How To Use Celebrity Influencers To Promote A StartUp Business

How can I get celebrity influencers to promote my startup business and which celebrity influencers should I reach out to?

celebrity influencers for startups

Looking for celebrity influencers who promote startups?

Let’s face it – we are all, in some ways, manipulated into wanting certain goods because they’re the ‘cool thing to have’ at the time. It’s perfectly natural, and no one can deny their buying decisions aren’t influenced in some way by other people, whether it be friends, family or celebrity interests.

Star attraction

In today’s day and age of social media, we are more interconnected with each other than ever before. While that obviously has its various benefits, when it comes to advertising, it also opens up numerous opportunities for businesses to specifically target consumers with their products.

This is where celebrity influencers prove so important. By arranging endorsement deals with celebrities and social media influencers, advertisers can effectively utilise the huge following that they have, marketing products towards an audience of target consumers.

Just look at the case of Meghan Markle for example. On May 8th 2019, she and her husband Harry made their first public appearance with new son Archie. While this was a highly exciting event in itself, the moment would go on to define the career of Grace Wales Bonner – the British fashion designer who produced the white trench dress that Meghan wore on the day. As a result of the Duchess of Sussex deciding to endorse Wales Bonner’s work, fashion website search inquiries for Wales Bonner shot up by 1633%, proving just how much impact celebrities can sway public opinion.

Twinkle twinkle little start-up

Start-ups, in particular, are becoming more and more reliant on celebrity endorsers to promote their products or services, bringing them into the public eye in an attempt to increase sales. However, to do this effectively, it’s vital to remember that bringing a celebrity in to endorse your product doesn’t necessarily guarantee success, as the case of Pepsi and Kendall Jenner proved back in 2017:

That’s not to say you shouldn’t do it though. When done right, celebrity endorsement can make a huge difference to the success of a company. Take Brazilian footballer Neymar for example. After walking into the Gagà Milano Boutique in Tokyo back in 2017, he fell head over heels for the watch brand, walking away with 16 watches and accessories valued at just over $180,000. These purchases later lead the Brazilian idol to signing a contract with the watchmaker, becoming a celebrity ambassador for the brand. Since then, Gagà Milano’s net value has sky-rocketed.

If you run a start-up business and are looking for your big break, celebrity endorsement could be a highly effective strategy to utilize. But how can you ensure you’re doing it successfully?

Using our helpful tips below, we help show you the way.

  1. Fit the endorser to your product.

First things first, you’re going to need to make sure whoever you choose to endorse your product actually makes sense from a marketing perspective. You wouldn’t ask Cristiano Ronaldo to promote a new lipstick, for instance, or Ariana Grande to endorse a bespoke range of garden gnomes – as funny as that would be. You need to have a coherence between your product and whichever celebrity you choose to endorse it. Otherwise, you won’t see much success – regardless of how famous they might be.

  1. Make sure your product performs.

It’s all well and good advertising your product or service out to the masses but, if it doesn’t perform well, you’ll only be wasting your time and money. Consumers hate feeling like they’ve been scammed, so they will lose a lot of trust in your company if they invest time and money into a product or service that doesn’t deliver. There’s a chance you could lose the endorsement of the celebrity as well, should they realize their fans aren’t responding well to the products they are promoting.

  1. Target scandal-free endorsers.

It may sound fairly obvious but try to avoid using celebrities who could later become involved in a potential scandal or drama. If you know somebody is a particularly controversial figure, either use this to your advantage as Nike did with Colin Kaepernick, or avoid them altogether. When it comes to promoting a start-up business, the last thing you want is to involve yourself in some sort of celebrity drama or scandal.

  1. Avoid endorsers who promote everything.

Some endorsers promote anything and everything, which consumers tend to not respond very well to. Authenticity is vital when it comes to celebrity endorsement – if the influencer you choose to use promotes numerous brands already, you may find that, while you’re getting impressions over their social media channels, you aren’t making a difference to your engagement rate or sales figures. Therefore, think carefully about which celebrity influencer you want to choose.