How ASOS and Boohoo Mastered Influencer Marketing

Strategic marketer Madeline George shares her expert insights on the ever-evolving world of influencer marketing, drawing from over 15 years of experience with industry giants like ASOS and boohoo. Discover how Madeline’s innovative strategies can help build brand awareness, drive engagement, and create impactful campaigns. From the rise of Instagram to the launch of TikTok, Madeline’s got the scoop on leveraging influencers to elevate your brand. Ready to unlock the secrets of influencer marketing with Madeline? Let’s dive in!

Influencer marketing is a new marketing channel that is constantly evolving, and one that is now a mandatory part of every brand strategy. We see this as a “new” channel, however in a traditional sense, brands have been using “influencers” for as long as we can remember, just in the form of celebrities on billboards and TV. The medium is new (social media), and the diversity has broadened (essentially anyone with a following).

he challenge for brands right now is efficient and effective execution, level of investment, measurable success, and on-brand content. Having worked in influencer marketing for quite some time now, I’ve watched the rise of Instagram, the launch of TikTok, the progression of formats, the access to analytics, and the ever-evolving ways to push the content boundaries.

Brands shouldn’t be scared of this channel, though. Hopefully the information I’ve shared below helps even slightly, so you can get started and learn as you go. A low barrier to entry is using a gifted strategy, and #gifted is a great platform that is helping brands manage this type of execution at a relatively low cost and risk.

What do you think the key things are for any marketing manager to incorporate into their influencer strategy in 2024/25?

Your influencer marketing strategy needs to be tiered, hitting a variety of gifted, micro, mid and marco influencers to ensure audience cut through. Secondly, how you use this content across your channels needs to be integrated across multiple touch points so that there is creative consistency and frequency of credibility.?

An influencer strategy isn’t just the talent posting on their channels; it’s more about content creation across their channels, your channels (owned, paid, earned) and how you can use these faces to improve reputation and social proof.?

How should brands think about influencers as part of their marketing mix?

Businesses should see influencers primarily as a brand channel, and secondly a conversion channel. We are setting ourselves up for failure if we execute an influencer strategy and expect a direct sales response. Influencers are there to build your brand; awareness, credibility, engagement, experience, education, and in result, this will sell. If we try to use them as a performance channel, it’s like putting a square peg in a round hole. It’s not authentic, it’s obvious, and it doesn’t build trust with the consumer.

"Businesses should see influencers primarily as a brand channel, and secondly a conversion channel. We are setting ourselves up for failure if we execute an influencer strategy and expect a direct sales response."

How did ASOS and boohoo use influencers & content creators? What were the key learnings

ASOS was an early adopter of influencer marketing. We had a really interesting strategy, whereby we hired a community of influencers, gave them ASOS branded handles, and employed them part time - named #ASOSinsiders. It was a brilliant activation, and was integrated really well across our website content, EDMs, and sometimes throughout product and campaigns.?

"Boohoo on the other hand, was built on influencer marketing!"

The entire brand strategy centred around influencers, and hit all tiers across micro, mid, and macro. We had an always on approach whereby budgets were split between long term ambassadors, micro programmes, influencers for specific messages (curve, denim etc), and macro faces that would front our entire brand campaign. In Australia, we always localised these faces and used well-known Australian influencers, like Tammy Hembrow, and integrated this really well across all touchpoints; website, EDM, OOH, paid media, PR.

The biggest takeaways from both of these mega brands, was just to get going. Don’t overthink it, don’t try to over-measure it, and don’t try to make it perfect. You can improve along the way, but you don’t want to be left behind.

What are the common mistakes you see brands making with social media?

Over-briefing influencers. They know what works on their channels. Give them key messages, do’s/don’ts, a few creative references, and let them come up with the concepts. 9/10 this will perform far better than if you give them a tight brief - it's inauthentic and people see through this.

"Consumers don’t want to see polished content anymore; they want relatable and entertaining content - something that makes them laugh, educates them, inspires them, not makes them feel like they can’t achieve a certain look or lifestyle."

How do marketing, PR & digital work together within an organisation? Who owns what and what's the successful formula?

Having recently started my own business, mgmworks, I now operate as a Fractional Marketer guiding businesses on their brand and marketing strategies. I like to say one of my strengths is the ability to see the whole picture, and create a vision of how each department and channel fits together. I am a huge believer that all channels need to be aligned and firing, for maximum impact. Marketing, PR and Digital are all directly linked and having one central road map and marketing calendar is crucial for coming together. Each channel needs to be accountable for their execution, but this needs to ladder up to the overarching strategy, often implemented and driven by a Head of Marketing / CMO type figure. Without PR you don’t have credibility. Without digital you don’t capture existing demand. Without marketing you don’t build a brand; they are all interconnected and need to work together seamlessly.?

Recently brands have believed they can grow solely on digital platforms; Meta, Google etc. This is not the case. Digital marketing is not the golden child anymore - it doesn’t return like it used to, the CPAs are expensive, the competition is high, and ultimately it doesn’t build a brand. It doesn’t give an experience to a customer, added value, or grab them on multiple touch points. The way we consume media is so fragmented; we need to hit consumers on multiple channels simultaneously to have an impact, and ultimately, we need to add value to their lives.

How should a brand think about growing their own social channels, is this important, if so why?

Yes, it’s important. Your social channels are your shop window, as I like to call it. It’s the first impression of your brand. Growth needs to come from a considered content strategy and pillars, frequency of posting, influencer marketing, partnerships and strong community management.

What tools are essential in your arsenal?

Using easy to digest metrics to calculate success, which mostly have been taken from my boohoo days. CPP = cost per post… if you send out PR packs to influencers, 40% of the talent might post. Take the cost of PR packs / by number of posts received. I can guarantee you this will be cheaper than paying for those gifted posts. We used these metrics with our events at boohoo, too. Cost of event / number of posts = CPP. Again, I can guarantee you this is far more cost effective than paying the influencer to post, plus you get to provide an experience to drive WoM and brand association.?

Level Up Your Influencer Strategy with #gifted: Streamline Gifting and Boost Your Brand's Social Buzz

Loved Madeline's insights? Take your influencer game to the next level with #gifted. Our app makes influencer gifting a breeze, connecting you with the right influencers and streamlining the entire process. Forget the hassle of building databases—#gifted lets you gift on mass, creating amazing social buzz and user-generated content you can use across all your channels. Ready to make an impact? Sign up to #gifted now and start transforming your brand’s social presence. If you’d like to have a chat about influencer marketing, or marketing and brand strategy in general, please get in touch at [email protected]