How Freja Managed 800+ Influencer Partnerships and Daily Influencer Posts with SARAL

Freja, a UK-based company with Norwegian roots, is on a mission to bring nutritious, additive-free bone broths back to household kitchens.

Founded by Ed and Jess, a husband-and-wife team frustrated with the lack of healthy fast food options, Freja has quickly gained recognition for its award-winning, cupboard-friendly broths.

We interviewed Hanna and Tamsin from Freja to delve into their marketing strategies and discover how they've leveraged influencer partnerships to fuel their growth.

Here’s what we found out →

Why Influencer marketing : The power of UGC

When Freja started growing their Instagram followers, they noticed something interesting - without prompting, people were sharing posts about their brand. It was organic UGC at its best. This unexpected delight sparked an idea that would shape their marketing strategy.

"How can we make more of this happen? We want to tell more people about our brand, but we don't want to . We're not ready for that yet."

They had a few goals:

• Spread the word about Freja Foods
• Create some FOMO among the right niche
• Get more people talking about them

One of Freja's founders saw another brand popping up all over Instagram. They wanted that too.

So, Hanna took an influencer marketing course and got the show running. But here's where it got tricky...

Hanna found herself stuck with spreadsheets, writing down every little detail about potential influencer partners. First names, last names, what they like, their birthdays, upcoming events - it was a LOT of work.

The team knew there had to be a better way.

After toying with a few other tools (read: very expensive tools), Freja turned to SARAL.

Let’s dive into their strategy and how SARAL helped them onboard more than 800 influencers and get influencer-generated content daily!

Initial Strategy: Volume and Simplicity

Freja began their influencer marketing journey with a simple approach:

1. Reach out to as many influencers as possible
2. Send them products as gifts
3. Gently nudge them to post

One challenge Freja faced was identifying UK-based influencers.

They turned to SARAL's discovery tool for help:

The discovery tool was really helpful, particularly because we weren't so bothered about follow numbers. The location was more important for us. It was so time consuming to manually go through profiles and check if they live in the UK. It was a long, long manual process.

This saved Freja significant time in finding the right influencers.

How To Reach Out To Influencers?

Freja kept their initial outreach simple and pressure-free:

1. A straightforward, friendly message: "Hey, we'd love you to try our product. No strings attached, just let us know the best address."
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2. An easy 'yes' for influencers
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3. Product delivery
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4. An informative follow-up about bone broths and their benefits

We put as few boundaries in place as possible. So they just said yes and we sent it.

Keep The Conversation Going…

Once the initial outreach was established, Freja implemented an email flow:

1. A gentle reminder if no post was seen
2. A follow-up email a week or two later, introducing their affiliate program

This approach, coupled with SARAL's email templates and automated drip campaigns, saved hours of manual work and kept conversations flowing.

Benefits Of High-Volume Product Seeding

This volume-based approach led to some unexpected positive outcomes:

1. Affiliate program growth
   • People started asking about becoming affiliates
   • This became a new avenue for brand promotion
2. Influencer-generated content
   • Product seeding resulted in a ton of good content created by influencers
   • Freja realized they could repurpose this content for ads

Nurturing Relationships and Targeted Campaigns

With the help of SARAL, Freja has successfully onboarded more than 800 influencers! This impressive network has led to a shift in their strategy.

Rather than continuing to focus on volume, they're now focusing on nurturing existing relationships.

We're going to be less about volume and more about nourishing the good relationships that we've started to build.

This approach is particularly helpful in their campaign-based strategy, especially during product launches.

Freja now leverages their existing partnerships. They carefully select from their pool of influencers, choosing those who are the best fit for each specific campaign or product.

For new launches, we've gone quite big on numbers, but it's with people that we already have on our lists. It's made it more straightforward to just go, 'Right, who have we got who's good, who's right for this product?

It allows Freja to maintain the scale they need for successful product launches while also deepening their relationships with influencers who have already shown alignment with their brand.

It's a strategy that combines the best of both worlds: the reach of their large influencer network with the authenticity of established partnerships.

How do they keep track of these relationships? SARAL’s CRM helps them manage everything in place without switching multiple tabs or organising complicated spreadsheets.

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Tamsin shares:

I can track it all in SARAL and I find it the most helpful thing. To be able to see who we've reached out to and what stage the conversation is just brilliant.

Measuring Results And ROI Of Influencer Marketing

Freja has been tracking several key performance indicators (KPIs) since the beginning of their influencer marketing efforts:

1. Weekly Earned Media Value (EMV)
2. Follower Growth
3. Percentage of influencers who post after receiving the product

Hanna admits that these KPIs were initially chosen without much prior experience:

I think because we didn't have anybody on the team who'd done it before, it was a bit of sort of plucking out of the air, right? What should we measure? Let's go with this.

Challenges In Measuring ROI From Influencers

As the brand grows, they're still refining their reporting methods. Hanna explains the difficulty in tracking ROI for influencer marketing:

It's so hard to track ROI because, you know, I mean our sales are up, but I don't know how much of that influencers can claim. It's absolutely part of it, but it's really hard to gauge how much.

Future focus: Website Traffic and Conversions

Moving forward, Freja is looking to measure more specific metrics:

1. Which influencers are driving traffic to the website
2. Whether that traffic is resulting in sales

This shift in focus reflects a desire to more directly link influencer efforts to concrete business outcomes.

While the exact ROI remains challenging to pinpoint, the overall impact of their influencer marketing strategy is clear. With sales up and a steady stream of influencer content being produced, Freja's approach appears to be yielding positive results. The company continues to refine its measurement techniques to better understand and optimize the impact of its influencer partnerships.

Advice For Brands : Freja’s Recipe

We asked Hanna and Tansim what advice they would give to other brands starting their influencer marketing program. Here’s what they shared:

1. Start small, but start now: Begin with manageable goals and scale up.
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2. Focus on genuine relationships: Prioritize authentic connections over transactional interactions.
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3. Don't overlook micro-influencers: Smaller, niche influencers often produce high-quality, engaging content.

Food for thought

Freja's journey shows the power of combining a volume-based approach with genuine relationship-building. By leveraging SARAL and focusing on authentic partnerships, they've created an influencer network that continues to drive growth and engagement.

More than numbers, it's about creating meaningful connections that resonate with your audience and align with your brand values.