!

These types of videos are powerful, especially for beauty brands launching new products. This highlights how product seeding can be one of the best ways to announce your latest offerings.

4. CELSIUS

CELSIUS' energy drinks are marketed as a metabolism booster for "active bodies." The brand is notable because its drinks are low in sodium and contain no artificial flavors or sweeteners.

Since this brand heavily backs up its claims with research, it’s also beneficial for them to seed their product with actual customers. Not to mention translate its benefits into plain English.

Below a creator loads drinks into her fridge with a high-energy song and the words, “I’m a fan…I’m an ambassador.” All while wearing her workout clothes and speeding up the loading process.  Commenters loved the video and even talked about their own favorite flavors.

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This product seeding example highlights how creators know best when it comes to breaking down what makes your product special. Creator content is more powerful than a laundry list of benefits or ingredients by themselves.

5. MILK Makeup

MILK Makeup specializes in beauty products that are 100% vegan, cruelty-free, and paraben-free.

They honor community and self-expression and their PR package ideas align with this vision.

In this product seeding video, a creator unboxes a variety of products and her enthusiasm comes through loud and clear. Her influencer package includes a refresh spray, lip and cheek sticks in two shades and mascara. This is a great example of how to pack a huge value in your brand's seeding kit.

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She then shows the "after" results of applying the products which is a big contrast to the "before." MILK is beloved for sending their influencer network products they know and love and slipping in new ones to try, too. Coupled with personalized gifting notes that make for amazing social content, the brand gets a lot of traction through product seeding.

6. Senreve

Senreve touts itself as a "juxtaposition of the dissimilar" with their luxury bags. These products are a joy for influencers to showcase and the type of product that creators aspire to receive from brands.

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In this unboxing video, the influencer pulls several items from the gorgeous packaging as the classic jazz tune brings the vibe together. The video itself is a quick montage featuring the brand's products with a tone of classy elegance and the influencer thanks the brand graciously. 

Influencer gifting or seeding with high-ticket items can be tricky when posts aren't guaranteed from creators. This speaks to the importance of a platform that can assist with matching and vetting content creators prior to seeding products.

7. Freckled Poppy Boutique

This buoyant husband-wife team has created a brand built around hand-picked and stylish spunky women’s clothing and accessories. Their colorful name reverberates through their products, and creators are happy to show them off to an audience hungry for "real" recommendations.

In this product seeding example, an influencer receives a brightly patterned package that she unwraps to reveal a veritable fashion show.

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She then tries on each outfit and comments on how happy she is with the look and fit. Her commenters join the conversation with their favorites as well which creates a tight dialogue between the two and shows off the brand even more. Note how these examples of product seeding feature the brands but also involve conversations with commenters.

8. Levi's

This iconic brand remains a classic choice yet somehow stays forever young and trendy.

Getting Levi’s in the hands of micro-influencers of all ages helps keep the brand relevant and fresh. There are examples of product seeding among a diverse group of people showcasing their Levi’s and loving them, which aligns with the brand promise of “it doesn’t matter how you move through the world….”

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The influencer pairs ripped cut-offs with a California-cool vibe at sunset. The effect is transformational and the comments show a high demand for the brand and the carefree lifestyle that it reflects.

How to Scale Your Brand Seeding Efforts to Reach 100s (or 1000s!) of Creators

Ready to launch a large-scale product seeding campaign of your own?

Good! The more products you get into creators' hands, the better. Doing so is key to not only building awareness and optimizing your social SEO but also earning repurposable content to run as ads.

The problem? Shipping products to hundreds (or thousands) of content creators at a time is an uphill battle if you're trying to do it all in-house. Scaling your seeding strategy takes a specialized product seeding platform and a vetted creator network to increase your posting success rate.

That's exactly what Statusphere's suite of tools can do if you’re interested in product seeding. Our influencer marketing platform programmatically matches brands with vetted influencers from our creator community. We empower brands to run influencer marketing campaigns with product seeding to save time and eliminate bouncing between multiple platforms.

Our platform has shipped products to tens of thousands of creators on behalf of 400+ brands. Statusphere’s software manages everything from matchmaking and content management to fulfillment so you can seamlessly align your influencer marketing strategy with product seeding ASAP.

Want to learn more about how our platform works? Get in touch with one of our experts to learn how our software can help you scale product seeding in a fraction of the time.