The Ultimate Guide to Product Seeding & Influencer Marketing

Product seeding campaigns are seeing a big resurgence among brands partnering with influencers.

Because with the right strategy, brands can send products to creators via product seeding to...

• Build meaningful awareness for product launches
• Earn 100s of pieces of UGC for organic promotions and social ads
• Instantly increase share of voice and word-of-mouth

The catch? Product seeding campaigns can be complicated given the legwork it takes to send 100s of items to creators. The process can feel like a time-sink and measurement can be murky.

That said, it doesn't have to be!

Having sent thousands of products to creators, we know firsthand which influencer seeding strategies work best! Below we explain everything you need to know.

What is Product Seeding?

Product seeding refers to sending products to creators in exchange for word-of-mouth on social media. These products are often packaged in a seeding kit (or influencer box). Creators that you seed are often past customers or influencers you have collaborated with.

Despite involving many moving pieces, the concept of seeding in marketing is simple:

Through shipping products, you’re “planting” seeds to build awareness and loyalty. Ideally, many of these seeds will “sprout” into posts and positive reviews. 

Below is a snapshot of how product seeding integrates into an influencer marketing strategy.

How Does Product Seeding Work?

Here’s a big-picture summary of how product seeding works:

• Brands send free products to content creators with no strings attached
• If your product is relevant, you’ll receive content in exchange for your products
• This influencer content could be anything from a video review to a simple shout-out post

Think of the process as giving your customers a sneak peek into your best products. The more enticing and relevant your seeding kits, the more likely you are to get posts.

It's important to go into any product seeding campaign with the expectation that fewer than half of the creators you send products to will end up posting. Brands we talk to typically see a success rate somewhere between 20% and 40%.

Successful Examples of Product Seeding

You’ve probably seen countless examples of product seeding on TikTok and Instagram in the wild.

But we’ve gathered a handful of examples that highlight how product seeding works in the wild!

This first post illustrates how brands can send a product seeding kit to creators to generate both content and word of mouth. In this particular example, the creator has an affiliate code with the brand which sweetens the deal beyond the seeded products.

Source

Here’s another example of product seeding, this time with a creator who signed up to be on a brand’s list to receive free products. This process essentially involves creators coming to you, meaning less outreach and bouncing around profiles to vet creators across multiple social media platforms. 

Source

Needless to say, this approach works when you get products into the hands of the right creators. The high engagement on this post speaks for itself.

This last example highlights the link between seeding and influencer gifting. If you have a creator you've collaborated with successfully in the past, you can send them products without notice as a pleasant surprise. This can result in enthusiastic unboxing content which social shoppers adore.

Source

Each of these examples likewise illustrates how brands have a ton of opportunities and creative freedom when it comes to the types of content they can generate with an influencer product seeding campaign.

What Are the Benefits of Product Seeding?

Good question! There’s no one-size-fits-all objective behind most PR seeding programs. Done right, seeding can accomplish a variety of goals at once:

Building Word-of-Mouth

When influencers genuinely love a product, they’re eager to recommend it to their social circles. Seeding influencers at scale (think: 100s of creators) means you can get your products in front of 1000s of potential customers relatively quickly.

Speed and scale are crucial for driving awareness during product launches and time-sensitive promotions. Especially given how valuable recommendations from influencers are for modern buyers.

Earning Authentic Influencer Posts

While content isn’t a guarantee with product seeding, the posts you do earn are 100% authentic. This sort of organic UGC is valuable for the sake of social proof and building up positive product reviews. That said, sometimes you authentic content you earn isn't exactly promo-ready. This is yet another important expectation to have when seeding.

Getting in Front of New Target Audiences Faster

Having creators in niche audiences talking about your products can build both awareness and credibility way faster than what’s possible in-house. For example, conducting dedicated cold outreach campaigns to coordinate gifted products can take months whereas seeding is much more straightforward.

Improve Relationships with Influencers

Along with word-of-mouth referrals, seeding can also result in better loyalty and influencer relationships over time. If your brand builds a reputation as being generous with its gifting, you can drive more interest in your influencer program as a result.

How well product seeding works for any given brand boils down to these goals. Shipping to creators without an end goal in mind is obviously not ideal given the legwork involved.

Product Seeding vs. Product Gifting vs. Product Sampling

“Seeding,” “sampling” and “gifting” are often used interchangeably among marketers.

And while they all involve sending products to influencers,  they aren’t identical tactics.

Before we get into the nitty-gritty, let’s clarify the meaning of seeding versus the others.

• Product seeding (AKA influencer seeding) involves sending products to creators with no expectations or guarantees. Simple as.
  
  
• Product gifting and seeding are very similar. The key differences between them are outreach and expectations. Influencer gifting involves reaching out to new creators to coordinate content in exchange for free product(s). Seeding involves sending products to creators with no strings attached. Although you can reach out to creators prior to product seeding, it’s not necessary. 
  
  
• Product sampling is like bite-sized seeding. Brands send creators sample-sized products (sometimes bundled with other brands’) in exchange for content. Sometimes these samples are requested directly versus sent without notice.

Important: unlike gifting, product seeding is typically done with creators you already have on file for fast shipping and minimal back-and-forth communication. Not having to conduct outreach or confirm orders means that you can get products into their hands much, much faster.

There are benefits and drawbacks to each tactic depending on your strategy, budget and bandwidth. Granted you have a list of creators and an influencer seeding platform to do the heavy lifting, but traditional seeding is arguably the most time-efficient and scalable of the three strategies.

How to Integrate Product Seeding Into Your Influencer Marketing Campaigns

Seeding is so much more than shipping products out and hoping for the best. 

This is especially true if you actually want to earn content from your campaigns.

Brands that consistently send PR packages at scale have streamlined product seeding strategies. 

How do you seed a product, though? Here’s a big-picture breakdown of the steps involved.

1. Pick the Perfect Products to Send to Influencers

So much of running successful product seeding campaigns boils down to proper product choice. 

Trust us: creators are exhausted with random, untargeted influencer kits. Relevant offers result in content and glowing reviews instead of radio silence.

For example, you wouldn’t send whey protein powder to a vegan bodybuilding influencer and expect a positive shout-out. On the flip side, sending your new curl starter set to a curly hair and beauty influencer could yield authentic, promo-worthy UGC.

Arguably one of the best ways to figure out what to send is to align your product seeding campaigns with product launches. That way, your product choice is set in stone and it’s a matter of figuring out the right creators to ship them to. 

2. Create Your Product Seeding List

As noted earlier, product seeding typically involves sending products your favorite influencers who you’ve worked with in the past. Understanding who to ship to means taking inventory of your past partnerships and likewise whether your product aligns with their audience.

Hopefully, you aren’t spending hours digging through a product seeding spreadsheet to figure out who to send products to. Keeping information like audience and address updated is daunting but crucial to making your seeding campaigns work. Otherwise, you risk hurting your post success rate and wasting time and money shipping products.

This is one of the biggest advantages of using an influencer marketing platform with built-in product seeding like Statusphere. We provide a place to keep all of your creators in one place and up-to-date. We also take product-creator matching off your plate.

Our software matches brands with relevant, vetted micro-influencers based on 250+ unique, first-party data points. Instead of digging through seeding lists, you'll always ship the right product to influencers with confidence because they’ll actually resemble your target audience.

3. Put Together Your Brand's Influencer Kit 

The more unboxing-worthy your PR package is, the better. That means:

• Custom, branded packaging that’s worth filming or snapping a picture of
• Full-size products versus samples
• Notes, stickers or other freebies

The best influencers get sent products all the time. Anything to make your kit “pop” is a plus.

4. Ship Your Products to Creators

After all the details above are ironed out, you’re ready to ship.

In terms of how many influencer seeding kits to send, it really depends on your bandwidth. Heck, we talk to brands that ship 1000s of products per month on a regular basis.

More creators means more opportunities for content but also more time and resources from your schedule (not to mention product). It's a balancing act.

5. Track Your Shipments to Creators

Keeping track of your shipments ensures your products get into influencers’ hands promptly. This is crucial if you align your seeding efforts with product launches. 

This is also something to factor into the results of your product seeding campaign as you assess how many influencers actually posted in the end. 

If you’re only hitting a ~20% influencer success rate with your posts, this process can be a massive money pit. That's not even taking into account issues like incorrect addresses. This speaks to the importance of guaranteed delivery with product seeding.

6. Give Creators Time to Test-Drive Your Products

Be patient and don’t hound influencers for posts. Seeding means playing “wait and see” instead. You can't rush it since positive influencer reviews and content happen organically from seeding.

This is why it’s important to build ample time into your seeding campaigns for product launches.

Also, certain types of posts take longer than others to create and film. For example, meaningful before-and-afters or in-depth reviews can’t happen overnight.

7. Collect and Curate Your UGC

Gather posts and reviews as they go live. If you're not using a product seeding platform, you can track these via your social mentions and hashtags.

Just be sure to obtain usage rights if you plan on repurposing your content for promotions! 

8. Track Your Product Seeding Performance and Results

After all of your products have been delivered and the dust has settled, it’s time to assess your seeding campaign. Some sample KPIs to determine how your product seeding strategy is performing include:

• Social media mentions, comments and interactions
• Number of posts earned
• Creator post engagement rates
• New accounts reached 
• Product feedback and reviews earned
• New traffic to your site and storefront
• Influencer success rate (% of creators that posted versus total # of influencer kits shipped)

This data will clue you in on as to whether your product seeding strategy is successful. If nothing else, you can uncover opportunities to optimize and improve future promotions.

Of course, digging for these numbers might take some extra legwork without a product seeding platform that aggregates key campaign metrics on autopilot.

Which Brands Benefit Most from Product Seeding & Influencer Marketing?

Combined with influencer marketing, seeding campaigns are a staple marketing tactic among a variety of verticals and brands. Most notably:

• CPG Brands. Seeding is especially effective among beauty and skincare brands where competition is fierce and authenticity is make-or-break. By seeding products, CPG brands can highlight real people showing off real results. Long-term partnerships with influencers via seeding can generate ongoing UGC and social proof.
  
  
• Retail brands. Whether in-store or online, retail brands leverage product seeding to create a ripple effect of excitement and exposure. Consistent word-of-mouth drives foot traffic and digital traffic. This is especially true as brands need an ongoing, high volume of positive reviews to please their retail channel partners. 
  
  
• Brands entering a new category. Product seeding can serve as your brand’s spotlight when stepping into a new market. Introducing your products to a wider audience through genuine content is more effective than brute-force ads.

That said, companies across industries struggle to find the bandwidth for product seeding. Constantly shipping products, getting usage rights and managing creator lists can eat up your schedule fast even when you have resources to spare. 

How to Streamline and Scale Your Influencer Product Seeding Campaigns

Like we said, product seeding is a staple of social marketing for so many brands.

Because when it’s done right, brands can earn social proof at scale which has a positive impact across your funnel. 

And if nothing else, strategic product seeding serves as a way to get your products in front of thousands of targeted and eager potential customers.

The problem? Shipping products to hundreds (or thousands) of 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 micro-influencers from our creator community. 

We’ve 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. Our platform also offers built-in usage rights so you can run your seeding content at UGC ads without having to wait.

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.

This article was first published in February 2024. It was last updated August 5, 2024.