Tiege Hanley's Influencer Marketing Journey and Lessons for Your Brand

Tiege Hanley is a skincare brand that has made a significant mark in the men's grooming industry. Founded with the goal of providing straightforward, effective skincare products for men, Tiege Hanley has simplified the often complex world of skincare with its uncomplicated approach. 

But it's not just the skincare routine that they've simplified. They've also adopted a simple, but sustainably growing influencer marketing approach. 

This post is a masterclass in learning how Tiege Hanley runs its influencer marketing so you can walk away with tried-and-tested strategies for your own DTC brand — not just a skincare brand — and grow your sales.

🎉 Starting with a mega influencer for an unfair advantage

When founders Kelly Thornton and Rob Hoxie initially started on a mission to curate the finest skincare products, it wasn't going so well.  They soon realized that they needed an unfair advantage to propel their brand and beat the competition. 

That's when Aaron Marino's work caught their attention. Aaron runs a popular YouTube channel called Alpha M. He has successfully carved a niche in the skincare and lifestyle arena, educating men about health, fitness, and, importantly, skincare.

Rob Hoxie reached out to Aaron saying, “Hey, we’ve got this thing going on, and we’re trying to educate guys how to take care of their skin, and make it easy for them.” 

This straightforward, sincere approach probably struck a chord with Aaron. 

But it wasn't about a one-off endorsement or a paid promotion. Tiege Hanley offered him a stake in the company, making him a co-founder. Aaron's involvement gave the brand instant credibility and access to a vast audience that trusted his opinions and recommendations.

And now he's making videos for Tiege Hanley's channel as well — 

💡 Takeaways for you:

Good influencers are passionate about what they endorse. They want to create genuine value for their audience. For brands looking to collaborate with influencers, the key lies in finding someone who resonates with your brand's ethos and is sincere in their advocacy.

Don't chase only numbers or metrics. You also need to look for a shared vision & genuine interest in the topics that your target audience cares about. 

To find influencers that align with your brand, try SARAL. 

In SARAL, you input what you're looking for, like "natural skincare" or "makeup artist," and with a few clicks, the tool sifts through loads of influencer profiles. It pulls up a list of influencers who match your criteria, and you can save them all in one easy-to-handle list without any copy-pasting!

This way, you can ditch the messy spreadsheets and adopt a tidy, easy-to-use system.

To vet the influencers — whether they have enough engagement and 'die-hard fans' who listen to them, try SARAL's free Chrome extension. It allows you to see influencer's stats, and even predict a fair fee to pay.

🤳 Flexibility to creators, with a few creative guidelines

I've watched around 15 to 20 videos on TikTok where creators were showing off Tiege Hanley's skincare stuff, and there's this interesting pattern I noticed. In every single one, they show the product box when introducing the brand, followed by a display of individual items. 

What's cool is that each creator has their spin on it. Some talk about their skincare routine, others might chat about how to look more attractive, or what essentials guys should keep in their bathroom.

Here are some examples — 

Tiege Hanley appears to grant creators a degree of creative freedom, allowing them to choose their content's theme. This autonomy is balanced with specific guidelines. For example, there's a consistent presentation of the product. Influencers are required to feature the product prominently in their videos. Or they abstain from labeling the products as cheap and avoid disparaging other brands.

💡 The takeaway here is – when you're collaborating with influencers, you don't want to box them in with a rigid script. You can give them the value proposition, some pointers, or topics to touch on, but let them pick what resonates with them. You can also set some boundaries, like Tiege Hanley does by insisting the products shouldn't be called cheap.

💰 A simple creator offer

Influencers receive a commission when someone buys Tiege Hanley's products with the influencer's unique links. The commission is a percentage of the sale —  20%, and the cookie duration is 14 days. This means that if someone clicks on an influencer's unique link and purchases within two weeks, the influencer earns a commission.

This is a simple creator offer. There are no perks, special treatment, tier-based systems, or community-building. 

For a brand in its early stages, such simplicity can be advantageous. It allows for a direct and uncomplicated entry into influencer marketing for the brand. It also makes it easy for influencers to start promoting products right away.

But when a brand grows and wants to scale its influencer marketing program, it needs to offer additional perks — exclusive content, early access to new products, or higher commission tiers for top performers. These additional layers of incentives can make influencers feel more valued and connected to the brand's success, potentially leading to more enthusiastic and sustained promotion.

💡Takeaways for any DTC brand doing influencer marketing: 

Implementing a commission-based model for influencer partnerships can be cost-effective and align promotion efforts with actual sales, offering clear ROI. As a brand develops, enhancing this model with additional incentives can deepen influencer relationships and drive sustainable growth.

You can also create a specific landing page where you put down all the details related to the influencer marketing program using SARAL. No coding knowledge is required. Customize it with your copy, images, and brand color palette. Publish in a few minutes and share it.

🔗 Unique links for influencers

When an influencer is approved to join the brand's influencer marketing program, they receive a unique link that they can share with their audience. This link is specially coded to track sales that are generated from the influencer's promotion efforts.

The brand gains new customers and increased sales, while the influencer earns a share of the profits generated from their promotion.

For Tiege Hanley, all the influencers' unique links took me to a landing page where the promotional deal is pre-applied. 

This approach is efficient because it removes several steps that a customer would typically go through to find and apply a discount. The brand not only increases the likelihood of conversion but also enhances the user experience. 

You can generate unique links for your influencers & do much more using SARAL — an all-in-one influencer marketing platform. It will also generate a unique coupon code along with the link so the influencers can choose whichever they want to use. 

📸 Leveraging influencer-generated content

Using influencer content on a brand's social media means taking the photos, videos, and reviews that influencers create and sharing them on the brand's own channels.

And Tiege Hanley has adopted this approach to stay active on social media, and share content that resonates with their target audience while keeping the cost of production low. 

When you scroll through Tiege Hanley's TikTok, you'll notice a bunch of different people in their videos. This is because the brand has collected videos from a variety of influencers. Each influencer talks about the products in their own way, which means lots of different people can see someone they relate to, using the products.

Looking at a specific example.

@ daveperrotta is a creator on TikTok. He has made a bunch of videos promoting Tiege Hanley. This content is tailored to his style, and has angles that his audience likes. 

Separately, for Tiege Hanley’s brand account, he produced different content that aligns with the brand's marketing strategy. 

💡 Here's the takeaway for you — 

Creators know what content will captivate their audience—they're the experts at this. They often handle the production themselves, bringing down the overall cost of your marketing efforts. So partnering with them for content can be a cost-effective strategy for your brand. 

But how do you keep track of the content being created for your brand?

One solution is — SARAL's social listening feature. 

It allows brands to monitor social media for mentions, tags, and hashtags related to their products. With this, you can: 

• Track where and how often your brand is mentioned across social media platforms.
• Analyze the performance of content that mentions your brand.
• Gather data on audience engagement with influencer content.

Try SARAL for free here and check out this feature & many more that help DTC brands run a smooth influencer marketing program right from finding influencers to maintaining relationships with them. 

👉 Final Thoughts & takeaways for you

Here's a quick refresher on the key points to keep in mind as you start your influencer marketing program or improve on an existing one: 

1. Choose influencers who genuinely align with your brand's mission and audience, as they'll likely be more effective than those with just a large following.
2. Allow influencers some freedom to create content in their own style, which can make their endorsements more authentic and engaging.
3. Implement a straightforward commission-based approach for compensating influencers, and think about offering additional incentives as your brand evolves.
4. Utilize unique tracking links for influencers to simplify sales tracking and enhance the customer experience.
5. Repurpose content created by influencers on your brand's social media platforms to diversify your content and maximize your marketing budget.

One thing that's clear from Tiege Hanley's influencer marketing approach is that they might not be the most creative or have the most budget out there but they're executing their program pretty well. It's because they have the right tools — SARAL — to bring their strategy to life. 

Designed with DTC brands in mind, SARAL offers a comprehensive solution for your influencer marketing needs.

From identifying the perfect influencer matches to monitoring your campaign's impact, SARAL equips you to handle all aspects of influencer marketing with ease. It's about working smarter, not harder, allowing you to concentrate on nurturing influencer relationships and making informed strategic choices.

Curious to see how SARAL can transform your influencer marketing journey? Test the waters with a free trial. Explore its features, experience the support, and even kick off a campaign. If it doesn't elevate your marketing game, you can cancel anytime. But who knows? It might just be the game-changer you've been searching for.