During the Influencer 2.0 session at the Women in Retail Leadership Circle On the Road | Los Angeles event last month, Amanda Thomas, owner and designer of jewelry company Luv Aj, explained how her most successful collaboration came about. Thomas explained that Luv Aj does a lot of influencer gifting as part of its marketing strategy, and the company has a field during the checkout process in which customers can enter how they’ve heard about the company. Each week, Thomas downloads the data from that field to find out how her customers learn about Luv Aj. One influencer’s name kept appearing over and over again.

“I kept seeing this girl’s name pop up, Amanda Steele, and she was this 18-year-old vlogger that we were gifting,” Thomas said.  It didn’t stop there. Thomas was also getting direct messages from Steele’s fans. “Our DMs would always be like, ‘Oh my god, what earrings was Amanda wearing?’”

Thomas decided to reach out to Steele and capitalize on this influencer opportunity. “I just hit her up and was like, ‘Look, your followers and my customers seem to be really aligned, would you want to do a line together?’” Steele told Thomas that she’d love to collaborate. In fact, she said she already had an entire jewelry line designed in her head.

Thomas and Steele did the collaboration last year, and not only was the experience really fun for the two of them, but Thomas also calls it the best collaboration she’s ever done, by far. The collection sold out within a month, and it’s been restocked six times.

To hear more from Amanda Thomas and the other fabulous panelists, members can click here to watch the full Influencer 2.0: The Rise of Influencer Commerce panel from the 2019 WIRLC On the Road | Los Angeles event.

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