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Recently, big brands, from fast food to retail, have relied on celebrities to drive revenue and appeal — particularly among young consumers. The effect can be dramatic: One month after McDonald’s introduced the Travis Scott meal, sales spiked 10%. The Shaquille O’Neal pizza helped Papa John’s raise more than $3 million for charity. As fragrance ambassador of Bleu de Chanel, Timothée Chalamet is expected to majorly contribute to the growth of the Chanel brand, indicative of the overall growth of the global men’s fragrance market, which is expected to be up to $19.6 billion by 2025.
The impact is clear: Celebrity partnerships can be extremely valuable to brands. However, before capitalizing on various trends, it’s important first to understand the types of celebrities that best fit your brand, why partnering with smaller influencers may be more feasible (but just as impactful), and how providing influencers with memorable new web addresses can help capture their audiences.
Related: How Celebrity Partnerships Can Take Your Brand to the Next Level
Identify celebrities who align with your brand
The first step in finding a celebrity marketing partner is to familiarize yourself with the celebrities whose brands best match your own. For example, if your organization sells skin care products, a celebrity known for having a diligent skincare regimen could be a smart choice. If you’re in the B2B space, consider collaborating with a celebrity entrepreneur to build a mutually beneficial partnership with their brand.
The key is to make sure that the celebrity’s target demographic and values align with your own. Any misalignment can alienate audiences, making the choice of who to partner with a crucial one.
For instance, when Microsoft debuted the Surface, they partnered with Oprah Winfrey to generate buzz. The collaboration famously backfired when Winfrey tweeted about the device from her iPad — evident in the “via Twitter for iPad” text in the corner of the tweet. Had Microsoft selected a celebrity who already believed in their product, they could have prevented a PR nightmare.
Related: Are Influencers Actually Influential?
Partner with influencers to capture their dedicated audiences
Of course, smaller brands have a more limited budget and reach, and forming partnerships with widely known celebrities may be too expensive. If you’re among these brands, influencer partnerships offer a more affordable avenue to engage with your audience.
Whether through Instagram, YouTube or TikTok, influencers forge close connections with their audiences. Since these audiences are typically smaller than those of traditional celebrities, influencers will cost less while still delivering the opportunity to engage with your target audience directly. Additionally, they can be perceived as more trustworthy and provide micro-niche content that may be more relevant to a brand.
Educating influencers about your business is essential to a successful partnership. After identifying who you’d like to work with, create a toolkit that explains your brand, offerings and value proposition. The document can also provide a suggested script or talking points for the content they create. While not guaranteed, some influencers may promote your business for free if you send them complimentary products, increasing brand awareness among their audience. For these reasons, 93% of marketers have used influencer marketing as part of their brand strategy to help grow their business.
Related: What Is Gen Z’s No. 1 Career Choice? Social Media Influencer
Equip influencer partners with memorable new web addresses
After identifying and partnering with influencers, you need a way to quickly direct their audiences to your website, where they can engage more closely with your brand and make purchases. Long web addresses can be difficult for influencers to say on camera, especially when they’re limited by video or audio length constraints. Complex web addresses also pose a challenge on platforms like Instagram that don’t allow users to add links to post captions. A lengthy domain name ultimately reduces the likelihood that audiences will find or remember a website once they leave the platform.
One way to solve these issues is to give influencer partners a new web address associated with your brand and website. Alternative domain names like .info, .pro and .world feature memorable keywords before and after the dot. These can help influencers and audiences quickly understand and memorize your brand’s name, offerings, value and more.
Related: 4 Secrets to a Successful Influencer Partnership
New web addresses are also quick and easy for influencers to remember and speak aloud throughout their YouTube videos, Instagram reels, TikToks and more. Influencers can prominently display these shorter addresses in their photos, videos, captions, and biographies on social media. What’s more, new web addresses allow organizations to thread more keywords into their domain name, potentially benefiting their search engine optimization ranking.
With celebrities and influencers serving as brand ambassadors, you can connect with entirely new audiences. By arming these partners with memorable new web addresses, your brand becomes even more recognizable, increasing the likelihood that you’ll stick in the minds of celebrities, influencers and fans for years to come.
