CUSTOMER STORY Ovation Hair

photo by @alicia_sf

Ovation HairHow Ovation Hair used influencer marketing to discover a record-breaking untapped market

W W W . A S P I R E I Q . C O M A S P I R E I Q , I N C . S A N F R A N C I S C O , C A

C U S T O M E R S T O R Y

Industry:

Beauty & Cosmetics

Overview

A B O U T

Ovation Hair is a luxury haircare brand that provides

customers with high quality, vitamin rich products that are

aimed at stimulating thicker, stronger and longer hair

growth. While their 25 products are available in select

salons, the majority of Ovation’s business relies heavily

on online sales.

T H E C H A L L E N G E

• Identifying and reaching targeted influencers that align

with the brand

• Sourcing large quantities of high quality content

• Streamlining the management workflow and creating

contracts

T H E R E S U LT S

• Substantial increase in sales

• 40K+ clicks to website

• 160+ posts

• 16.8m impressions

Intro

April Bobadilla was brought onto the Ovation team as a

Social Media Manager to promote their Cell Therapy line

of products through word-of-mouth marketing with a

group of targeted influencers. While managing all of the

brand’s owned social channels, April realized there was a

need for large amounts of high quality content. After

attempting to build their influencer program manually,

April realized she would need management and analytics

tools in order to scale and streamline her process.

The Challenge

Ovation Hair showcases several customer testimonial videos and success

stories on their website. The goal of these videos is to provide consumers

with content from people who have actually used Ovation products. Because

of this, it was important for April to have an ample amount of high quality

content that could be repurposed on their website, YouTube channel, and

other owned social media platforms.

“ Almost everything on Ovation’s owned social channels is

repurposed content. We post either user-generated content

or additional content from our influencer collaborations.”

– A P R I L B O B A D I L L A , S O C I A L M E D I A M A N A G E R A T O V A T I O N H A I R

@[email protected]

Because user-generated content can be inconsistent in terms of quality,

partnering with influencers was the perfect approach to generate high

quality content at scale. Like most social media managers, April struggled

with the time-consuming task of scaling influencer marketing in addition to

running multiple social media channels, and performing market research.

April was using Google and Instagram to individually search for and

privately message each influencer she wanted to work with, with little

to no avail.

@citystylescene

@alyssa.lenore

The brand initially hired another competing influencer marketing platform,

in the hopes of connecting with influencers and creating YouTube content.

After waiting 4-6 months to see their first video live, and dealing with issues

with the contract terms, April decided to find a different platform that could

help her manage relationships, contracts, and payment with influencers

directly. That is where AspireIQ came in.

@stylelullaby

@gypsytan

Like many social media managers, April was finding it difficult to identify

the influencers who were the right fit for her brand. In addition to looking

for creators who were on target with Ovation Hair’s aesthetic, April was

looking for people who were authentic, had great quality photography/

videography, and had a targeted audience. When assessing influencers,

she first considers, “would Ovation’s bottle look organic on their feed?”

The Solution

@cp_g

@klumsyclosett

Finding the Right Influencers

@gypsytan

“ I like that with AspireIQ influencers are easily

accessible. People can apply to our campaigns

and I can search through dozens a day. It’s a lot

easier than finding influencers on your Instagram or Google.”


April was able to connect with more influencers than ever by

utilizing AspireIQ Connect. This tool has three key features:

• a filterable database

• an influencer marketplace

• daily influencer recommendations

April uses Revfluence’s search feature to filter through influencers by age,

follower count, and location, as well as specific keywords to find beauty and

lifestyle creators in a fraction of the time that it would take using Google or

Instagram.

@sarahloven

@ammish

Not only does AspireIQ allow brands to reach out directly to

influencers, the marketplace allows influencers to directly apply

to brand collaborations that they are interested in. AspireIQ is

dedicated to helping brands and influencers create long-lasting

relationships. We have found that when an influencer shows

organic interest in a brand first, the content is more likely to be

authentic and natural.

April also uses the AspireIQ recommended feature,

which provides brands with 20 influencers per day based

on machine learning.

@bucketlistbums

@kyleekinns

Revfluence Connect also gives brands the ability to view each creator’s

rating, which is based on reviews from other brands they have worked

with, prior to deciding to move forward with a collaboration. Before

working with AspireIQ, April ran across several influencers who would

submit their content late, or not follow the collaborations terms. Most

brands have a strict content calendar and must ensure that influencers

submit their content in a timely manner. April finds that only working

with influencers who have high ratings has helped her to avoid late

content and other issues that she was experiencing before.

@yvetteg23

@selinalinhle

@gypsytan

“ Whether an influencer needs product sent out

or is awaiting payment, I like that AspireIQ will

automatically alert me if something is due.”


@stylelullaby

@durranipopal

Managing Influencer Relationships at Scale

Now that April was connecting with more influencers than

ever, she knew she would need the tools to manage all of

these relationships. She thinks of AspireIQ's Manage tool as

a “one stop shop” that allows brands to see where each

influencer is during the various stages of a collaboration.

April also loves the fact that she can have a group chat with

multiple influencers to save time without sacrificing individual

attention, relationship building or transparency.

One issue that April was having before AspireIQ was creating and managing

collaboration terms and contracts before content was submitted. When April

was working with another influencer platform, she found that influencers were

not always compliant because contract terms had not been clearly established

at the beginning of the collaboration process. She found that influencers

were deleting sponsored posts, submitting content after it’s due date, or

experiencing issues with payment.

“ When working with AspireIQ the first video collaboration that

went live went up much quicker than any campaigns that we

did with the other influencer platform.”


@sarahloven

@kishmykurls

Revfluence’s Manage provides influencers with a checklist of collaboration

expectations, called “terms,” that is created and sent by the brand based

on an easily customizable template. Revfluence’s dedicated team is

also available to assist with creating collaboration terms and intervene

if necessary to ensure that every party is complying with their contracts.

@bucketlistbums

@jennifer.janelle

After connecting and managing influencer collaborations, one

of the most difficult parts of the influencer marketing process is

determining ROI and knowing which influencers to invest in.

April uses Analyze to compare influencers’ engagement rates in

addition to how much traffic they are driving to the Ovation site.

She also looks at sales data to see how many sales are being

driven by each influencer.

April uses this insight to determine who she should invest in

in the future. Influencers with a high ROI, lower cost per lead,

and high engagement are made a priority for any subsequent

campaigns.

@okevaaa

@onclosetnine

Reporting on Results

The Results

At any given time, April is now working with 50-80 influencers.

Struggling to see just one collaboration come to fruition is no

longer an issue for her.

160+POSTS

WORKING WITH UP TO

80 INFLUENCERS

16.8M IMPRESSIONS

40+KCLICKS TO WEBSITE

@nata_allbuenothings

DISCOVERED A NEW, UNTAPPED

MARKET OF INFLUENCERS AND

CONSUMERS

CUT OVERHEAD TIME IN HALF

SUBSTANTIAL INCREASE IN SALES

Discovering a new market

@manda_lee_smith

Working with dozens of influencers at a time has given April the

ability to test new markets and invest in people who drive the most

conversions. April wanted to ensure that the profile of influencers

that Ovation was working with was diverse, but did not have the

resources to explore new markets until partnering with AspireIQ.

After seeing that curly-haired women spent a considerable amount

of money on hair products, April finally had the opportunity to test

that market, which was different from the profile of influencers

she used previously.

“ Now I want a curly haired girl for every YouTube campaign.

I also want to find that other market that I think will work

well for the brand.” – A P R I L B O B A D I L L A , S O C I A L M E D I A M A N A G E R A T O V A T I O N H A I R

@sarahloven

@theandreahunt

Ovation partnered with curly haired beauty gurus @Thefindguru and @

Sayriajade and the results exceeded expectations by driving around 18k

website visits-- making them “the best performing influencers that Ovation

has ever worked with.”

Ovation typically saw about 40 visits to their influencer landing page per

day. After partnering with multiple curly-haired influencers, there was huge

jump to over 2,500 visits per day in the week after the video went live.

@sarahloven

@yvetteg23

@alyssa.lanore

@lailapari

High Quality Content in a Fraction of the Time

The ability to work with dozens of influencers at once also gives April

ample amounts of content to repurpose on Ovation’s owned channels.

Since beginning to work with AspireIQ, April has noticed an influx of

influencers reaching out on Instagram because they want to be a part

of the Ovation movement.

Sales

Ultimately, the goal of influencer marketing is to generate brand

awareness and drive sales. After running campaigns on AspireIQ,

April was contacted by both her sales and shipping departments, who

were impressed by the increase in sales since starting partnerships

with several influencers.

@sarahloven

C O N T A C T U S

A S P I R E I Q . C O M

“ Even my shipping department noticed we were

selling more influencer cell therapy bottles

than usual after our campaign with AspireIQ.”


@julianna_claire

Documents

CUSTOMER STORY Ovation Hair