How Melinda Maria Drove Millions in Attributed Revenue With Nano & Micro-Influencers
We are really proud of the growth of the ambassador program this past year. We attribute a lot of this success to the personalization available with things like the storefront capabilities, as well as the positive and genuine relationships that we have formed with our creators. The support of the LoudCrowd team has been instrumental in providing great service and a positive experience for our community.
Context
L.A.-based jewelry brand Melinda Maria believes that fashion should be fun and luxury should be accessible. Over the last few years, the brand developed a loyal community of passionate customer advocates and influencers.
Melinda Maria had seen success working with one-off influencers and gifting key customer advocates but wanted to scale their efforts into a word-of-mouth marketing engine. Its goal was to gift key creators, achieve more cost-efficient impressions, and support their biggest brand advocates in driving as much attributable revenue as possible.
Solution
Melinda Maria engaged LoudCrowd to develop an ambassador program. After being accepted, members receive a voucher for a welcome gift, a bespoke affiliate code, and a personal, shoppable Creator Storefront on melindamaria.com.
Creator Storefronts
Any member can completely personalize their Creator Storefront, curating special collections, looks, or edits of their favorite Melinda Maria products. UGC from Instagram or TikTok automatically populates onto the Storefront, where creators tag featured products to create shoppable UGC. Creators reference their Storefront in posts to their followers, delivering a seamless transition between browsing social media and shopping on melindamaria.com.
Community & Incentives
Through this ambassador program, Melinda Maria strengthened its community of brand advocates, who now participate in monthly virtual workshops, in-person meet-ups, and exclusive social media groups to share content and sales tips. Members can earn additional vouchers for posting and tagging Melinda Maria on Instagram and TikTok, as well as commission on sales through their Creator Storefront and affiliate code. Exceptional creators can graduate into more exclusive program tiers with upgraded incentives like higher commission percentages.
Results
In its first year, the program excelled at driving both revenue and content, as well as fostering a passionate community of brand ambassadors.
Revenue
All ambassadors were given Creator Storefronts to drive traffic to the site and affiliate codes to incentivize customer conversions. In its first year, the program generated over $1.5M in direct, measurable sales through 1,700+ creators. Conversion rates on Storefronts are 4.5X higher than the rest of the eCommerce site, and AOV is 29.8% higher than the rest of the site, contributing to a 7.4X ROI.
Content
While the program developed an extremely strong conversion funnel for creator-driven traffic, creator engagement also increased significantly. In one year, total UGC from Instagram and TikTok grew 3X — an extra 1.4K posts and 13M impressions per month — with impressions now at an average CPM of $5.29, a massive improvement from the $40–$50 average in the industry. Specifically, 86% of this additional content per month comes from the program’s brand ambassadors. The value of such content hit over $4.8M in earned media value, resulting in dramatic gains in Melinda Maria’s brand awareness.