A few months ago, I stumbled upon the skincare brand Bushbalm on Instagram. I became enamoured with the company’s branding of inclusivity that they so pridefully embrace and promote. I had never seen a skincare brand that showed bumps, body hair, or “imperfections” so candidly (we’ve all seen the razor commercials with women shaving their already bare legs *sigh*). This Ottawa-based company is normalizing body hair and celebrating different skin types in a world obsessed with perfection and unrealistic standards of beauty. Though these values drew me to Bushbalm’s products, I still hadn’t bought anything from them. I was simply a fangirl fawning over their content through my screen.
So back to the infinite scroll… The other week I came across Bushbalm’s IG account and decided to leave a comment on one of their Reels. There really was no rhyme or reason for it. I said how much I loved their brand and hope that their business thrives even though I’ve never bought any products from them. With summer just around the corner and warmer weather on the rise, I think I subconsciously became interested in buying something but just couldn’t pull the trigger. I left my comment and went on with my day. Fast forward 24 hours, and it was going down in the DMs…
Someone from the Bushbalm team had messaged me and offered to send me some free products. This is called product seeding. “Product seeding and influencer gifting are when brands send free products to a carefully selected group of influencers. In return, influencers post about the item and share photos and opinions of the product with their followers.” (Grin.co, 2022). I’m not gonna lie, it made me go “Hmmm…why me?” I only have around 1400 followers, I am by no means an influencer. But this interaction got me thinking about the power of nano-influencing. “Nano-influencers are your everyday social media users, with anywhere from 100 to 10,000 followers. They aren’t professional “influencers” in any way — and the majority of their posts feature typical content like photos of their family, friends…” (“Nano-Influencers”, Ethos Marketing, 2020).
With the growing cost of digital advertising, Bushbalm is diversifying its strategy by seeking out nano and micro-influencers to grow brand awareness. Some influencers pump up their follower count with bots and inactive users to gain partnerships. With nano-influencers, you’re getting your brand in front of an engaged and authentic audience. Founder of Bushbalm, David Gaylord, talks about the power of using influencers in their business strategy to grow awareness and says that the company “sees roughly a 3 to 1 return for every dollar [spent] on influencer marketing.” (“Micro-Influencer Campaigns Are Far From Overhyped”, Gaylord, 2021).
So by leaving my random little comment, I was inadvertently thrown into Bushbalm’s seeding program for influencers. It was just one week before I had a package arriving at my place filled with over $80 worth of products. I tried them all and can genuinely say that they’re amazing. I was gifted the Dark Spot Minimizer Kit, consisting of their Bermuda Dark Spot Oil and Dark Spot Exfoliating Scrub. They also sent a Nordic Dry brush which I had never imagined myself using. The company uses all-natural ingredients, offers tips on how to curate your skincare regimen and consistently offers discounts. As someone who doesn’t have much knowledge of skincare products, this is my first impression of a skincare brand and I have a feeling that when I run out, I will be ordering from Bushbalm because it’s what I now know and feel comfortable with.
This whole random but rewarding experience made me realize that there is so much untapped opportunity for followers to become nano-influencers for brands they love, and get free products out of it. So if there are any products you’ve been on the fence about, my unsolicited advice would be to reach out to brands and see if you could get a sample or even a discount code. This not only helps you decide what is worth spending your money on long-term, but you may just get something for free!
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