Q&A: How FabFitFun Leverages Influencer Marketing to Bolster Subscriptions

Influencer marketing is an important part of the marketing mix for most companies, especially those in the retail space. A survey conducted last September by Forbes Insights found that 30.5% of companies worldwide are increasing their focus on influencers as part of the advertising media mix.

Subscription box brand FabFitFun is one of many retailers investing in the space. We recently sat with Leslie Emmons Burthey, vice president of marketing at FabFitFun, to discuss how the company approaches influencer marketing.

Watch the full interview below:

How is FabFitFun leveraging influencers, and do they help drive subscriptions?

One of the key reasons that we work with influencers is [the fact that] they have their own platform—they have their own audience and one of the reasons that they work with us is because they want to bring FabFitFun to their audience. It’s been a great way to fuel our growth by working with different people, showing them our product and then having them educate their world about us.

How do you figure out which influencers you want to work with?

It's twofold. It's both an art and a science. The art part is reaching out to people who we think are cool and resonate with us and say, ‘Hey, let us tell you about FabFitFun,' and finding new ways to work with people that way. We want to unlock new audiences, and being very inclusive with everything that we do is ... very important to us. I'd say the science part of it is that when you talk about influencer marketing as a channel, we're testing that channel just like we'd test any other media channel.

What have you learned from that testing?

One of the key things with influencer marketing, specifically, is to find people who are authentic. And that's the great thing about influencer marketing; it doesn't all look the same. They don't all talk about it the same way, but we want to make sure that they understand our business and can tell their audience about our business. One of the best things about working with influencers is letting them control [the narrative]. They know how to best speak to their audience. And sometimes, things that I might not do or say ... they're educating me as well and telling me why they love the brand and what the value [proposition] is for them. And that's a great learning for me.

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