Product seeding is a marketing approach in which brands provide free products to influencers, creators, or potential supporters without asking for payment or a promise of promotion. The aim is to generate genuine interest, inspire organic content, and create authentic word-of-mouth excitement among their audience.
Its positive results will bring sales to your business. By sending products as thoughtful gifts, brands plant the seed of awareness. When creators love the product and share it naturally, it increases brand visibility, builds trust with their followers, and leads to website visits, search interest, and ultimately, purchases.
Product seeding examples from ecommerce brands
Leading brands today utilize product seeding to enhance their influencer initiatives. By pinpointing influencers who share their core values, these brands can provide products in return for quality content, fostering connections with preferred creators that frequently result in lasting collaborations.
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MVMT Watches
MVMT Watches, known for its sleek and modern designs, used product seeding as a key way to launch and grow their influencer marketing program.
Ethan Frame – MMT Watches’s former influencer marketing manager focused on finding creators who matched MVMT’s brand style. He personally reached out, sent them a free watch, and built a relationship over time. Once the creators received the product and liked it, they naturally shared photos wearing the watch with their followers.
This approach of gifting without pressure, building trust, and letting content happen organically helped MVMT scale their program into one of the most successful influencer marketing efforts in the space.
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GoPro
GoPro’s small, mountable lenses are ideal for the travel and extreme sports creators that the brand typically focuses on for its product promotion efforts. The company motivates its creator partners to utilize its “action cameras” to produce impressive content for their audiences.
In January, the brand supported the Natural Selection Tour in Jackson, Hole, Wyoming. Four out of the 24 top riders on the tour represented the GoPro Snow team, each outfitted with ample GoPro equipment to capture every moment of their thrilling adventure.
Benefits of Product Seeding
1. Authentic Exposure
People are increasingly wary of paid promotions. When a creator chooses to share your product experience voluntarily, it feels more natural and credible. This kind of exposure resonates better with audiences and builds stronger brand trust.
2. Cost-Effective Marketing
Product seeding can be more budget-friendly compared to paid influencer partnerships. While not every recipient will post about your product, those who do offer high-value promotion—often at a fraction of traditional advertising costs.
3. Valuable Product Feedback
Seeding lets you test your product with real users. Their comments, praise, or even criticisms can be invaluable for refining your offering before a major launch.
4. Boosts Word-of-Mouth
Humans are social creatures. When someone talks about your product—especially someone influential—it encourages others to try it too. This ripple effect can significantly widen your reach, especially in niche communities.
5. Generates User-Generated Content (UGC)
One of the best outcomes of product seeding is the organic creation of content: unboxings, styling videos, product demos, and reviews. These assets can be repurposed in ads, featured on your website, or shared across your social media for added credibility.
6. Builds Long-Term Relationships
Seeding isn’t just about short-term buzz. It’s about starting genuine relationships with creators, customers, and advocates. Some of the strongest brand ambassadors start from a simple product gift.
How product seeding works
While the concept may seem straightforward, having a well-defined plan and established processes is crucial for executing a successful product seeding campaign.
Follow these steps to maximize the effectiveness of your product seeding efforts:
Find the right influencers
Brands should seek out the right influencers for partnerships. It’s important to find individuals who naturally incorporate your brand’s products into their daily routines. By carefully selecting the right creators, you increase the chances that the influencer will genuinely value your product and be open to promoting it.
To support the finding process, you can consider using influencer search tools.
Get to know the influencer
Before deciding to send a free product right away, don’t just look at an influencer’s latest content. Investigate different pots, blogs, comments, and online engagement and understand what that influencer í all about and which products are best to send them.
Including specific details that demonstrate your understanding of an influencer can enhance your chances of making a successful connection. A great approach for warm outreach is to reference something personal from their previous content and explain why your brand believes they would value the product.
Pro tips: Keep an eye out for any warning signs. Spend some time reviewing the influencer’s profiles to make sure they haven’t shared anything inappropriate, controversial, or discriminatory in the past.
Build Genuine Connections
Influencers who value authenticity aren’t interested in salesy messages—especially from brands that haven’t taken the time to understand them. Instead of sending a generic pitch, show that you’ve engaged with their content. Mention a recent post, story, or caption they’ve shared to prove that your outreach is personal, not part of a mass message.
Send a gift
While it’s easy to assume anyone would be thrilled to receive a free product, it’s always more respectful to ask first. Take the time to choose a product that truly fits the influencer’s style or interests, and personalize the gift when possible—it makes a difference.
Avoid Pushing for Immediate Results
Don’t expect instant returns from your product gift. Giving the influencer space to genuinely experience your product can lead to a more natural connection—and in turn, more authentic content. Let the relationship unfold on its own.
Nurture the Relationship
Don’t stop at the shipment. Stay connected after sending the product. Reach out casually to ask how they’re enjoying it or if they have any questions. Keep your tone warm and conversational—fostering a real relationship, not just a transaction.
Ease into the Ask
Once there’s mutual rapport and interest, you can begin hinting at content opportunities. There’s no need to ask for tags or mentions right away. Any organic content that features your product—whether it’s worn, used, or shown—is valuable. If the connection is strong, creators will often share content voluntarily.
Grow into a Partnership
If the influencer shares your product and response is positive, consider expanding the collaboration. You can begin planning recurring content together, or explore opportunities like affiliate links, brand shout-outs, or joint campaigns. This is where product seeding evolves into a long-term influencer relationship.
Smart ways to send products to creators
A successful product seeding campaign isn’t just about gifting—it’s about building meaningful, strategic relationships. Here’s how to make every product you send feel intentional, valuable, and worth sharing.
Personalize Your Outreach
Avoid mass DMs or generic messages. Instead, research each creator beforehand and tailor your message to reflect why you’ve chosen them. Mention specific content you enjoyed, explain how your product aligns with their audience, and show genuine appreciation for their work. Personal touches make creators more open to collaborations—even if unpaid.
Nurture Relationships & Offer Incentives
Don’t stop at the first gift. Continue engaging with their content, send thank-you notes after they post, and keep them in the loop for future campaigns. When possible, offer value beyond the product—early access, affiliate codes, or cross-promotions. The goal is to make them feel like a brand partner, not just a one-time recipient.
Streamline Product Seeding With An Influencer Marketing Platform
Managing multiple creators – let alone dozens or hundreds – can quickly become chaotic without the right system in place. That’s where influencer marketing platforms like Aspire, Upfluence, or Collabstr come in. These tools help centralize your creator relationships, automate outreach, simplify product shipping, and track content performance—all from one dashboard. Instead of juggling spreadsheets and DMs, you’ll gain a streamlined workflow that saves time, reduces errors, and scales with your brand.
By working smarter, not harder, you can focus on what really matters: building genuine partnerships and growing your community through authentic website content.
Pro Tip: Turn Buzz Into Traffic
Once your seeding campaign is live and creators start generating content, make sure curious potential customers can actually find you.
You can consider some SEO tools like Ahrefs, SearchPie, SEO Booster to help optimize your website’s SEO, so all that new attention translates into real search visibility, traffic and sales. Keep the energy going beyond social media—boost it with search.
Final Thoughts
Product seeding in 2025 is more than just gifting—it’s about building real connections that lead to lasting impact. By choosing the right creators, personalizing your outreach, and nurturing relationships, brands can turn simple gifts into trust, visibility, and long-term sales.
With smart tools and a thoughtful approach, one product can spark conversations, content, and customer loyalty. Start small, seed with purpose—and watch it grow.