If you’ve got an Instagram or Snapchat account, you would have definitely seen and heard about the teeth whitening brand taking over the world, HiSmile.
HiSmile is an Aussie owned brand, pioneered by two blokes based in the Gold Coast. The two co-founders Nik Mirkovic and Alex Tomic spoke on ‘The Impact of Creativity’ panel at last week’s Sydney Advertising Week. Offering some great nuggets of knowledge, they detail their use of Snapchat and influencers as means of marketing, and constant goal setting.
Both Alex and Nik explained that they are very open to change, and actually encourage change as a business model. HiSmile was the first brand to produce ads for Snapchat, well before other big companies got on board.
The two believe that engaging with your audience is very important. During their first 6 months in business, Mirkovic and Tomic produced and published an abundance of content aimed at a wide audience, aged anywhere between 15-35. They hoped by promoting to a larger audience, they’d be able to determine which demographic was best fit for their product.
After 6 months of experimentation, they determined that the target market was millennial women aged between 15 and 24 and if they wanted their company to gain market share and succeed, they needed to focus their marketing resources towards this demographic.
They accomplished this through social media marketing, specifically with the clever use of influencers. By getting HiSmile products into the hands and social media pages of influencers in their target demographic, they hoped their followers would soon follow suit.
They discussed executing an influencer strategy during their Advertising Week panel, stating that micro-influencers are 6.7x more effective per engagement than larger influencers and have 22x more weekly conversations than the average consumer. By partnering with micro-influencers, HiSmile were able to increase the effectiveness of their influencer campaign and reach more potential customers, and ultimately grow their business.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BbQnWzqjgJ4/
HiSmile creates an impressive collection of content on social media thanks to their wide network of influencers and through their unique branded content. They are continuing to create buzz worthy content that speaks to millennial’s and HiSmile continues to widen their reach and connect with more potential consumers around the globe. Engaging with their target audience is very important to them and with their engagement strategies, they have managed to expand globally to the USA and doubling their previous sales there.
HiSmile’s approach has long been about doing the unexpected, however, the pair say they knew there was still a massive base of Snapchat users interested in their products. And now, with the increasing popularity of Instagram Stories, there could well be fewer brands spending on the platform to compete with.
HiSmile allows its influencers (there are around 500) to take over their Snapchat stories for the day, documenting their day with no guarantee of their products being featured. Unlike Instagram, there is no pre-approval that the product will be used in their stories. “In any case, you don’t want to push product too much on Snapchat – users hate it,” Mirkovic said.
Add us on Snapchat to watch our HiSmile journey – @hismileteeth
Posted by HiSmile on Monday, June 13, 2016
Although social media has been a significant driver for their business, which has 1.6m Facebook likes and close to 750k Instagram followers, the founders say there is more to the brand’s growth trajectory than just social engagement.
Finding “undervalued” social media marketing opportunities is one thing, with the team working hard to determine gaps across the internet where content is most likely to be seen by potential HiSmile customers.
Mirkovic says “when you have an ‘infinite’ goal, keeping momentum is all about breaking success up into smaller chunks.”
Once a smaller goal has been achieved, the team is focused on the next thing, with Tomic observing that during this high growth period, the company is indulging in self criticism.
“We have been trying to find the things we have been doing incorrectly,” he says.
“Right now is the time to be most critical of ourselves, if we want to be the largest oral cosmetic company in the world.”
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