The Strategy Behind Bloom's Success
With 1.6 million Instagram followers, 203K YouTube subscribers, and 5.2 million likes on TikTok, it’s safe to say that Bloom’s founder, Mari Llewlyn, knows a thing or two about influencer marketing.
Since 2017, Llewlyn has documented her weight loss journey online, inspiring millions with her story. In 2019, she founded Bloom Nutrition, a wellness brand that offers high-quality greens and superfoods.
Today, Bloom is one of the most popular wellness brands of all time.
Their products go viral on TikTok — regularly. Customers include internet superstars like Alix Earle, and their greens supplements are an Amazon best seller.
Yet these achievements weren’t random strokes of luck. They came from an intentional influencer marketing strategy (fueled by Llewlyn’s insider knowledge) that few brands are able to put in place.
With that influencer marketing strategy in place, Bloom came to Ubiquitous looking to double down on what was working for them. And with the help of our team, they were able to accelerate their trajectory and solidify themselves as a household name — just in time for their feature on Amazon’s homepage.
Here’s the Ubiquitous x Bloom playbook.
Bloom’s Ideal Influencer
When Bloom contacted Ubiquitous, they'd already made a name for themselves. Llewlyn regularly promoted the products to her audiences, and Bloom had a loyal fanbase who raved about their products.
Yet Bloom felt it needed a bit more wind in its sails. They’d recently found out they were going to be featured on Amazon’s landing page, and they wanted to boost their brand awareness to maximize this opportunity.
This meant finding an engaging lifestyle influencer who’d appeal to their target demographic — leading them to discover Gabbie Eagen (bbyegan_).
Eagen was a perfect match. Fun, exuberant, and relatable, her content would resonate with Bloom’s relatively large target audience (women ages 18-35 in the U.S) and attract potential new customers.
“If you’re selling a specific product, you’re going to want to collaborate with influencers that create a specific type of content to attract that specific audience. But if your product isn’t super targeted, it’s more beneficial to go with ‘engaged’ lifestyle creators, whose content is for everyone.” – Jen Steere, Ubiquitous Creator Services
Eagen is part of Ubiquitous’ creator roster, and collaborates with Creator Services to help her negotiate brand deals. Bloom and Ubiquitous connected, and Ubiquitous proposed they start with the “Crawl, Walk, Run” strategy.
They’d begin with a test trial (Eagen would create two videos, one in October and one in November). If things went well they’d double-down on what worked, ramp up production, and go all in.
Bloom agreed and the work began.
Bloom’s Unique Influencer Marketing Strategy
Ubiquitous suggested Eagen and Bloom debut with “integrated videos,” a video format where influencers create content integrating the product rather than creating around it (picture “Get Ready With Me” or “What I Eat in a Day” videos).
These types of videos are powerful for two reasons:
💰 They’re more affordable – time and money-wise – to produce. It’s easier for an influencer to film a video of their day-to-day, rather than come up with an entire concept around the product.
🎥 They honor TikTok’s unspoken advertising rule: “Don’t Make Ads. Make TikToks.” People can smell an ad from miles away. Substituting them for relatable and low-key videos makes for a more compelling and entertaining watch.
Bloom was on board. In fact, the company’s entire marketing philosophy was to embrace creative freedom and place trust in their influencers. With Bloom’s founder being an influencer herself, they knew the value that came with letting them create on their own accord.
Bloom does the opposite of what the majority of other brands do. They don’t rely on traditional influencer marketing, impose restrictions, or try to control the message. They have full confidence that the influencer knows their own audience best.
Before beginning, Bloom sent over a project proposal. It included a few requirements (tag us in the video, show yourself interacting with the product, etc), and this brevity allowed Eagen to quickly get started.
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Graduating From Crawling to Walking
Eagens’ first two videos performed successfully, garnering tens of thousands of views and a reasonable $3.57 CPM.
Bloom decided to graduate from “crawling” to “walking.” They renewed Eagen’s agreement for a four-video campaign in December to prepare for the Holidays.
An already lucrative time for businesses, Bloom had also been preparing for the fact that their Super Greens Powder was soon going to be featured on Amazon’s homepage.
To maximize this opportunity, Bloom equipped Eagen with promo codes, links, and a posting schedule. Then they trusted her to do what she does best: create.
With full creative freedom, Eagen easily made all four videos right on schedule (to the point where even her viewers started to notice!).
Not only this, but Bloom’s flexibility meant Eagen’s content stayed natural, relatable, and intriguing — leading to some of the campaign’s best results yet with a $1.47 CPM and over four million views.
Eagen’s Results – And 3 Critical Lessons
While the campaign generated impressive results, the intangible takeaways were equally impressive. Bloom and Ubiquitous gathered three key learnings from the campaign:
1. Exposure Isn’t Enough: Create Hubbub Around It
The day Amazon put Bloom on its front page, Bloom ran dozens of influencer activations (including the one from Eagen). This push helped Bloom become the #1 Best Seller in Amazon Launchpad, a major achievement. It shows that a golden opportunity isn’t enough – it’s the strategy around it that makes the real difference.
2. Creative Freedom Generates a Positive Cycle
Allowing Eagen creative freedom meant not only faster turnaround times and compelling content, but also established a deeper level of trust between Bloom and Eagen.
Because it was clear Bloom trusted Eagen’s expertise, it created a relationship based on trust and respect. This meant a positive experience for Eagen, who then spread positive word-of-mouth about working with Bloom to other influencers.
“It’s important to remember that influencers often spend hundreds of hours on their pages curating their content. If a brand comes in and asks them to change everything, influencers feel more hesitant to collaborate. But if the brand recognizes the influencers effort – and trusts them — they can lean into that expertise and create standout content.” – Jen Steere
3. Household Brands Don’t Need to Brag
Eagen’s videos didn’t spend more than 20 seconds showcasing Bloom’s products.
Normally, this brief exposure would make any marketer squeamish. Why pay for an influencer if they barely mention the product?
But modern influencer marketing has taught us that natural promotion is the best promotion. Sure, a person who adores a brand might tell you about it from time to time. But the ultimate proof a brand is a household name is when the product is in a person’s home, being used everyday, and is an unquestionable part of their routine.
“Influencers showing their organic day-to-day is a recipe for success. It gives social proof to the brand because if you’re creating content that’s robotic, you can’t tell if the creator actually enjoys it. When the product is integrated naturally, it gives the impression that the influencer genuinely uses this product.” – Jen Steere
Full Speed Ahead
For Bloom, giving their influencers creative autonomy is their competitive advantage.
But creative freedom doesn’t come without trust. And for a brand to trust its influencers, it's important it does two things.
First, the brand must define its target audience to ensure the influencer’s content will resonate with their audience. In Bloom’s case, their product had a large target audience meaning they’d benefit from lifestyle influencers who create broad and mass-appealing content.
Second, the brand does a trial experiment with the influencer before committing. This is a low-stakes way to get a sense of the influencer’s creative direction and how they showcase the brand.
Because if a brand forces an influencer to act a certain way, the resulting video looks like an ad. And if there’s one thing TikTok users do when they see an ad, it’s to run (or shall we say scroll) in the opposite direction.
Today, Bloom has officially graduated from crawling to running full-speed ahead. They locked in Eagen for a subsequent eight-video campaign and are continuing to dominate the internet and Amazon.
Bloom is proof that great influencer marketing boils down to relinquishing control and giving creative freedom to your influencers. Because with a little trust, influencers can mean the difference between irrelevance to a household name.
If you’re looking to use influencer marketing to grow your business, drop us a line. We’d love to see what magic we can create for you. ✨