The Objective
Standing out with social proof
The alcohol category was already an extremely crowded space. During the pandemic, alcohol sales skyrocketed, as well as alcohol delivery services. According to Forbes, the online alcohol marketplace grew its gross merchandise value by 3.5x during the pandemic in 2020 alone.
Ste Michelle Wine Estates was faced with the challenge of cutting through the noise. In doing so, they were looking to creatively activate influencers so that they could stand out from their competition and build awareness for their portfolio of brands as well as their new subscription service.
The company also wanted to scale its brands’ fragmented influencer marketing programs to create unified social proof programs.
The Solution
Scaling & diversifying influencer content
Ste Michelle Wine Estates needed to think BIG – spanning far beyond “pretty pictures on Instagram.” Determined to cut through the noise, Ste Michelle Wine Estates sought to diversify its influencer marketing mix and activation strategy to include the creation of ratings, reviews, research and content across channels.
Ultimately, this strategic approach needed to enable the creation of a high volume of social proof to influence today’s consumers at all stages of the buying journey.
Finding female millennial influencers
Through Later’s 20+ influencer search filters, customizable data points and advanced audience insights, Ste Michelle Wine Estates was able to easily find their target influencer persona: female millennials.
It was important to recruit influencers with an audience that was 71.6% over the age of 21, complying with FTC guidelines.
Ste Michelle Wine Estates activated influencers to create content, ratings and reviews, and research in a variety of creative ways.
- By sending influencers products pre-launch, the brands were able to conduct product research and directly implement those findings into their product design and development.
- With the industry’s very best product photographers charging roughly $ 10,000 per day rates, the company instead had influencers photograph the product to repurpose for their website and social channels.
- Influencers were also asked to provide ratings and reviews for each product, allowing the brand to impact consumers at pivotal decision-making moments.
Streamlining processes with Later
Using Later’s influencer marketing platform, brands were able to easily review influencer drafts and concepts and give feedback. This feature also allowed them to ensure and maintain brief, legal, and FTC compliance. This was important because Instagram has strict community guidelines surrounding alcohol advertising. Draft reviews allow for responsible representation of the brand.
The brands were able to securely pay and manage influencers’ cash incentives through Later’s PayPal integration and send products with the push of a button.
Through Later’s integration with PowerReviews, Ste Michelle Wine Estates was able to syndicate high-quality content and reviews across their website and drive higher conversion rates and sales.
The Later software allowed Ste Michelle Wine Estates to save time and gather real-time automatic campaign reporting & analytics, allowing the brand managers to uncover best practices and benchmarks, which were then applied across brands. Since this was being done at scale (across 8 brands), learnings were streamlined and implemented at a much faster pace than they would have been outside of a streamlined platform.
The Results
Gaining efficiencies & scaling influencer programs
1,821
Content Assets Created
120M
Total Reach
12M
Organic Impressions
808K
Total Organic Engagements
365
Product Reviews
4.7
Avg Star Rating
Ste Michelle Wine Estates not only scaled their content creation but streamlined their fragmented influencer programs. In doing so, they saved 988.8 hours and $77,715, gaining time and budget efficiencies.
Ste Michelle Wine Estates obtained 1,821 content assets created by Influencers, which totalled 12M impressions and 808K engagements.
Equally impressive, the brand improved its product reviews and star ratings. Specifically, they were able to garner 365 product reviews generated by influencers with a 4.7 average star rating.
Ste Michelle Wine Estates was also able to expand into different types of influencer activations and content while maintaining quality. This allowed the brand to create the breadth and depth of content required to raise brand awareness among its target audience by influencing multiple consumer touchpoints with authentic and trusted content.
Ultimately, the team was able to prove that with Later’s advanced all-in-one platform, they could drive efficiency while also scaling and growing their 8 brand programs under the Ste Michelle Wine Estates umbrella.