401 – Influencer Marketing – Word of Mouth at Scale with Yash Chavan
I’m sure you’ve seen an influencer on Instagram, TikTok or YouTube share a product, and then their fans all rush out and buy it.
Imagine how that would feel if it were YOUR product being shared!
That’s what today’s episode is all about – how you can multiply the power of word of mouth by working with an established influencer.
Yash is the founder of SARAL – a tool for eCommerce brands that makes finding, managing, and monetizing influencers simple.
He’s an engineer by training, but a marketer at heart. After working various sales jobs, Yash started a marketing agency where he scaled with many brands and software companies to over $1M in annual revenue.
Over the last couple of years, Yash has been focused on the world of influencer-driven marketing and has worked with over 5000 influencers. He created and perfected a 6-step-system that any brand can apply to start and scale a successful influencer program.
Word Of Mouth At Scale With Influencer Marketing
In this episode, you’ll learn …
- What Influencer Marketing is all about
- How this type of marketing is different from other marketing techniques
- Finding the right influencers to work with for your business
- How many influencers should you partner with?
- A simple 6 step process to get started
- Plus lots more ideas to start scaling word of mouth through influencer marketing
Tune in now to hear all the tips & tricks and start scaling your word of mouth through influencer marketing!
Resources Mentioned
Yash’s Contact Links
Website | Instagram | LinkedIn
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Transcript
You're listening to Gift Biz Unwrapped guest episode number 401 Where
Speaker:instead of one customer talking to five of her friends,
Speaker:it's one influential customer talking to 50,000
Speaker:of her fans.
Speaker:Attention Gifters,
Speaker:bakers, crafters and makers pursuing your dream can be fun.
Speaker:Whether you have an established business or looking to start one
Speaker:now you are in the right place.
Speaker:This is Gift Biz Unwrapped,
Speaker:helping you turn your skill into a flourishing business.
Speaker:Join us for an episode packed full of invaluable guidance,
Speaker:resources and the support you need to grow your gift biz.
Speaker:Here is your host Gift Biz Gal Sue Moon Height.
Speaker:Hi there,
Speaker:It's Sue and I am so happy to have you joining
Speaker:me here today.
Speaker:I know you're in the hectic holiday season,
Speaker:so it makes it extra special that you're tuning in.
Speaker:It's this time of year I know you count on for
Speaker:a huge bump in business and along with that comes high
Speaker:activity and all routine flies out the window as you rush
Speaker:to get everything done.
Speaker:I bet right now you're thinking I'm gonna remind you to
Speaker:take care of yourself by eating right and getting enough sleep.
Speaker:That indeed is true.
Speaker:But what I also want to do is reference you back
Speaker:to a podcast episode I did a while ago.
Speaker:It's number 137 titled Five Steps to Merry and Bright Holiday
Speaker:Sales. Now,
Speaker:while this title sounds all light and festive,
Speaker:it's actually a very important show here.
Speaker:I share with you how to keep the momentum of your
Speaker:holiday sales extended into the new year.
Speaker:And the reason I want you to listen to this show
Speaker:now is I explain how to enhance your holiday season all
Speaker:around year over year.
Speaker:So write this episode number down and fit it into your
Speaker:podcast listening plan number 137.
Speaker:It's a shorter show and you can knock it out at
Speaker:double speed if you like.
Speaker:The important thing is you capture the information while you can,
Speaker:which is right in this holiday season.
Speaker:You'll understand what I mean when you listen to the show.
Speaker:I've actually got a lot of goodness coming your way because
Speaker:besides that show,
Speaker:in this episode we're discussing influencer marketing.
Speaker:This could be a new sales approach to dive into next
Speaker:year. The exciting thing about this strategy is that influencers are
Speaker:becoming more and more attracted to smaller brands.
Speaker:They're discovering that people with smaller audiences are more connected to
Speaker:their followers and in turn are more trustworthy as products are
Speaker:introduced and referred to them.
Speaker:This works in reverse two.
Speaker:I've seen the tide changing in this direction over the past
Speaker:year and now's a great time to get an update on
Speaker:how it all works.
Speaker:Today we're gonna be talking with Yas.
Speaker:Chauvin Yas is the founder of cll,
Speaker:a tool for e-commerce brands that makes finding,
Speaker:managing and monetizing influencers simple.
Speaker:He's an engineer by training but a marketer at heart.
Speaker:After working various sales jobs,
Speaker:Yas started a marketing agency where he scaled many brands and
Speaker:software companies to over a million dollars in annual revenue.
Speaker:Over the last couple of years,
Speaker:Yasha has been focused on the world of influencer driven marketing
Speaker:and has worked with over 5,000
Speaker:influencers. He's created and perfected his own six step system that
Speaker:any brand can apply to start and scale a successful influencer
Speaker:program. Yosh,
Speaker:welcome to the Gift Biz Unwrapped podcast.
Speaker:Thanks you.
Speaker:Thanks for having me on.
Speaker:And that was a lovely intro.
Speaker:Let's do it.
Speaker:Good, I'm glad we started it off right.
Speaker:Yeah. One of the things I like to do first with
Speaker:each guest that comes on the show is have you describe
Speaker:yourself in more of a personal way.
Speaker:Okay. And that's through a motivational candle.
Speaker:So if you were to describe for us what a candle
Speaker:would look like that really would speak to you Yosh,
Speaker:what color would it be and like what kind of a
Speaker:saying or feeling or quote would be on your very special
Speaker:candle? I think my candle would be a nice bright orange
Speaker:saffron color,
Speaker:like a very,
Speaker:like the color of the sun when it's rising it's probably
Speaker:gonna be that color and I think they're like too many
Speaker:quotes that I live by.
Speaker:I'm picking one,
Speaker:but I think if I had to do one on the
Speaker:candle it would be boring work leads to extraordinary outcomes.
Speaker:I think a lot of growth is just doing the same
Speaker:thing over and over again.
Speaker:Another non-res background on me,
Speaker:I train mma,
Speaker:especially in sports like jujitsu or even in like martial arts
Speaker:in general.
Speaker:It's a lot about doing the same thing again and again,
Speaker:like practicing the same kick again and again and again until
Speaker:you get it right and it gets boring after the point,
Speaker:but then that's where the progress comes.
Speaker:So I think it applies straight into business as well.
Speaker:Like not everything's gonna be exciting.
Speaker:So you have to get used to the boredom of doing
Speaker:the same thing over and over and over and over again
Speaker:until you see the end result.
Speaker:Right. Cause a lot of the graph is like slow growth
Speaker:until it finally hits.
Speaker:But most people just give up here cause it's too boring.
Speaker:Right. So that'll be my quote.
Speaker:Yeah, that makes me think differently.
Speaker:And we haven't ever talked about it with the word boring
Speaker:before but I think some people just get frustrated because they
Speaker:try something,
Speaker:it doesn't work,
Speaker:it doesn't work,
Speaker:it doesn't work.
Speaker:Or they don't start at all because they don't know what
Speaker:they're doing so they're afraid they're not gonna do it.
Speaker:Right. But to your point about it being boring and just
Speaker:rehearse and do it over and over again and practice until
Speaker:it becomes second nature and you perfect it,
Speaker:that's when you see the results.
Speaker:Exactly. Yep.
Speaker:I think it's both quality and quantity,
Speaker:right? A lot of people focus on like doing their best
Speaker:work, but then yes,
Speaker:you have to do your best work but you also have
Speaker:to do it so many times that everyone else who's doing
Speaker:their best work is like out to work by you and
Speaker:that's how you win.
Speaker:Right. Yeah.
Speaker:I think I'm gonna take this just a little bit of
Speaker:another extension for everyone who's listening who's a maker and hiring
Speaker:somebody in to help make their product,
Speaker:it will take them a little bit of time to get
Speaker:to the point near where your skill level is of being
Speaker:a creator,
Speaker:right? They have to have the creative skill but you have
Speaker:to give them some time to perfect it.
Speaker:Just like Yasha saying some repetition.
Speaker:If they don't do it right the very first time,
Speaker:don't be frustrated and think they're not the one who can
Speaker:help you.
Speaker:You need to give them a little time in to get
Speaker:there. Just came to mind.
Speaker:So I had to add that in.
Speaker:So let's take it back a little bit in time.
Speaker:I'm interested,
Speaker:I know you started your own marketing agency,
Speaker:but how did influencer marketing get on your radar?
Speaker:Okay, so this is a very interesting story.
Speaker:So I started the marketing agency,
Speaker:nothing new,
Speaker:just a few of us,
Speaker:like four or five people working with brands,
Speaker:working with SaaS companies.
Speaker:It was what's called a full funnel marketing agency.
Speaker:So we did everything from acquisition to onboarding to retention to
Speaker:revenue, like we used to do like touch all parts of
Speaker:the funnel.
Speaker:We weren't just like doing Facebook ads or doing email marketing.
Speaker:We were like pretty much like all over the place.
Speaker:We just worked with a few brands and we helped scale
Speaker:them. Were they all retail or product based brands or services
Speaker:also or product?
Speaker:No services.
Speaker:Product only.
Speaker:All product.
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker:Perfect. Okay.
Speaker:Not retail though.
Speaker:Mostly like e-commerce,
Speaker:like online stuff.
Speaker:Yeah. Okay.
Speaker:But still product.
Speaker:Product, yes.
Speaker:Got it.
Speaker:So we worked with them and then if you were in
Speaker:e-commerce back in like pre covid like 20 19,
Speaker:20 20,
Speaker:early 2020,
Speaker:a lot of the growth top of funnel like user acquisition
Speaker:was through Facebook ads.
Speaker:So they were just pouring money on Facebook and Facebook used
Speaker:to perform well this was slightly plateauing but then it wasn't
Speaker:bad. And then what happened was Apple launched this brand new
Speaker:thing called iOS 14.5
Speaker:and they,
Speaker:with that they launched a new privacy update which caused all
Speaker:Facebook ads to,
Speaker:and this was the time around when Mark Zuckerberg was in
Speaker:the news.
Speaker:A lot of like people from Google were in the news
Speaker:for like this privacy thing.
Speaker:So Apple took it seriously and then they just stopped.
Speaker:If you recall,
Speaker:a couple of years ago and even now your iPhone started
Speaker:asking you ask app not to track.
Speaker:Right? Right.
Speaker:So that was the software update and that basically crashed all
Speaker:of Facebook ads cuz Facebook couldn't track people anymore.
Speaker:They couldn't tell you that.
Speaker:Oh like Sue was interested in product,
Speaker:product-based businesses.
Speaker:Yas is interested in martial arts.
Speaker:They lost all that data tracking.
Speaker:Yeah. And as someone who was part of that scene doing
Speaker:Facebook ads,
Speaker:and I know that some of you listening also are familiar
Speaker:with this,
Speaker:but what used to be so great about Facebook ads is
Speaker:that, and you can tell me how much I know Yosh
Speaker:after I spent all this money on Facebook ads.
Speaker:Okay. But before that crash,
Speaker:once you had a system and an ad that worked,
Speaker:you knew your return.
Speaker:So even if you put more dollars to it,
Speaker:you knew and were very confident of the return that you
Speaker:would get.
Speaker:So it was a very stable,
Speaker:solid, well performing platform.
Speaker:Forget organic right now we're not talking that we're talking about
Speaker:with ads.
Speaker:And so a lot of us who,
Speaker:especially on e-commerce,
Speaker:a lot of us relied heavily on that to attract in
Speaker:new business because it was very predictable and then all of
Speaker:a sudden the door slam shut and it wasn't predictable anymore
Speaker:at all.
Speaker:Exactly. To be fair,
Speaker:they gave us what,
Speaker:three months warning?
Speaker:Maybe six.
Speaker:Yep. Maybe.
Speaker:Yeah. I did it that I remember the blue warning popping
Speaker:up and saying hey you need to fix your conversion events
Speaker:to something else or something like that.
Speaker:But then we were seeing the downfall of ads and this
Speaker:was already in the back of my mind like hey we
Speaker:need to like pivot otherwise like this is just not sustainable.
Speaker:And then the iOS update hit the nail in the head
Speaker:and we were like,
Speaker:okay, I have two options now.
Speaker:Right? Either all my clients would fire me cuz there's like
Speaker:no, no customers that they're getting Facebook or I could do
Speaker:something to get them customers.
Speaker:Right? So obviously I chose the latter and then that's how
Speaker:we discovered influencer marketing and there were like a couple of
Speaker:options we were considering,
Speaker:right? So content marketing is a good one but again,
Speaker:SEO and content,
Speaker:that stuff takes at least 12 months to really start performing.
Speaker:So like that's like too long of a timeframe.
Speaker:We need something relatively more quicker,
Speaker:right? Because Facebook ads is quick,
Speaker:right? You could just turn on an ad and two hours
Speaker:later you have a sales coming in,
Speaker:right? That's not possible with seo.
Speaker:So I think influencer marketing was sort of in the middle
Speaker:where it takes a couple weeks but then you see the
Speaker:sales come in and it's more long term as well as
Speaker:compared to Facebook.
Speaker:So we were like okay let's do influencer marketing and that's
Speaker:how I just kind of just stumbled across it thanks to
Speaker:Apple and Facebook and then yeah,
Speaker:that's how we got into it.
Speaker:We were really successful at it.
Speaker:We've scaled like programs from zero to 300 500 creators sometimes.
Speaker:And then yeah,
Speaker:we've worked with thousands,
Speaker:I've lost count.
Speaker:Like the 5,000
Speaker:number I gave you was just like,
Speaker:yeah it's probably 5,000
Speaker:now cause we've scaled so many influencer programs but yeah,
Speaker:thousands of creators have been reached out to negotiated with.
Speaker:So yeah,
Speaker:that's my influence of marketing story.
Speaker:Wow, okay.
Speaker:So this is new learning for me because I also talk
Speaker:a lot about content marketing and I think it's a good
Speaker:strategy but you're right,
Speaker:it's long-term.
Speaker:Kind of like how we also talk now about being on
Speaker:Pinterest. Pinterest isn't so much a social media platform now it's
Speaker:more kind of like YouTube,
Speaker:like a long-term.
Speaker:You put it up there and it's gonna work for you
Speaker:for a long time,
Speaker:but it's gonna take time to start seeing results.
Speaker:And you're saying influencer marketing sits between what social ads used
Speaker:to look like and then what content is Exactly.
Speaker:Yes, that's what what I'm saying.
Speaker:Yeah, because social ads was immediate,
Speaker:it's, it's like a tap,
Speaker:right? You turn it on,
Speaker:there were sales versus something like content marketing is like digging
Speaker:a well like over time slowly you find some,
Speaker:you find some,
Speaker:you know it's dry soil and you keep digging,
Speaker:you find some,
Speaker:you know mud,
Speaker:then you keep digging maybe some water and you keep digging
Speaker:then it's like a well right?
Speaker:It takes time But then it keeps flowing.
Speaker:Exactly. With Facebook ads when you stop it's over.
Speaker:Yeah, that app is done right.
Speaker:So I think influencers fit right in the middle where it's
Speaker:not as quick as turning on a tap build also does
Speaker:not take six months to really start giving some reasonable resorts.
Speaker:So when you decided that you were gonna target in and
Speaker:really get to know and understand influencer marketing,
Speaker:how did you do that?
Speaker:How did you educate yourself to get to where you are
Speaker:as an expert now?
Speaker:For sure.
Speaker:So I think I've spent for influencer marketing maybe over like
Speaker:almost close to like depending on what you consider influencer marketing,
Speaker:I'm close like spending like 10 K on coaching,
Speaker:on courses,
Speaker:on books.
Speaker:But I must say I did not start with any of
Speaker:this. I think a lot of people tend to like,
Speaker:cuz influencer marketing is like a weird space where it's like
Speaker:just not obvious what to do.
Speaker:Like how do we reach out?
Speaker:What influencer do I,
Speaker:how much do I pay them?
Speaker:Right? So what do I say in my email?
Speaker:How do I dm,
Speaker:right? It's just so many questions.
Speaker:I think people,
Speaker:it's natural to just want to seek out some sort of
Speaker:a structure with books and courses.
Speaker:But what I did was like,
Speaker:I'm a pretty scrappy like marketer so I just like,
Speaker:I was like okay,
Speaker:we need influencers.
Speaker:The best way to find influencers is on Instagram.
Speaker:So we just searched some Instagram influencers,
Speaker:sent them dm,
Speaker:sent them emails and then it started working and then I
Speaker:got the ball rolling first and then I invested in all
Speaker:this like courses,
Speaker:books and stuff like that and educated myself over the course
Speaker:of like years.
Speaker:And it also comes through doing right.
Speaker:The more influencers you talk to,
Speaker:the more negotiations that you do,
Speaker:the more campaigns that you run.
Speaker:It's like all of that is just learning over time.
Speaker:Right? Okay.
Speaker:So I love that because it's a combination of gathering the
Speaker:knowledge from people who have already been there who are sharing
Speaker:and then also doing your own experiments and testing and feed
Speaker:in to figure out exactly how it will work best for
Speaker:you. Exactly.
Speaker:So you're not just taking something and replicating what other people
Speaker:had. You did a combination.
Speaker:And I think that's a wonderful way to approach anything new
Speaker:that we're doing.
Speaker:And let's face it,
Speaker:influencer marketing is still also very new.
Speaker:And I think,
Speaker:and let's correct a misconception right off the bat here and
Speaker:you've already been stating it.
Speaker:I think a lot of us who are less tapped into
Speaker:this think that an influencer has to come to us.
Speaker:Okay, where what you are saying is the program is be
Speaker:proactive, decide you're gonna have an influencer marketing program and reach
Speaker:out to them.
Speaker:Yes. Right?
Speaker:Yep. Before we get into everything influencer marketing,
Speaker:let's make sure everybody who's listening understands exactly what we're we're
Speaker:talking about.
Speaker:So I'm thinking like a definition here would be good so
Speaker:that we all know we're starting from the same place.
Speaker:Sure. I think at the most fundamental level it's just think
Speaker:of it as,
Speaker:except regardless of influencers and social media and all of that,
Speaker:I think it's just word of mouth at scale.
Speaker:I think everyone knows what word of mouth is.
Speaker:It's when your customers shout out or talk about your brand
Speaker:to other people who also might become customers,
Speaker:right? So influencer marketing is just a form of word of
Speaker:mouth where instead of one customer talking to five of her
Speaker:friends, it's one influential customer talking to 50,000
Speaker:of her fans,
Speaker:right? So it's like it's a different form of word of
Speaker:mouth where it's at scale where one person has a huge
Speaker:reach of people specific to your target market when they're talking
Speaker:about you.
Speaker:So if I were to put a definition to it,
Speaker:I would just say it's like it's word of mouth at
Speaker:scale. Okay.
Speaker:I love that.
Speaker:And I think that's gonna be the title of this episode.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Perfect. We got it.
Speaker:Cause it really does,
Speaker:it describes it all and it's very clear to understand for
Speaker:sure. Okay,
Speaker:so you were gonna go on and talk a little bit
Speaker:more about how it all developed and you know all that.
Speaker:Yep. Outbound.
Speaker:So basically I think that's true most of even in e-commerce
Speaker:what I've seen is that people come from the affiliate kind
Speaker:of side of thinking where they think the affiliate has to
Speaker:apply to your affiliate program,
Speaker:then you approve them and then they promote you.
Speaker:That's possible.
Speaker:And we've seen that happen for a lot of brands that
Speaker:we've scaled.
Speaker:That comes with recognition,
Speaker:right? When you are an early stage brand,
Speaker:not a lot of people know about you.
Speaker:You have to reach out to these people,
Speaker:you have to find the right people,
Speaker:you have to reach out to them with the right message
Speaker:and the right offer for them.
Speaker:Like what's in it for them,
Speaker:right? Obviously for you as a brand,
Speaker:like there's lots of promotion,
Speaker:there's lots of reach,
Speaker:but what's in it for them,
Speaker:right? So you have to reach out to them with the
Speaker:right offer and then based on your experiments doing these outreach
Speaker:messages, maybe you send like 50 messages saying hey we'll do
Speaker:a percentage commission.
Speaker:Then you send 50 messages doing like hey we'll pay you
Speaker:a flat fee upfront.
Speaker:Maybe you send another 50 messages saying hey we'll do a
Speaker:combination of a fee plus some commissions.
Speaker:Then you learn from this and then eventually you build like
Speaker:a core offer for influencers which they can then apply to.
Speaker:But then when you are starting out,
Speaker:at least like to get your first 50 influencers to promote
Speaker:you, we've seen that outbound usually is just the best strategy.
Speaker:You're in control,
Speaker:right? Because you can onboard as many ways you want,
Speaker:reach out to as many as you want,
Speaker:you can take it slow if you want,
Speaker:take it faster if you want.
Speaker:Versus with inbound you'll just have an application pays there.
Speaker:But then what?
Speaker:Like don't have control over it.
Speaker:You don't have control over how many people apply.
Speaker:I love what you're saying Yash because you're saying yeah,
Speaker:get your first 50.
Speaker:And I think a lot of people are here like,
Speaker:dang I'd be happy if I got my first five.
Speaker:You know,
Speaker:you're thinking bigger and because you've seen that happen.
Speaker:So I love that.
Speaker:You know,
Speaker:I feel like I'm seeing a lot of focus now on
Speaker:micro influencers that we as smaller businesses,
Speaker:you know not the big brand names that are on the
Speaker:top of everyone's mind that are the smaller brands are becoming
Speaker:more popular with influencers these days.
Speaker:Yep. Is that right?
Speaker:You're saying I see you nodding your head.
Speaker:Yep. No one else can see it but you're nodding your
Speaker:head yes.
Speaker:So is that true and why do you think it is?
Speaker:That is very true and I think there's also another faction
Speaker:of influencers called nano influencers,
Speaker:which is even smaller than micro,
Speaker:right? And I think for us right now for our clients
Speaker:we are seeing that mostly like nano is the way to
Speaker:go. Especially if you're like a early stage brand.
Speaker:And I'll tell you the reason for that.
Speaker:Most, like you said Sue,
Speaker:most bigger brands are after the bigger influencers.
Speaker:Cause it's like if they are,
Speaker:let's say they're Nike,
Speaker:right? Nike wants to work with LeBron James,
Speaker:right? It looks like the biggest of the biggest,
Speaker:right? The influencer,
Speaker:the biggest,
Speaker:the brand is the biggest,
Speaker:right? And as you keep going like lower and lower in
Speaker:terms of scale,
Speaker:they wanna work with like influencers at a similar level as
Speaker:them. So as an early stage brand,
Speaker:you are a startup,
Speaker:right? You're a new brand so you wanna work with a
Speaker:startup creator,
Speaker:right? On the other hand as well,
Speaker:if you are a startup and you reach out to like
Speaker:someone with like 200,000
Speaker:followers, they're likely not gonna reciprocate.
Speaker:But if you reach out to someone with 5,000
Speaker:followers, they're very likely to reciprocate.
Speaker:So it's just that kind of like what's the stage that
Speaker:you are at and who's gonna reciprocate to you?
Speaker:And then yeah,
Speaker:most brands that we are seeing right now are having massive
Speaker:success with nano influencers and let's define that,
Speaker:right? So it's different where you read it,
Speaker:but usually anywhere between 3000 followers,
Speaker:25,000 followers is what's like a nano influencer.
Speaker:Okay? Then anywhere between 25 to a hundred K is micro,
Speaker:it's what we consider micro.
Speaker:So yeah.
Speaker:Alright. If I'm a jewelry maker,
Speaker:what type of influencers would I be trying to reach out
Speaker:to? Because I'm making the product and selling the product to
Speaker:my community.
Speaker:Yep. So give us just an idea so we understand the
Speaker:opportunities as you continue talking later.
Speaker:For sure.
Speaker:So if you're a jewelry maker,
Speaker:there are two concepts here,
Speaker:right? So let's say,
Speaker:I'll tell you my process of working with the brand.
Speaker:So let's say if a jewelry brand comes and they wanna
Speaker:work with us,
Speaker:we tell them the way we find influencers is,
Speaker:is two things.
Speaker:One is like who is your core influencer and who's your
Speaker:tangential influencer?
Speaker:And I can explain these concepts.
Speaker:So core influencer is someone who's posting about jewelry,
Speaker:who's posting about accessories,
Speaker:maybe like something that is just directly related to your brand.
Speaker:So like you know,
Speaker:jewelry, accessories,
Speaker:hearings, luxury jewelry,
Speaker:something like that,
Speaker:right? Or like whatever your,
Speaker:let's say you are into imitation jewelry.
Speaker:So someone who's posting about imitation jewelry is your core target,
Speaker:right? And then there's something called tangential,
Speaker:which is mostly like,
Speaker:so your core is usually like 20% of who your influencers
Speaker:are and then most of it it is tangential.
Speaker:So someone who's into jewelry is also likely maybe into beauty,
Speaker:right? Who's also likely into skincare,
Speaker:let's say luxury skincare,
Speaker:right? And who's also into like makeup,
Speaker:something like that,
Speaker:right? So it's like similar to like people who are into
Speaker:jewelry are also into X,
Speaker:Y, and Z.
Speaker:And these are like your tangential hashtags or your tangential groups
Speaker:of influencers.
Speaker:It's like the same audience but not directly selling the same
Speaker:thing. But their interests would probably be similar.
Speaker:Exactly. So your goal should be to not find influencers but
Speaker:to find sources of influence.
Speaker:So these are two different things.
Speaker:Sometimes someone's an influencer but they have very little influence on
Speaker:anybody, right?
Speaker:Versus maybe someone's not that big of an influencer,
Speaker:maybe they just have like 5,000
Speaker:followers. All 5,000
Speaker:of those people are like whatever this person says I'm gonna
Speaker:buy, I'm gonna try it out,
Speaker:I'm gonna do it in my life.
Speaker:So that person's a source of influence and that is the
Speaker:person that you wanna find.
Speaker:Well And that's also why I think the nano and micro
Speaker:are becoming more popular because you can have someone who has
Speaker:200,000 followers but such a small percentage of even that large
Speaker:number really care cuz there's just the community is so big,
Speaker:but when you have smaller communities they tend to be more
Speaker:focused and in depth and loyal.
Speaker:Exactly. Yeah.
Speaker:I think it's just natural loft numbers,
Speaker:right? The larger you go,
Speaker:the broader your appeal is.
Speaker:The smaller you are,
Speaker:the more focused you can be.
Speaker:You could also actually see it in like maybe pop culture
Speaker:or television stuff.
Speaker:So like when someone's like,
Speaker:let's say they're like a sports person and they're like a
Speaker:sports influencer,
Speaker:right? They just talk about sports.
Speaker:Let's say that sports person has like a hundred thousand followers,
Speaker:right? But let's assume they also now they go go get
Speaker:into like let's say their state politics or something.
Speaker:Right now they just can't talk about just sports,
Speaker:right? Because their audience has changed.
Speaker:It's like 10 times larger,
Speaker:a hundred times larger now,
Speaker:right? So you have to like go broader even as like
Speaker:from an influencers perspective,
Speaker:right? If they wanna go bigger,
Speaker:they wanna speak about more things in a to a broader
Speaker:audience and water down their core message.
Speaker:So especially as an early bank to see the most results,
Speaker:you wanna work with like the smaller creator with a very
Speaker:simple defined core message and like work with like more of
Speaker:those people than chasing that one superstar that you think would
Speaker:be like the golden unlock for your business.
Speaker:Because a lot of times everyone's chasing them and you're really
Speaker:not gonna get that presence or that the bang for your
Speaker:buck if you will.
Speaker:Even if they agree to do it.
Speaker:The smaller brands are much better,
Speaker:the smaller influencers.
Speaker:Yes, exactly.
Speaker:And the bigger influencers also gonna charge you a lot more
Speaker:upfront cash as opposed to the small influencer.
Speaker:Usually like small influencers also agree on like a commission basis,
Speaker:like a revshare or a affiliate model.
Speaker:And that's the best,
Speaker:especially if you're like a small business owner,
Speaker:you don't have external funding,
Speaker:you're just kind of like doing this on the side or
Speaker:have your savings that are into it.
Speaker:You don't wanna like risk paying someone 500 bucks and hoping
Speaker:that it drives at least 500 worth in sales,
Speaker:right? You would rather do an affiliate model and smaller creators
Speaker:are the ones that are most open to them.
Speaker:Well so tell me cuz now I'm getting myself a little
Speaker:bit confused here because a lot of the time from the
Speaker:handmade product or any type of a physical product,
Speaker:what we do is you reach out to someone and you
Speaker:send them your product to try,
Speaker:right? Yeah.
Speaker:And then the idea is then that they're going to try
Speaker:it and promote it to their community.
Speaker:Yep. And so who's paying who at that point you are
Speaker:sending a product.
Speaker:Yes. But where's the commissions or the flat fee coming from?
Speaker:Yeah, so usually like sometimes you can,
Speaker:if it's a really perfect fit,
Speaker:like if you are like into imitation jewelry and the influencer
Speaker:is all about imitation jewelry and your product is really great,
Speaker:like different from the market,
Speaker:they might just post for product only.
Speaker:But very rarely have we seen that work.
Speaker:What works usually in our case is that if you send
Speaker:them free product,
Speaker:yes and you give them a certain affiliate commission for themselves
Speaker:and if you give them a discount for their audience,
Speaker:so you're incentivizing all three sides here,
Speaker:right? Okay.
Speaker:You're sending free product which is basically rigging the game in
Speaker:your favor.
Speaker:They don't have to buy from you,
Speaker:you're just sending them it for free,
Speaker:sending it to them for free,
Speaker:right? You're giving them a reason to post so that they
Speaker:can earn a certain percentage in commissions so they have a
Speaker:reason to post.
Speaker:Now even if they post and nobody buys,
Speaker:then the whole thing is pointless,
Speaker:right? So you have to give the audience a reason to
Speaker:buy and that's where the discount for the audience comes in
Speaker:where you give them like a 10% off if you buy
Speaker:using my coupon code or something like that.
Speaker:So yeah.
Speaker:Okay. Well and honestly you know I feel like I would
Speaker:want to send them my product cuz I want them to
Speaker:take pictures having my product with them cuz that's credibility,
Speaker:right? Yeah.
Speaker:So we just got a new puppy,
Speaker:okay? And our puppy has its own Instagram,
Speaker:it's biscotti tales if you wanna check it out.
Speaker:Biscotti like the Cracker Tales,
Speaker:T A I L S.
Speaker:Okay. I'm not doing any influencer marketing yet,
Speaker:but I am getting approached by people,
Speaker:dog bandanas,
Speaker:dog bones,
Speaker:like all of that.
Speaker:And so us talking comes it a great time for me.
Speaker:Now obviously we just got him,
Speaker:I think he has 50 followers,
Speaker:maybe most of them family,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:whatever. Maybe more if you guys are listening follow biscotti tales.
Speaker:But I'm having smaller handmade businesses reach out to me with
Speaker:dog related products saying Hey are you interested in promoting our
Speaker:brand? We'll send you free product or we're gonna give you
Speaker:this discount.
Speaker:That kind of a thing.
Speaker:They might not be doing exactly it,
Speaker:right? I don't know.
Speaker:Yep. But is this the kind of interaction you're looking at?
Speaker:Yes, this is exactly right.
Speaker:So I mean there are different flavors to it.
Speaker:I we mostly prefer to incentivize all three sides so everyone
Speaker:comes out on top.
Speaker:But some people like depending on your budget,
Speaker:on your constraints and what you wanna do and the type
Speaker:of campaign you're running,
Speaker:you might do a what's called a barter collab where you
Speaker:give them a 50 product and they post about you.
Speaker:There's no commission,
Speaker:there's no discount,
Speaker:none of that.
Speaker:That's a barter collab.
Speaker:What we do is also called ambassador CoLab where you kinda
Speaker:make them like a brand ambassador,
Speaker:which is the best for long-term cuz you can do barter
Speaker:once, right?
Speaker:But you can't take,
Speaker:it's like that doesn't work,
Speaker:nobody's just gonna keep posting what you for free,
Speaker:right? So you have to give them some skin in the
Speaker:game. Someone's been asking me about that too.
Speaker:I didn't know what that was yet.
Speaker:I haven't had the time to look into all of it
Speaker:yet. They're all communicating with me through dms.
Speaker:So I've got 'em all saved.
Speaker:I know I need to go back and look at them.
Speaker:And for me,
Speaker:even though it's biscotti talking cuz that's how I've made the
Speaker:account go,
Speaker:okay I need to know that I like the product before
Speaker:I'm going to recommend it,
Speaker:right? Because if I don't And if the Scotty likes the
Speaker:product, Right?
Speaker:Well he loves all his scarfs so far,
Speaker:but you're exactly right cuz I don't wanna be like oh
Speaker:you know she does all of this and half the stuff
Speaker:we never even see them using.
Speaker:Not that You're exactly right as a brand,
Speaker:you wanna work with creators like Sue who are selective about
Speaker:whom they promote.
Speaker:There's a lot of creators you would find online and I'm
Speaker:sure you've probably seen some of them who just promote every
Speaker:single brand that approaches them,
Speaker:right? Cause they pay some money that just loses authenticity over
Speaker:time. You are not credible.
Speaker:Cause on one day you're promoting like a,
Speaker:let's say a vegan health food startup on another day you're
Speaker:promoting a leather jacket.
Speaker:Like it doesn't make sense,
Speaker:right? It's not congruent.
Speaker:Good point.
Speaker:Yeah. So as a brand you wanna look for influencers who
Speaker:are congruent with their message.
Speaker:It's fine if they promote like a,
Speaker:let's say a vegan jacket and a vegans like a health
Speaker:supplement, something like that.
Speaker:Because as long as it's aligned on so it's like not
Speaker:incongruent, it's not like hypocritical a bit.
Speaker:And you wanna work for those kinds of creators and like
Speaker:Sue was mentioning,
Speaker:you wanna work with creators who will only promote something if
Speaker:they like it.
Speaker:Cause that's where true advocacy comes.
Speaker:Like if they actually love your brand,
Speaker:then like the affiliate commission and all of that is just
Speaker:like a icing on the cake anyway.
Speaker:Wanna promote you cuz you are so awesome,
Speaker:right? So find that TRIBE of people who would promote you
Speaker:organically and then I incentivize them to promote.
Speaker:It's kind of like if I were to give a similar
Speaker:analogy maybe for the business owners,
Speaker:cuz we also spoke about hiring right at the beginning.
Speaker:You don't wanna hire someone who would only work at your
Speaker:company for the money,
Speaker:right? You wanna hire someone who would anyway work at like
Speaker:they're any way a great fit.
Speaker:And then obviously like you gotta pay them,
Speaker:right? That's like,
Speaker:that's fine,
Speaker:right? Yeah.
Speaker:But you don't wanna work with someone who's just doing it
Speaker:because you pay them more or just doing it cuz they
Speaker:desperately need the money cause they're just not gonna perform well
Speaker:over time.
Speaker:Especially you wanna work with team members who are like motivated
Speaker:by your brand,
Speaker:who have full buy-in,
Speaker:who live the brand's ethos and then you obviously like pay
Speaker:them, you work with them,
Speaker:you treat them as family,
Speaker:all of that same for influencers.
Speaker:You wanna work with influencers who would anyway potentially become customers
Speaker:of your brand.
Speaker:They anyway love your product and then you are obviously giving
Speaker:them affiliate commissions so that you know they're incentivized to Boche.
Speaker:So that's like an analogy.
Speaker:Yeah. Got it.
Speaker:That's a good point.
Speaker:Yeah. One more thing but I wanna get into your six
Speaker:step process a little bit.
Speaker:But it brings up another question.
Speaker:As a small business,
Speaker:let's stick with jewelry cuz that's where we started.
Speaker:We'll stay with that theme here.
Speaker:Is there a certain number of influencers you should have?
Speaker:Because at some point it just,
Speaker:it gets to be they're not doing anything but promoting anybody
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Speaker:So in terms of number of influencers,
Speaker:what we've seen work is that,
Speaker:like you said,
Speaker:like a lot of brands would be happy to have five
Speaker:and I'm talking about 50.
Speaker:Usually a lot of brands just think small with the number
Speaker:of, and they think that having like five,
Speaker:10, like a dozen people promoting them is going to result
Speaker:in sales and replace like Facebook ads for them.
Speaker:But that pretty much never happens unless you somehow convince like
Speaker:five super famous people to push about you on commission only.
Speaker:That's not gonna happen.
Speaker:You need a decent volume of creators.
Speaker:And what,
Speaker:by that I mean at least like 30 to 50 influencers
Speaker:promoting you on a consistent basis on your program.
Speaker:What Does consistent mean?
Speaker:Weekly, monthly Actually depends on the product,
Speaker:right? So what's the use case of the product?
Speaker:Let's say like a skincare product.
Speaker:Let's say a sunscreen,
Speaker:which you would use every day when you go out,
Speaker:right? Then maybe that's a weekly cadence where they pushed about
Speaker:it once a week.
Speaker:So people are reminded if it's like something like let's say,
Speaker:say a hiking product,
Speaker:which you'd actually use once a week every weekend when you're
Speaker:out on a hike,
Speaker:then it's better to promote it monthly,
Speaker:right? Cause that's like kind of naturally,
Speaker:it'd be weird if someone's posting about like this hiking stick
Speaker:every single day,
Speaker:right? It's like does like no one's going hiking every day.
Speaker:So it's like based on the product.
Speaker:But usually by consistent what we mean is one influencer should
Speaker:post about your twice or twice in a month depending on
Speaker:the product.
Speaker:Okay? So you would have,
Speaker:let's make a magic number be 30.
Speaker:Okay, so you would have 30 different outside influencers promoting and
Speaker:talking and bringing attention to your brand to their audience.
Speaker:Which then the goal obviously is for sales to come into
Speaker:you. You get to collect the email and then you,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:hopefully you have an email marketing program,
Speaker:then you're able to communicate with them moving forward,
Speaker:Correct? That's the ideal,
Speaker:Correct? Yes.
Speaker:And then you can build on it of course accordingly.
Speaker:Yeah. Based on how it works,
Speaker:you can,
Speaker:I've seen brands sustain it at like 50 and like honestly
Speaker:if you're,
Speaker:let's say you're doing good on Facebook,
Speaker:you're doing good on TikTok and like your content's starting to
Speaker:work, having a community of 30 to 50 ambassadors is like
Speaker:probably one of the best things that you can do for
Speaker:your brand.
Speaker:Cause it also helps you get creatives for your Facebook ads.
Speaker:You can reuse their reviews on say Instagram,
Speaker:TikTok or whatever on your landing pages.
Speaker:So instead of like text reviews,
Speaker:imagine adding like videos of people talking about their brand on
Speaker:your product page.
Speaker:That's like insane,
Speaker:right? You can reuse it.
Speaker:It has organic content on your social.
Speaker:So it's like it's touching so many,
Speaker:you can reuse it in your email flows even like,
Speaker:hey noticed you left this product in the cart.
Speaker:Here's what Sue,
Speaker:who's like a jewelry enthusiast says about this product,
Speaker:right? It's like,
Speaker:it's just so organic and natural.
Speaker:It's like having a friend recommend a product to you,
Speaker:right? So you can reuse it in so many ways.
Speaker:It's just very powerful to have like these 30 to 50
Speaker:people who are posting about You.
Speaker:Yeah and especially if you are an e-commerce brand only.
Speaker:So you're not going out to shows,
Speaker:you're not in wholesale in your local areas and you're just
Speaker:selling online.
Speaker:I know this is a big sticking point for a lot
Speaker:of people here is I've got my website up or I
Speaker:have a shop on Etsy and it's not moving any product
Speaker:or it feels like such a fight and such a struggle.
Speaker:Yeah, this could be your solution and for those folks,
Speaker:you know 30 to 50 on a continual basis and maybe
Speaker:if you're doing a combination because you do go out to
Speaker:shows, maybe you start with five or 10 and add to
Speaker:it as you can.
Speaker:You do apply this on top of your specific situation too.
Speaker:Of course.
Speaker:And Josh,
Speaker:there's churn also to your influencers,
Speaker:right? Yes.
Speaker:Some will come in and some will come out,
Speaker:right? Yes,
Speaker:that's correct.
Speaker:That's a great point.
Speaker:So churn is definitely a problem.
Speaker:We call it attrition factor.
Speaker:Okay. Where a certain percentage of,
Speaker:but like churn is a good way to also put it
Speaker:is that some percentage of them would just post once and
Speaker:then never post again or post twice and then then never
Speaker:post again.
Speaker:So you have to factor that in by having your outbound
Speaker:engine running Constantly.
Speaker:Yeah, it's like,
Speaker:it's just the same as customer acquisition,
Speaker:right? Let's say you acquire a hundred customers,
Speaker:not all of them are gonna keep buying from you month
Speaker:on month and now you can dress right?
Speaker:The marketing keeps running.
Speaker:So if even if customers drop off,
Speaker:new customers come in and you grow and you make up
Speaker:for the churn,
Speaker:right? So it's the same with influencers.
Speaker:You have to have the outbound engine running every week and
Speaker:keeping on acquiring new influencers.
Speaker:But obviously like you can go a little bit more aggressive
Speaker:in the start and reach out to hundreds of people.
Speaker:But once you have a critical mass of like 30 to
Speaker:50, you can then reach out to maybe like 25 to
Speaker:50 people every week and onboard a couple every week and
Speaker:then keep the engines running.
Speaker:So Yeah,
Speaker:once you've got things rolling and then you have a system
Speaker:down, then it just becomes procedural and routine.
Speaker:Exactly. You're right.
Speaker:Yep. All right.
Speaker:So I'm dying to know more about your six step process.
Speaker:Okay. Where do we get to start?
Speaker:I wanna know everything,
Speaker:but you tell us what you can,
Speaker:Okay, yeah,
Speaker:I'll go through all of the six steps,
Speaker:wonderful and summary and if you want me to dive into
Speaker:detail in any one of them,
Speaker:just let me know and we can dive in.
Speaker:Okay. What's the purpose behind the process?
Speaker:I was just about to start with that.
Speaker:Yay. Go for it.
Speaker:I can create it retroactively.
Speaker:I did not like start off with this or like anything.
Speaker:It just comes from experience of what I've seen over and
Speaker:over again with influencer programs and how they grow is like
Speaker:there's always like these six common steps that brands can take.
Speaker:Like I said in the beginning when you asked me about
Speaker:what did you do to educate yourself,
Speaker:right? This is like one of the shortcuts that I've seen
Speaker:that brands can just follow this six step system pretty much
Speaker:blindly at face value and they don't have to do like
Speaker:anything else that I did.
Speaker:Cuz all of this is like a synthesis of all of
Speaker:my knowledge to give you the first track to growing an
Speaker:influencer program.
Speaker:So that's where it came from,
Speaker:that's the purpose of it.
Speaker:And now we'll dive in.
Speaker:So step one is prospecting is finding the influencers.
Speaker:Step one is not strategy,
Speaker:step one is not taking courses.
Speaker:Step one is go out,
Speaker:log into Instagram and search for influencers who are posting content
Speaker:about your brand.
Speaker:So that may be if you're a jewelry store for example,
Speaker:right? You can go search for hashtag jewelry on Instagram,
Speaker:right? And then find influencers who are already creating content around
Speaker:that. And then that leads us to step two,
Speaker:which is outreach.
Speaker:Like reach out to them.
Speaker:I'm thinking if I do hashtag jewelry,
Speaker:I'm gonna find a ton of jewelry makers.
Speaker:Yes. I'm also going to find,
Speaker:I don't know what to call them,
Speaker:but kind of like roundup accounts,
Speaker:reach out to us if you want to be shown on
Speaker:our account.
Speaker:And some of them are paid,
Speaker:some of them aren't.
Speaker:Are those the people we're looking for?
Speaker:No. Again,
Speaker:so jewelry is a very,
Speaker:I agree with you,
Speaker:it's a very broad kinda hashtag to use.
Speaker:I am actually looking at Instagram right now.
Speaker:So you would would use something like hashtag jewelry addict.
Speaker:So a jewelry addict is going to be someone who's not
Speaker:necessarily like a jeweler or like another brand.
Speaker:It's going to be someone who's,
Speaker:oh, I'm a jewelry addict,
Speaker:right? Something.
Speaker:Or like hashtag jewelry shopping maybe.
Speaker:So something like that.
Speaker:Or what about,
Speaker:I don't know what the hashtag would be,
Speaker:but someone who shows you how to wear jewelry,
Speaker:how to accessorize maybe.
Speaker:Yep, exactly.
Speaker:Like the fashion flare.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:Yeah. So you wanna find people who are posting about jewelry,
Speaker:not like other brands,
Speaker:not like Roundup accounts and all of like we've worked with
Speaker:roundup accounts,
Speaker:they don't really work that well.
Speaker:Okay, so not the roundups,
Speaker:okay, Not the roundups,
Speaker:not the other brands.
Speaker:Obviously you wanna find people who are organically and even under
Speaker:the hashtag jewelry,
Speaker:I'm seeing some posts like there are like posts of people
Speaker:who are doing,
Speaker:cause on Instagram especially,
Speaker:you see like top posts and recent posts,
Speaker:right? Split into two.
Speaker:Most of the top posts are gonna be like big brand
Speaker:accounts, but the recent posts are gonna be like people who
Speaker:are posting about hashtag jewelry,
Speaker:right? And then eventually you'll find more hashtags as you keep
Speaker:doing this research like jewelry of today,
Speaker:jewelry addict,
Speaker:like I just found this like in two minutes on Instagram,
Speaker:if you do this for like 30 minutes every day,
Speaker:you'll find more and more hashtags around hashtag jewelry love I'm
Speaker:seeing on Instagram right now,
Speaker:right? So yeah,
Speaker:So and then write down the hashtags.
Speaker:So you have a good pool to search through and then
Speaker:you go into those hashtags and then you find the specific
Speaker:accounts that could be approachable for influencing,
Speaker:Correct? Yes.
Speaker:Okay. That's all number one.
Speaker:Prospecting Number one is done.
Speaker:Got it.
Speaker:So now let's say you have a list of like 50
Speaker:to 7,500
Speaker:accounts ideally who are posting about your niche,
Speaker:right? That's your,
Speaker:again, so core and tangential we are on the core right
Speaker:now, right?
Speaker:So you'd find a list of your core people who are
Speaker:posting about you.
Speaker:Now step two is outreach.
Speaker:So reach out to them with something that is very focused
Speaker:on giving,
Speaker:not focused on taking,
Speaker:not focused on making a deal with them,
Speaker:not focused on paying them for a post focused on simply
Speaker:opening up a conversation and seeing where it goes.
Speaker:So the email or the DM should be something dms would
Speaker:work well for people who are smaller,
Speaker:like less than five,
Speaker:less than 10,000
Speaker:followers, emails work better for anyone who's above 10 K,
Speaker:15 K followers.
Speaker:So that's like quick tip there on dms versus emails.
Speaker:What the DM or the email should say is pretty similar.
Speaker:You say something like,
Speaker:Hey I saw your content.
Speaker:Don't start with,
Speaker:hey I'm the founder at jewelry brand one 20 three.com,
Speaker:we make the amazing guests jewelry in the whole of America.
Speaker:None of that,
Speaker:right? Even if you do,
Speaker:Even if you do,
Speaker:yeah, especially if you do,
Speaker:right? So if you do that,
Speaker:you risk talking about yourself,
Speaker:right? With your dms and your emails.
Speaker:You gotta answer two questions,
Speaker:what's in it for me and why you,
Speaker:right? So you start off by answering why,
Speaker:like why are you choosing them,
Speaker:right? So like hey found your content about let's say like
Speaker:imitation jewelry on Instagram and really loved and give like a
Speaker:personal compliment,
Speaker:right? Really loved something that they did in their content or
Speaker:like their dog or something that's specific to them so they
Speaker:know that it's coming for them.
Speaker:It's not like some general mass outreach that you're sending out.
Speaker:So once you do that,
Speaker:then in the next paragraph or the next line you write
Speaker:something like we have this brand,
Speaker:our philosophies align.
Speaker:Something like that.
Speaker:Like where I think your content is really aligned with what
Speaker:we are trying to do with our ambassador program.
Speaker:Would you be open to chatting?
Speaker:So don't end with something like,
Speaker:hey can we work together or are you taking collabs from
Speaker:brands or what's your poor post fee?
Speaker:Just say,
Speaker:are you open to collaborating?
Speaker:Would this be worth considering?
Speaker:Right? So you're simply opening up a conver and they can
Speaker:say no like and that's fine,
Speaker:but you wanna open up a conversation with them as opposed
Speaker:to just asking them to post about you.
Speaker:So that was step two,
Speaker:which is outreach right?
Speaker:Now moving on to step three,
Speaker:which is your creator offer,
Speaker:right? This is the stuff that I spoke of when we
Speaker:were talking about like the discount code and the affiliate and
Speaker:all of that.
Speaker:So what is your creator offer,
Speaker:right? So creator offer,
Speaker:according to me consists of three things.
Speaker:It'll consist of what you're giving the creator in kind like
Speaker:in like actual physical product or something like that.
Speaker:It'll consist of the commission that you give them for every
Speaker:sale or like a flat fee or whatever you are paying
Speaker:them, whatever the like the money transaction is.
Speaker:That is number two.
Speaker:And then number three is the discount that you have for
Speaker:their audience.
Speaker:You combine these three things and you have something known as
Speaker:your creator offer.
Speaker:Okay? So basically it should say something like we are gonna
Speaker:offer you x product,
Speaker:offer you X amount in commissions and give your audience a
Speaker:y percent in discount if they order using your discount code,
Speaker:right? So that's like your creator offer in one line.
Speaker:Once you have that,
Speaker:that is step number three and that will be your basis
Speaker:for your conversation with creators.
Speaker:So like when you outreach,
Speaker:obviously they're gonna reply to you saying Hey let's do this,
Speaker:let's do that.
Speaker:Here are some ideas,
Speaker:whatever you can send them your offer saying cause then they
Speaker:reply with a yes.
Speaker:Then they say yes I am open to collaborating.
Speaker:Then it's your job to send them your offer like hey
Speaker:this is what I'm offering,
Speaker:right? I'll give you this product this much in commissions and
Speaker:this much in discount for your order.
Speaker:So it's very clear for the creator as well and they
Speaker:can quickly read one sentence and make a decision as opposed
Speaker:to sending PDFs or contracts or doing like complex negotiations.
Speaker:You have it clear in your mind that hey this is
Speaker:our offer and we are gonna only focus on working with
Speaker:creators who say yes to this offer.
Speaker:Right? And then do that.
Speaker:So that was step three.
Speaker:It's like creating your offer and pitching it to creators.
Speaker:Step number four seems kind of like obvious or like it's
Speaker:a given but a lot of brands ignore it.
Speaker:Step number four is shipping.
Speaker:So the way you ship product,
Speaker:it's an indicator of how likely they are to post about
Speaker:you. So if you send your product in like a cardboard
Speaker:box, they're not gonna be like super,
Speaker:it is just another package that they get,
Speaker:right? You should like gift,
Speaker:wrap it,
Speaker:add a personal note to it,
Speaker:add extra goodies to it and make it as overwhelmingly positive
Speaker:as possible.
Speaker:Cause like it said,
Speaker:right, the unboxing is the only touchpoint with a 100% open
Speaker:rate. Like your email campaigns have a certain percent open rate,
Speaker:your ads have a certain percent click through rate,
Speaker:but everybody opens their packages,
Speaker:right? Especially if it's something that they've ordered or something that
Speaker:they've, you know,
Speaker:received from a brand.
Speaker:You are so right and we already know that it's a
Speaker:gift coming to you so obviously you're gonna open it.
Speaker:Exactly. Yeah.
Speaker:So it's like your best chance to impress them with like
Speaker:everything that you have,
Speaker:send them free goodies,
Speaker:send them swag.
Speaker:And it doesn't have to be like if you're like a
Speaker:small brand,
Speaker:you probably don't have like t-shirts or mugs with your brand
Speaker:name on it.
Speaker:That's fine.
Speaker:Send them a personal note.
Speaker:Anyone can take five minutes to write a pers 10 personal
Speaker:notes. If you're reaching out to 10 influencers right hand write
Speaker:it or like you could technically print it and then just
Speaker:add like some personal element like sign it or something like
Speaker:that and send it to influencers so that they should feel
Speaker:different. They should feel special cause they are right,
Speaker:they're gonna promote your brand.
Speaker:Oh so this packaging should be up leveled from even the
Speaker:packaging that you send out the regular product to your customer.
Speaker:It's like the influencer shipping program,
Speaker:Correct? Yes,
Speaker:that's exactly right.
Speaker:Okay. Can I just make a comment?
Speaker:Don't put in any sprinkly sparkly things that are gonna come
Speaker:out and make a mess of desks.
Speaker:Yeah, thank you please.
Speaker:Because it's gonna have the op,
Speaker:it might look pretty but it's gonna have the opposite impact.
Speaker:I've had that happen to me several times and it's like
Speaker:oh I'm so mad.
Speaker:Ah, it's the pain talking.
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker:So that was step number four,
Speaker:which is shipping and overwhelming them with how good your shipping
Speaker:experience is.
Speaker:Step number five is more logistics.
Speaker:So now you've shipped,
Speaker:now you've done everything you can to make sure that they
Speaker:post, you've had reached out to the right people.
Speaker:You, first of all,
Speaker:you've found the right people,
Speaker:you've reached out to them in the correct way,
Speaker:right? You have sent them the right offer that's appealing to
Speaker:them. They've said yes,
Speaker:you've shipped them a product.
Speaker:Not only have you shipped it,
Speaker:you've done your best to really like impress them with the
Speaker:experience. Now it's up to them,
Speaker:you've given them so much,
Speaker:most likely they're gonna post about you.
Speaker:Now what happens after the post is actually you're tracking the
Speaker:sales that come in.
Speaker:So step number five is tracking the sales.
Speaker:And usually this is done through some kind of a failure
Speaker:link or some a discount code.
Speaker:We mostly prefer discount codes when starting out cause you don't
Speaker:have to pay for additional software for the affiliate links.
Speaker:So yeah,
Speaker:just track like every week have like a discount code tracking
Speaker:session, have like 30 minutes every Friday.
Speaker:How do we know that they've posted?
Speaker:Do you ask them to tell you their posting schedule or
Speaker:how does that work?
Speaker:Multiple things.
Speaker:So usually you would also follow them on social media,
Speaker:especially if you're starting out and you'll just know when they
Speaker:post. And most influencers when they post,
Speaker:they will like send you the link saying Hey,
Speaker:I've posted about you.
Speaker:It's mostly like manual,
Speaker:like back and forth in terms of you just following them
Speaker:and you just notice a post already.
Speaker:Or they usually just send it to you over email saying
Speaker:Hey this is the link I forested,
Speaker:let me know.
Speaker:Stuff like that.
Speaker:So that's how,
Speaker:that's how we try.
Speaker:And my guess is you don't ask them or require them
Speaker:to do that cuz then you're giving them more work.
Speaker:Like if they're doing the work by posting.
Speaker:So let it be on your end.
Speaker:You already know who has agreed and who you've sent out
Speaker:things to.
Speaker:So as we start,
Speaker:it'll be 5,
Speaker:10, 30 people accounts that you're tracking,
Speaker:right? Exactly.
Speaker:Yeah. Okay.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:And like once you scale to like hundreds of influencers,
Speaker:it's, it's like impossible to keep track of it manually.
Speaker:And in that case there's like social listening tools that you
Speaker:can use to make sure that,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:when they mention your brand,
Speaker:you track it automatically.
Speaker:That's like a don't worry about it right now.
Speaker:Right? Yeah.
Speaker:So yeah cuz a lot of people tend to like look
Speaker:at software,
Speaker:look at this and that and tracking links and how do
Speaker:I do all this?
Speaker:And then they just never take action.
Speaker:You're right,
Speaker:exactly. You know US yash,
Speaker:you know us well.
Speaker:So yeah,
Speaker:these were the first five steps and it's a six step
Speaker:system. If you do the first five steps correctly,
Speaker:you already have a very good influencer program,
Speaker:like steps number six.
Speaker:But to go from good to great,
Speaker:you need step number six.
Speaker:And step number six is not tactical,
Speaker:it's more philosophical.
Speaker:It's to build relationships with these people.
Speaker:So posting about your brand once is fine,
Speaker:twice is fine.
Speaker:But then if you don't have a relationship with them,
Speaker:they're like,
Speaker:it's not gonna be long term.
Speaker:Right? So then your acquisition engine has to keep running like
Speaker:at, at like a heavy volume every week.
Speaker:And after a point you'll reach a point where there's like
Speaker:no more influencers in you.
Speaker:Cause there's only so many people pushing about mutation jewelry,
Speaker:right? And you'll reach a limit and then nobody's that you've
Speaker:reached out to everyone that there was to be reached out
Speaker:to, right?
Speaker:So you gotta build relationships with the people who are posting
Speaker:about you,
Speaker:keep them engaged at them in a WhatsApp group,
Speaker:slack group,
Speaker:something like that.
Speaker:And basically keep sending them free products.
Speaker:Do different kinds of things with them.
Speaker:So like it doesn't always have to be a product-based collaboration.
Speaker:It could be a live session,
Speaker:it could be them taking over your social media for a
Speaker:day, right?
Speaker:Could be like inviting them over to your factory or over
Speaker:to your kitchen and you know,
Speaker:making a product with them,
Speaker:showing them behind the scenes,
Speaker:something like that.
Speaker:Treat these people as you would treat your friends and basically
Speaker:like just make friends with them is the point,
Speaker:right? Because if you do that then and it goes beyond
Speaker:money, then it goes beyond like the brand.
Speaker:It becomes you and the creator,
Speaker:right? As the founder of the brand.
Speaker:It's your job to be having to be maintaining these relationships
Speaker:and you have to be intentional about this cuz it's easy
Speaker:to just lose track.
Speaker:So keep track of these things and make sure that you
Speaker:are, you know,
Speaker:engaging with them.
Speaker:Make sure that they know like some secret insider information about
Speaker:upcoming products behind the scenes of the,
Speaker:the brand,
Speaker:stuff like that.
Speaker:And you will see like these,
Speaker:I have this saying like maybe this could be on my
Speaker:influencer marketing candle.
Speaker:Like relationships,
Speaker:compound transactions don't.
Speaker:So if you do transactions,
Speaker:that's fine.
Speaker:It's like,
Speaker:yeah, okay.
Speaker:Commerce, right?
Speaker:Relationships will grow over time.
Speaker:Absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker:Okay. And I'm also thinking just as an extension of that
Speaker:is tag them on your email list and you can send
Speaker:specific emails just to top influencers.
Speaker:Exactly. It can be a combination of one-on-one communication and then
Speaker:very targeted groups of people communication too.
Speaker:But I love that full circle.
Speaker:And of course I have two things to say.
Speaker:One's a question.
Speaker:Okay. Do you ever fire influencers who've agreed to work with
Speaker:you and aren't performing?
Speaker:Like do you ever decide yourself to trim down the list
Speaker:cuz nothing's happening and here you have this discount code out
Speaker:there and maybe they're only buying product for themself at a
Speaker:discount and never posting.
Speaker:Well it could happen,
Speaker:right? It could happen,
Speaker:It's possible.
Speaker:But if you select the right kind of people in step
Speaker:one, we've very rarely seen that happen actually.
Speaker:Cuz our step one is very robust.
Speaker:We only find like the best kind of creators.
Speaker:So it's hard to go wrong with those kinds of,
Speaker:but yes,
Speaker:to answer your question,
Speaker:we have bulged programs before with like no,
Speaker:it also kind of once you're at scale,
Speaker:right? These things come in when you are at like a
Speaker:hundred, 200 influencers,
Speaker:when you're at like 30 or 50,
Speaker:most people are gonna post about you.
Speaker:Once you reach a certain scale you will have like some
Speaker:dead weight,
Speaker:right? And then we make sure that we don't like fire
Speaker:them in like the traditional sense of it being like a
Speaker:negative connotation to fire,
Speaker:right? We can just tell them that hey,
Speaker:we have a very robust like follow up process.
Speaker:Like if someone's just not posting,
Speaker:if we don't see their code in like the weeklys for
Speaker:like a month,
Speaker:we just reach out to them saying,
Speaker:Hey, you've not posted about us.
Speaker:What's going on?
Speaker:Maybe like they're just busy,
Speaker:something's happened,
Speaker:right? It's fine.
Speaker:Like they can not post for two months.
Speaker:That's completely okay.
Speaker:But just check in with them,
Speaker:ask them what's up if they're just not interested or if
Speaker:they say I'm not interested anymore,
Speaker:or if they just don't reply to you for two,
Speaker:three months in that case,
Speaker:just send them what I call like a breakup email saying
Speaker:Hey really sorry we have to do this,
Speaker:but we're focused on keeping our ambassador community niche and only
Speaker:for active people.
Speaker:So I'm gonna deactivate your coupon code right now,
Speaker:but if at all you're ever interested in working with us
Speaker:again, please reach out and I'm happy to enable it again.
Speaker:Right. Yeah,
Speaker:there's something very amicable and things on good terms with people.
Speaker:Yeah. Putting your account on pause,
Speaker:reach out when you are ready to go again or something
Speaker:like that.
Speaker:Exactly. Something like that.
Speaker:Okay. The other thought I had when you were saying,
Speaker:you know like in terms of deepening relationships,
Speaker:having people come to your kitchen and see how,
Speaker:you know those delicious cookies you make are made,
Speaker:things like that.
Speaker:Yep. Influencers could also be people in your local market.
Speaker:So if you are a local bakery,
Speaker:send the mayor could be an influencer.
Speaker:Exactly. Yeah.
Speaker:Or someone who is a teacher at a park district of
Speaker:your kids' classes.
Speaker:Yep. Could be an influencer because their online community,
Speaker:I'll say,
Speaker:yep. Are people part of the neighborhood community,
Speaker:the physical community and they are also potential customers of yours.
Speaker:Yep. So that would fall into the transgen,
Speaker:right? How do you say that word?
Speaker:Tangential Tenile.
Speaker:I can't say it,
Speaker:but that would fall in that category of prospecting,
Speaker:right? Cause it's not a direct map,
Speaker:but for local businesses.
Speaker:Huge opportunity,
Speaker:Huge op.
Speaker:Totally. Like I went on another podcast and the host asked
Speaker:me like how does this work for local,
Speaker:like if a local shop wandered like a cafe wanted to
Speaker:do it right?
Speaker:I was like,
Speaker:okay. So you will always find someone in a certain niche
Speaker:in your local area,
Speaker:in your city,
Speaker:let's say,
Speaker:right? Maybe not in your neighborhood,
Speaker:but for sure in your city,
Speaker:right? Let's say it's a cafe in New York.
Speaker:Just take that example.
Speaker:So there's a lot of people posting about hashtag cafe culture,
Speaker:New York hashtag Coffee nyc,
Speaker:something like that,
Speaker:right? So reach out to them,
Speaker:say, Hey,
Speaker:we'll give you like free coffee,
Speaker:come over with your friends or have host a meetup with
Speaker:your fans and then hey,
Speaker:we don't just organically promote us.
Speaker:And then promotion is just a consequence of them being there.
Speaker:So like working with local creators is definitely,
Speaker:it's not something that I have ever done directly cuz we
Speaker:mostly work with like national level e-commerce brands.
Speaker:But that's something that totally,
Speaker:I don't see a reason why it won't work for a,
Speaker:maybe on the smaller scheme,
Speaker:maybe you won't have like 15 influencers.
Speaker:Maybe you just have 10 or local in your city who
Speaker:regularly promote you and then Yeah,
Speaker:that's totally like an avenue.
Speaker:Well And it can be a combination.
Speaker:Exactly. Yeah.
Speaker:Maybe you have two or three local and the rest are
Speaker:all e-commerce.
Speaker:But I just don't wanna discount that cuz I think those
Speaker:could be really valuable and powerful connections for you too.
Speaker:Yep, yep.
Speaker:Totally. Okay,
Speaker:so well now I think we should probably wind down here.
Speaker:I could think and dream up a million other questions,
Speaker:but I won't.
Speaker:I'm gonna let you have part of your day for yourself.
Speaker:Yeah. But tell us more about what C offers if people
Speaker:are looking to dive deeper,
Speaker:do more with you.
Speaker:Yeah, share with us a little bit about that.
Speaker:Sure. So basically C is a platform for branch to come
Speaker:on board and run and create an influencer campaign in 30
Speaker:minutes. So Sarah,
Speaker:by the way,
Speaker:in Sanskrit means simple and easy,
Speaker:right? So because in like we discussed,
Speaker:it's so complex that you don't know where to start,
Speaker:what to do,
Speaker:blah, blah,
Speaker:blah. We make it super simple for you.
Speaker:You can come on our platform,
Speaker:it's a free trial,
Speaker:you don't have to put your card in.
Speaker:Find influencers.
Speaker:All of the six steps can be done inside of C.
Speaker:Find influencers,
Speaker:reach out to them,
Speaker:negotiate with them,
Speaker:send them your offer,
Speaker:ship your products through C,
Speaker:track performance inside of cll and obviously maintain all of your
Speaker:relationships inside of C.
Speaker:So all of it is like simplified for you in like
Speaker:one app,
Speaker:so you don't have to use like 10 different things.
Speaker:It's a very structured,
Speaker:kinda it's,
Speaker:it's more of an assistant than it.
Speaker:It's like an app.
Speaker:So it keeps you all organized.
Speaker:Exactly. So if you're new to it,
Speaker:especially, you should consider using to manage your program.
Speaker:But even if you don't,
Speaker:we have a very good resource called the academy on our
Speaker:website. I guess you will leave the link in the show
Speaker:notes, but definitely check that out.
Speaker:If like new to influencer marketing,
Speaker:you just wanna like check out like what are the different
Speaker:ways that I can do this?
Speaker:How do I reach out?
Speaker:If you have all these questions,
Speaker:we have all of them answered on our academies.
Speaker:It's the best resource on the planet to learn influencer marketing
Speaker:for free On the planet.
Speaker:Planet. Yes.
Speaker:Wonderful. Totally go there.
Speaker:Yeah. Even if you don't start a free trial,
Speaker:I think that's like a very good resource to just learn
Speaker:from and do some influencer stuff for your brand.
Speaker:So Yeah.
Speaker:Perfect. Well you are definitely up-leveling the whole world of influencer
Speaker:marketing, giving people an entrance way to come in.
Speaker:You've tested the systems,
Speaker:you have a very understandable six-step process that honestly,
Speaker:I mean a couple of these steps I would've never thought
Speaker:of. So thank gosh for you that you're here and you
Speaker:know that you can share that with us.
Speaker:This has been tremendous,
Speaker:Josh, thank you so much for coming on and sharing all
Speaker:of your wisdom and experience with us.
Speaker:Thank you for having me,
Speaker:Sue. And we,
Speaker:I'd love to turn it another time,
Speaker:maybe in a year.
Speaker:There you go.
Speaker:It's a date.
Speaker:Here we go.
Speaker:Are you as excited as I am about the potential for
Speaker:you with influencer marketing?
Speaker:It's a different way to leverage social media.
Speaker:That makes a lot of sense.
Speaker:Hopefully you've written down ASHA's six steps and are ready to
Speaker:dive into the first one.
Speaker:Prospecting, it actually sounds like a lot of fun if you're
Speaker:enjoying the podcast and would like to show support.
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Speaker:And now be safe and well and I'll see you again
Speaker:next time on the Gift Biz Unwrapped podcast.
Speaker:I wanna make sure you're familiar with my free Facebook group
Speaker:called Gift Biz Breeze.
Speaker:It's a place where we all gather and are a community
Speaker:to support each other.
Speaker:I got a really fun post in there that's my favorite
Speaker:of the week,
Speaker:I have to say,
Speaker:where I invite all of you to share what you're doing
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