How do you ensure that your brand new influencer campaign is successful and doesn’t damage your brand’s reputation? In this episode of Business as Unusual, Natalie Lam (Digital Marketing Manager at Natracare) shared her tips for marketers who want to make the most of an influencer collaboration.

From how to approach a partner to negotiating a budget, this one hour webinar will leave you feeling inspired and with a notepad full of advice for turning your next campaign into a success story which drives real ROI.

Watch the video below (closed captions included). 

The Secrets To A Flawless Influencer Campaign Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):

Hello, and welcome to the, your televisions, your screens, your phones, the wonderful Natalie Lam. Yes. How do we all know each other?

Speaker 2 (00:11):

We know each other because I worked for you many years ago when I was just a mere 21 years old and I'm now 27. So yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:23):

I was waiting for you to go "and I'm now 23" [inaudible]

Speaker 2 (00:27):

I know. Right. Um, so yeah. Worked with you guys for three years. Sorry for you guys. Not with you guys.

Speaker 1 (00:35):

Thanks, Ashley. Sorry. Ashley just said that you look pretty and the, I also do

Speaker 2 (00:41):

Well, that camera is fantastic. I'm really enjoying it right now. Um, but yeah. Um, and then I moved on to become the digital marketing manager at Natracare. Natracare is a vegan, sustainable biodegradable cruelty-free personal care products brand. Um, so we sell like period products, maternity products, makeup wipes, the world's first truly flushable wipe. Um, yeah, we sell in like 80 countries worldwide. Um, but yeah, that's that's me at Natracare Um, I am, I've been at Natracare for almost three years now. Wow. Hmm. Um, yeah,

Speaker 1 (01:28):

I can't believe that we kept hold of your coattails for that long. You went and started working for a worldwide vegan products company.

Speaker 2 (01:34):

Well, I am all about loyalty, but not enough to not leave you. I also am a co-host of a podcast called just a girl podcast with Katie Roberts also from Noisy Little Monkey. She's fantastic. Um, get to know her, uh, but that podcast is all about like music industry and intersectional feminism. So if you're not a misogynist and like music and you'll like this podcast,

Speaker 1 (02:04):

You know what, and I'm a misogynist and as you know, I like the podcast still, so that's, I'm not a misogynist. I should make that quite clear. I don't think anyway, I probably am, probably have tendencies and I have to be

Speaker 2 (02:16):

Telling to a degree

Speaker 1 (02:18):

I'm not EV I don't think,

Speaker 2 (02:20):

I think everyone internalises it.

Speaker 1 (02:23):

Oh yeah. She did scream that herself the other day on a call. That's how, that's how deep your influence runs at  Noisy Little Monkey, occasionally the client development manager yells "internalised misogyny" at herself.

Speaker 2 (02:36):

Well, it's good to recognise it and it's good to overcome. So let's move on from internalised misogyny.

Speaker 1 (02:44):

Don't wait. Well, I don't mean, so, um, you are, you have offered to talk to us about, um, uh, how to run an influencer campaign. Um, so do you run a lot of those that Natracare? 

Speaker 2 (03:00):

Okay. Yeah, we do run a lot. So we'll do like a couple every month, maybe minimum. Um, but if we are working on a specific campaign, we'll also kind of ramp up the activity for that as well. So yes, we do do quite a lot. And then obviously we do see something like the us, and then we do some for Germany as well. Um, so yeah, it's just constant basically.

Speaker 1 (03:22):

And do you do a, like a mix of - what's your marketing mix, so to speak? You don't have to tell us percentages exactly. Unless you've got those down. Um, but what sort of stuff does Natracare do? 

Speaker 2 (03:35):

Do you mean influencer wise?

Speaker 1 (03:37):
Generally in marketing or other stuff's going on in that space?

Speaker 2 (03:41):

Uh, other marketing... Oh, so we've, you know, we've got a new PR and comms officer, so kind of, you know, the campaign that we're working on, she'll sort of find the angle to go to press with. Um, we also just kind of do like general print, um, advertising in magazines and appropriate, like either trade or consumer magazines. Um, we do, we go to shows mostly like, um, trade shows, but we have done a couple of consumer shows in the past just to kind of like advertise a product, advertise anything new. Um, and then obviously like your standard, digital blogs, social, um, website.

Speaker 1 (04:15):

Cool. Okay. All right. So it's part of a proper, big, and not that I would, I didn't think for a minute that you wouldn't be part of the proper big thing cause you're running it, but, um, just in case people on the call, uh, beginners to this, um, like myself, I've never run an influencer campaign. I don't think have we, maybe we have I'm saying wait, because if we did, you did it and I claimed credit,

Speaker 2 (04:37):

It was Holly, actually, Holly did it. She did, he did a whole talk on it back in like 2016.

Speaker 1 (04:43):

So she did micro-influencers. Yeah, that was it. And at the end of that talk, a gentleman who shall remain nameless, turned up after repeatedly being told that he should use our tech for that um, conference turned up, insisted on using his tech. Didn't have the connector for his brand new Uber space Mac, and Holly did a dance with Tash creative director on stage to divert 250 people's attention while a lovely audience member gave us a connector.

Speaker 2 (05:12):

I remember that. Yeah. What a time.

Speaker 1 (05:15):

Good times. So, okay. So talk to us about influencer campaigns, where do we, where do we start if we're going to

Speaker 2 (05:22):

Yeah. So if you want to run one, you kind of have to ask yourself why you want to run one first and also what you want to achieve if you are going to run one. Um, so, you know, what are your objectives? What are your KPIs? Um, is it website visits, brand awareness, petition signatures, I've included that, cause that was actually an example, what we've got real life example. Um, and, uh, depending on your objective, that sort of informs what type of collaboration you want to go for. Um, and it's also crucial in finding out whether your campaign is successful, if you know exactly the objective. Um, that you want to have.

Speaker 1 (06:01):

I'm interested in that in the, in the, uh, petition one that you mentioned, um, what was that?

Speaker 2 (06:07):

So we did a campaign and I'll mention this, um, I've got notes on it, but, um, we did it

Speaker 1 (06:13):

Have I come too early?

Speaker 2 (06:15):

Because it's probably one of our most successful campaigns. So I think it's worth mentioning now to give context to other points. Um, but we ran a campaign called Rename Don't Shame, and it was a call on supermarkets, just stores, everything that sells, um, period products to rename their labelling of either sanitary pads or feminine hygiene, um, to "period products". And that was for three main reasons if I can think. Um, so one was to be inclusive of non binary and trans people, um, who don't identify as like feminine or even women who also don't identify as feminine. Um, and to also help break the taboo that having a period is unsanitary. Um, but also I think that it helps, um, kind of, I don't know if tackle the right word, but tackle body dysphoria for, um, non binary people, intersex people. Sorry. Um, you know, they sort of don't associate themselves with a typical male or in this instance, female body. So yeah, we just wanted to be inclusive of that community.

Speaker 1 (07:25):

Like it, it really helps in that, in that case. And does it always help that the bit that the campaign or the business has purpose? Like, because we hear so many, like I hear lawyers tell me about the purpose of their business and banks and it's like that your purpose is to make money for your shareholders. That's it sounds like you really, you guys really have a purpose.

Speaker 2 (07:47):

Yeah. And I think that really helps a lot with our marketing, but I think it's a purpose that kind of all businesses need, you kind of need a wider goal than just make money, obviously that is what people have jobs for. But I think it really helps us and it helps us connect with our customers, consumers, our followers, and social media that we are more than just, we're going to sell you this thing where like we're trying to just help do something bigger than ourselves basically.

Speaker 1 (08:18):

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. So, cause I know I keep taking you off of what we've said, we're going to discuss because I'm not that Ooh, that's interesting. And you're like that. No, not that. Let me do that. Let me do

Speaker 2 (08:30):

That.

Speaker 1 (08:34):

So we, you were saying about setting out what you want to achieve. Um, uh, and then, and then what do we need to do? What should we do?

Speaker 2 (08:43):

Yeah. Once you figured out what you want to achieve, you need to calculate how much you would spend either like entirely for a big campaign or just on this one influencer. Um, so calculate your benchmark costs. You can do this either, like just Googling your industry standard, um, for like cost per engagement or cost per X thing. Um, so for example, if you're working with an influencer and you think, Oh, they'll get like 500 likes based on the industry, average of cost per engagement, how much is that gonna cost in the end? And that will give you like a rough estimate maybe on how much you should spend. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:26):

And you can just Google it. Is there any specific tool that you like to use or is it actually, you have to Google it because there's so many different tools or 70 different listings.

Speaker 2 (09:34):

Yeah. We have to Google we've created because we've done so many. Now we have created our own benchmark costs. Um, we've adjusted it because yeah. Cheeky,

Speaker 1 (09:44):

I think she just might by accident accidentally tricked here to saying cheeky on a webinar. How do we move on ladies and gentlemen used to be called,

Speaker 2 (10:00):

No me, it's not even me about starting this cheaper thing anyway. Um, so wherever like you also publish, publish publishes if it's something every year. Um, so you can check out their reports. Um, but yeah, because we do some so often we've got a benchmark costs sheet and we've adjusted it because, you know, based on like how much we can negotiate and um, all that kind of stuff, which I'll talk about later. Um, so yeah, having your own benchmark costs, but also you can base it off of campaigns that you've already done if this is not your first influencer marketing campaign. Um, and if you think that's done well, then obviously you can say, okay, we can pay similar amount. Or do you think that that was a bad campaign? Just be like, Hey, well let's definitely pay less than this or ensure that we're going to get more foreign money.

Speaker 1 (10:46):

So you, you set out what you wanted to achieve and then you have to figure out what it's going to cost to achieve that basically. Yeah, exactly. And it's normally engagement that you're going after engagement or signups,

Speaker 2 (10:59):

Obviously, because most of the inference stuff is on social. Um, we put a big weight on engagement, um, but also you can get stuff like calculate stuff like, um, how many followers you've got from a campaign. Obviously that's not as important. We don't think, um, cost per website visit. That's a good one. Um, cost of conversion after they've like understood the website. Um, yeah. Just depends on what your business goal is. I was normally if we're doing anything, digital based would probably be brand awareness visibility.

Speaker 1 (11:34):

Right, right. Which is, Oh man, that's just so difficult to measure. Um, you're, you're better at me, better than me at this stuff. Um, I've just made you smile on my screen, but while looking at the chat, got your question, Gemma, don't worry about that. Um, uh, so we've calculated benchmarks. There's costs. What do we do? Lonnie. Okay. Mammo.

Speaker 2 (11:55):

So I think I'm just about to answer Gemma's question. Was it, how do you research the best ones?

Speaker 1 (12:01):

Yeah. It's like, you've, you've stopped asking questions. You don't think she can answer.

Speaker 2 (12:10):

So the next step is to research, um, inferences about festivals. So in terms of, um, researching them easy is just either like a Google search or kind of keywords.

Speaker 1 (12:22):

Bring that mic in a little bit with you. You're going a bit quiet or maybe it's me. Not right there. So halfway. Yeah. That's better. Yeah. Maybe take it up a bit towards the sky. Yeah. Pick you up a little bit better. Sorry. I wasn't going to mention it. And then you went robot.

Speaker 2 (12:44):

Um, so yeah, so Google search of keywords that are relevant for your business. Um, so you know, we'll search, I can think an influencer, the sustainability influencers, that kind of thing. They'll, you'll either like you'll just either find a blog or you'll find lists written by publications that people being like a 10 best vegan influencers following 2020, something like that. Um, you can either, uh, depending on if you want to do YouTube, you can just search on YouTube, um, kind of like relevant sort of videos. So if you want to search for like a vegan inference, so you can search stuff like vegan hole or what I eat you the today vegan, um, that kind of thing. Um, using hashtags and even ask them.

Speaker 1 (13:26):

No, no, no. I was just going, Oh, okay. So you'd say, I mean, it's obviously, I don't know why it surprised me, but it was like, Oh, we want to see you search for the sort of content that you want to promote. Right. So you said, so you wouldn't necessarily want to pre, sorry, you wouldn't necessarily want to promote what I eat in a day vegan, but you want to promote to the people who want to find that out, your period products and Europe, the other products that you guys.

Speaker 2 (13:53):

Yeah. Because the people who will be watching those would probably be vegans and will probably be interested in being vegan, beyond their food and lifestyle choices. Um, so yeah, you can, yeah. YouTube search, if you search hashtags on certain platforms, I'm thinking, um, specifically Instagram, you know, you can search like vegan smoker or, you know, vegan ramen or something like that. Um, or, um, one that you can do is, um, if you have found an influencer that you think might be useful, there's a little like dropdown option on Instagram, um, or column on the side on Twitter where you can find like similar accounts. So the be people talking about like really similar stuff, um, they usually have good to browse through as well. Um, or you can also look at an influences circle of people. Um, so you can look at like who they're following and who they're engaging with and who's commenting on their posts and see if they're all similar. It takes a while to research, but it is worthwhile.

Speaker 1 (14:58):

Yeah. Yeah. It's it sounds like this is like, this is, this is a big part, right? Like all digital marketing

Speaker 2 (15:06):

It takes, it does take a while. But I think once you start, can you say, or if you're really familiar with, um, social media and sort of like influences anyway, um, you can easily identify which ones are going to be good and which ones are going to be bad. Um, can I move on to identify

Speaker 1 (15:25):

You you're driving. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:27):

Yeah. So I got a few, um, pieces of advice identifying, um, get influences. So once you've got your list, it's sort of like looking at them individually. Um, so you can check that engagement rate, um, because if someone's got like a million followers, but only like, you know, a few thousand are liking that post about snow cakes, that means only like a few thousands are going to be looking at the post, but you would have spent, um, maybe it was worth on this influencer.

Speaker 1 (15:58):

That's what, that's the mistake I'd have made right away. I made that mistake. I bet I haven't.

Speaker 2 (16:06):

No, I don't actually, I'm not sure where it was so long ago. Um, I would say that anything below 6% is not good. Um, we'll have you say if an influencer does have a huge following of it's less than six to 10 bucks. Okay. Because obviously like, you know, the more followers you have, it's likely to be less anyway. Um, but we 6% as sort of like our lowest lowest level. Um, and you can use social blade.com. I think that's the website to look at and influences engagement rate, just type in their name and it will come up. Yeah. Um, so other things to look out for is that, um, check whether an influencer is using a lot of hashtags in their posts, um, because they might have a good engagement rate, but it might be driven by people who are just kind of like spamming this hashtag and are looking to get new followers rather than people who are genuinely interested in the content. Um, so that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (17:02):

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And you start to see that a lot, don't you, but I've actually got quite a few likes on it. Like on your own personal, also being tagged with the queen is dead and Tony Blair's a criminal I'm using terrible references.

Speaker 2 (17:20):

Um, and then also check whether they have worked with the competitive recently. Um, now I don't think there's any problems with, uh, working with an influencer who has worked with a competitor, but I think if you, you know, say if you were having a post that goes out next week with them and they only posted about your competitor last week, then that's going to seem really disingenuine to their followers posting about you. Um, so, you know, they'll just might be a bit of trust there. Um, and then the last thing is to check whether an influencer does a lot of sponsored posts generally, um, because if they do do a lot, then I think that it just kind of goes to show that they only really care about making money, um, rather than caring about your business. And I think that people get really fatigued and annoyed with influencers who are constantly promoting something rather than talking about their life, which is what people are interested in and why they follow.

Speaker 1 (18:18):

Yeah. Yeah man. Yeah. You w you kind of, there's a danger. If you were being quite naive about it, that you'd end up with one of those ones. That's currently on the news for being on holiday in Dubai or sorry, at work in Dubai, um, and client, did you see that lady? I don't know her name, but I just, it went by on the TV and the headline was that she claimed to be a key worker because she motivated people through, through our posts. Every brand that you work with has just set fire to the contract.

Speaker 2 (18:52):

We did actually like outreach. This was before we knew she was an awful person. We did actually outreach to an influencer to try and be like, Oh, wow, we love your brand. And we want to work with you, but she never applied to us. Thank God too. Um, she turned out later to be terrible. Yes. She turned out to be in Dubai. So, um, yeah,

Speaker 1 (19:15):

Dubai's a bad place guys. Lovely place. Um, and camel's milk is readily available in the supermarket, which is a factor I remember from search term research over 20 years ago. Sorry. I was talking about that yesterday with someone. Um, okay. We've got questions coming in, but I think you're on a flow. So why don't you tell us your, you take us through it and then any questions we don't answer, you don't answer as part of your thing. We'll, we'll ask at the end.

Speaker 2 (19:40):

Okay. Well, that's kind of it for like, um, searching for the influencers, basically all sort of like the beginnings of the campaign. Um, so do you have a question for me?

Speaker 1 (19:50):

No. I think where I was, where I was doing them as I went, there was some coming through, but I didn't. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:54):

Okay. That's okay. I'll just keep going. Let's keep going. So the next bit, yeah. Well, I can talk about next is sort of like, um, the actual idea of the campaign itself and working with an influencer like that. So, um, in terms of Natracare's  experience um, being the best influencers that we work with, we've had a good dialogue with, so we'll suggest ideas to them and they'll be, they'll come back. They're like, okay, like that, how about this as well? Because you know, they'll know what that audience likes best. Um, sometimes we have just sort of like, after evaluating the influences page, just kind of smashed it and being like, look, this is a really good idea. And the influencer has been like, actually, yeah, this is a really good idea. Um, and then we've just kind of gone with it, which has been really good, but it's a combo of both, um, really what it should be a combo anyway, in terms of like coming up with the idea itself, um,

Speaker 1 (20:53):

Did the influence ever come up with the ideas? Like, I mean, it's going to be pretty rare. I suspect where they go, Oh, I've got a good idea for your brand

Speaker 2 (21:00):

To be fair. Some influences have the good ones have come back and been like, Hmm, don't totally love this. Um, you should do this instead. Or I think this will work better. Um, but yeah, but based on my own experience, our own experience mine and Sophie's, um, we normally come up with the winning idea, not to boast. It's just the truth.

Speaker 1 (21:29):

Yeah. I've seen you at work. You really know. So, so, okay. So we don't want to give them, we want to, we don't, we, we can pander a little bit to their, um, suggestions, but probably your gut idea because you really know your market and you really know your audience is probably you should try and push that a little harder perhaps. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (21:50):

Yeah, exactly. Um, I've got a few pieces of advice for people who want to approach an influencer. This is kind of how to, like, if, if you find one that you really want to work with, this is kind of how to win them over and get them on board. Um, so this is the first one is a really basic, um, marketing piece of advice, but it's classic for a reason, which is to just be human. Um, talk to them as if you're a human being even like use I or blah, blah, blah, just sit it up, feel that connection with you. Um, in some instances, people who Sophie has worked with, they've actually developed a friendship. Um, and you know, it has made it so much easier to work with them because there is just kind of a general level of respect and, you know, um, trust, that kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (22:39):

Um, so yeah, be human. Um, the second piece of advice is to make it clear, you've done your research on the influencer. So don't just kind of email being like, we want to work with you email and say, Oh, we've seen your video that talks about, well, this, this matches with our ethos in this way. Um, and you know, just refer back to content that they've done recently. So you know that you actually like them genuinely are interested and want to work with them. Um, the third piece of advice is to spoonfeed them. Um, so it makes your work a little bit harder, but like the end result is worth it. Um, and not trying to slag off influences, but they are lazy. They are so lazy. So you have to spoonfeed them. So give them everything about your brand. Um, you know, like just anything that you want them to mention about your brand. So, you know, we'll mention that we've eaten sustainable, blah, blah, blah, all the sort of like specifics of each product. Um, yeah, just everything

Speaker 1 (23:41):

I assume that they can, like, you can give them all of your background and a brand pack and all of that kind of stuff and say, this is what we want you to say in the, in the, in the post or whatever. Um, but actually you still need to remind them don't, don't, don't expect them to read anything.

Speaker 2 (23:58):

Exactly. They will not go on. Even if you make them, they won't be on your website, they weren't growing your socials. They weren't, they just weren't. So give them everything.

Speaker 1 (24:08):

These people are terrible, then

Speaker 2 (24:10):

You guys just don't do influencer marketing, but also, um, yeah. Tell them like what's special about your brand as well. Um, because if you say this is leading onto the fourth piece of advice, which is sell yourself well, because if you can convince the influencer to believe in your business or your product, then they'll be more interested in securing the collab, collaboration. Um, and also they'll be better at convincing that audience, um, that you are worth following and worth buying and, you know, yeah. Um, so once you've sort of agreed, yes, we'll look together. This is cool. Um, this is when you want to discuss budget. Now, sometimes it can be quite difficult because you might end up talking to their management who are horrible people. They're probably actually really nice, but they hadn't kind of have to put up a front of being like, we're really horrible.

Speaker 2 (25:06):

We're not going to negotiate. We want this kind of thing. Um, but I do have from our experience, again, bits of advice that might help with this. Um, so the first piece of advice is to just be upfront with your budget, say, we've only got this much, or, you know, we can only spend this because, um, we do like charitable giving for example. So that's what we say to influencers. We say, you know, we're a grassroots company. We only have X amount of budget because we donate 1% of our annual turnover to charities. Um, as long as the charitable giving. So, you know,

Speaker 1 (25:46):

If your annual turnover, not a percentage of your profits,

Speaker 2 (25:49):

No turnover. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, but also we do giving beyond that as well. Um, so a lot of our marketing budget goes towards stuff like that. Um, but really worked with an influencer called Alexandra's girly talk. And I think has got a few million followers. I want to show this in food, but she only charged us like a few thousand dollars. Um, which someone with a few million followers is, you know, nothing. Um, and we're still, this was like almost two years ago that we're still getting website traffic from that video. Um,

Speaker 1 (26:25):

Which was one of the questions I was going to ask is how long do you think this is the traffic really fleeting? Or

Speaker 2 (26:31):

It does normally spike to be fair. But I think that if you get enough visibility with that collaboration, then it will, you'll continue to see, um, the benefits of that. Um, and influence influencer might also offer you a package deal and they might be like, Oh, well, we can, um, give you a YouTube video as well as a supporting Instagram post. Um, and, and it's from stories for this much money, um, which sounds good. Cause obviously, you know, marketing, they know how to market themselves as well. Um, but you kind of have to think again, back to your goals, do you really need an Instagram story? Do you really need a supporting Instagram post? Because if you're just trying to get website visits, which will be from, you know, the link in the description bar, a YouTube video, you don't really need an Instagram post, so you can kind of negotiate and just be like, okay, we don't really need these things. We just want to do this because also at the end of the day, an influencer wants your money. Um, yeah, I think they'd rather be like, okay, we'll do this for this much, rather than nothing at all

Speaker 1 (27:31):

About those packages. Sorry to interrupt you, get those, those where they're there. I mean, obviously they know their worth and they, the service they provided to brands has worth, um, and a good deal of it at times. Um, so you, I can guess some of them who are, who are really savvy or going, right. Well, I'll get an agent or I'll get a manager I'll get, are you finding more and more of that, that you're dealing with agents and managers or typically are the people you're dealing with a bit more real.

Speaker 2 (28:00):

Um, the people that we deal with are a bit more real, um, which is nice. Um, we talked directly to them, um, it's just way easier. Um, and normally cheaper, cause obviously a manager isn't taking my talents. I know 20%. Um, you normally have managers yeah. With the biggest influences really. Um,

Speaker 1 (28:22):

Talking about that, you've done deals with people who have millions of followers, right? So people with millions of followers may, you know, a slot in the who, who might be just starting out on this, don't have to worry about approaching them. Sometimes we'll, we'll find someone who's got a manager or an agent and we're, you know, maybe be a bit fearful of that. And I'm sure there are ways that you can work with equity, as you say, it's going to add on 10, 20% on price. So if you can get someone who's got millions of followers or hundreds of thousands of followers and a decent engagement rate say about 6%, I've heard is great. Um, uh, or average, um, you may be, you may still be negotiating with that person who you might have really felt a connection with through their social posts and all that stuff.

Speaker 2 (29:06):

Yeah. Yeah. Like a lot of the, um, a lot of the influences that we have actually outreach to our people were already following because we are sort of, um, our own target audience, people like us. Um, but it wasn't me. I was going to say, sorry, I just knocked you sideways. Okay. I'll just move on. Oh yeah. And then it's the benchmark costs again is just calculating how much you should spend based on industry benchmarks or what you've done before in the past. Um, how often have you broken that rule? Benchmark costs rule

Speaker 1 (29:43):

Really like this person,

Speaker 2 (29:45):

You know what probably, um, probably quite often actually. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (29:49):

It is,

Speaker 2 (29:50):

It is worthwhile because while I have been sort of emphasising the importance of engagement, we care about other things too, which is like the sentiment, um, of people's comments, um, on Instagram, on YouTube people, the DNS that people get, but influencers get from their followers about the product that they're advertising, um, which, you know, not to be cheesy, but it's priceless.

Speaker 1 (30:17):

Yeah. Okay. So I was guessing that was it that, that you did break it occasionally if you found the right, you just got the good vibes. Okay. Sorry. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:29):

And that's sometimes that's okay. Sometimes. Um, yeah, we do get the good vibes. Um, but also, um, I don't mean this in a like, um, Oh, you know, sympathy kind of way, but if we think like it's in terms of the bigger picture, it's way better to work with an influencer that needs, it needs it more than a bigger influencer does, but it's going to cost in terms of like results a little bit more than like we'd rather do that than, you know, like give to the wrench basically.

Speaker 1 (31:01):

Okay. Okay. There's a thread of authenticity running through everything that you'll set yourself, which I really like. I really like it.

Speaker 2 (31:09):

Oh, thank you. Yeah, we, yeah, we, we pride ourselves on being authentic and transparent, um, and hopefully as real as possible, um, to people and inferences, which I think is why we have had such successful campaigns is because they just believe they believe in us.

Speaker 1 (31:36):

When did we get it up to in this campaign that we are putting together? people's questions. Huh?

Speaker 2 (31:43):

God here, sorry, everybody. I let me quickly run through this cause I'm a bit conscious of time to be honest. Um, so in terms of the actual idea itself that you have with an influencer, um, and some key things to note, you want to sell an idea, not a product. Um, so for example, the renamed it shame company that I mentioned earlier, we sold that idea to inferences. We were like, we want to promote this, not us. And because of that, we got influences were so on board. In fact, um, an influencer and his girlfriend, Jamie and Shabbat is what they're called. You can just search on YouTube, um, that like total allies for social justice, um, really good people, but they were so on board with our campaign, but they gave us a considerably lower cost, um, than what they typically would have charged. Um,

Speaker 1 (32:34):

That was what someone was asking actually is do there ever occasions where people will just, they in it so much that they'll they'll do the work for free or a lower cost.

Speaker 2 (32:43):

Yeah. Yeah. So that is the perfect example. Also the video that I mentioned before, Alexander's girly talk, she, she already used our product, um, and she liked what we were about. So she was like, yeah, I have it cheaper. Um, so that's nice.

Speaker 1 (32:56):

Yeah, they got put food on the table every night. They can, we can't expect them to do it for free because they love the product. They can sell

Speaker 2 (33:04):

Thousand pounds. [inaudible]

Speaker 1 (33:08):

10 that screw I'm done. That's great.

Speaker 2 (33:11):

Um, the second, um, tip is to narrow down the message so much your USBs with the influences USBs, and you'll kind of have a recipe for success. Um, Oh, let me just provide some visual examples, actually

Speaker 1 (33:26):

Be really useful. Why don't you share your screen?

Speaker 2 (33:29):

Yeah. Sorry. I totally forgot about sharing my screen.

Speaker 1 (33:32):

Please stop apologising. Otherwise I'm going to come around there and clip your ear. Okay. I've just done a threat of physical violence against a friend of mine on the television. I apologise, everybody figuring out how to Mark just apologised again.

Speaker 2 (33:50):

So this was the video with Jamie and Shabba, they did a couple of reacts to gender reveal fails. Um, and as you can see it as us, it got like this many views, he's got this many subscribers, so that's like a third of, and look at the number of likes. That's so good. That's like 10% of all that. Um,

Speaker 1 (34:10):

Why more than a 6% benchmark. Yeah, I love it. It's more than it's more than 10% of the views, but it's [inaudible] anyway, you go on, I'll try to do the maths.

Speaker 2 (34:24):

So this is sorry, this is the point I'm trying to emphasise. Um, we have matching your USP's to the inferences in ESPs. So this influencer Yasmin Joe, how she is a young mum, um, and we obviously sell maternity products and whites and stuff. So we were like, okay, well, why don't we sort of like lean into this message, which is motherhood, guilt, um, where our brands that we're not so like, Oh, this has to be perfect. We want to, we want this, like, we're all about like I've mentioned before honesty and being real. Um, and obviously like, especially, Oh, this was not during optometry. Um, but you know, mums, um, real mums feel motherhood, guilt. Um, and so we were like, let's, um, promote this message that it's normal to feel this way, blah, blah, blah. You can connect with your audience and hopefully, um, they can connect with our brand too. Um, so

Speaker 1 (35:16):

That's nice and 600 likes. We like that.

Speaker 2 (35:21):

Yes, indeed. We do like that. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't look massive obviously. No, thank you. It doesn't look massive obviously, but, um, she's a, uh, I would consider her to be a micro-influencer. Um, so that was pretty good. Um, the third message is, um, if, you know, if you can't think of an idea or, you know, not sure, like what way to approach creating an image for Instagram or what YouTube is to look at the influences past content and sort of, um, what's the word that down to them they're successful posts. Um, so the ones that just aren't performed everything else, what have all of those posts had in common with each other, um, and sort of emulate that. So, um, this example, we've just Megan, this is probably our most successful campaign. Um, the amazing Sophie who I worked with, um, she actually did this, but, um, so we recognise that Jessica Megan's, um, Mrs. Hassell posts were kind of like risque images. Um, so we were like, okay, let's just do that. Show, show your period products. Um, and so we did, and it's done, I mean, look at the lights that wasn't even like a month after. So I think it got like 50,000 a month after we had posted it, but it kept increasing because we were getting really good press coverage from it. Um, because of, you know, the, the amazing message that we've sort of got across here.

Speaker 1 (36:46):

So you, so you did an influencer campaign, sorry. You're telling me you keep going, mate. I was about to interrupt your,

Speaker 2 (36:52):

No, I just want you to say, um, it's worthwhile doing stuff like this because, um, you might get sort of like residual return from it. Um, we got PR return from it, even though it wasn't like all the tools. So we got mentioned glamour and we got mentioned in South Africa. Um, I think maybe, um, um, some big French publication as well.

Speaker 1 (37:15):

Let's just say Vogue, say Vogue got mentioned in Vogue

Speaker 2 (37:19):

You're in biggest man. Um, yeah, so that's it basically, um, on terms of, in terms of like ideas, the influences and how to sort of make the most of the post.

Speaker 1 (37:31):

So, um, and, um, what warning signs should we look out for? This has come up a lot, um, uh, in terms of dealing with, with influencers, if they can, what was it, what was some of the ways that you would notice that it's not going to be a fit?

Speaker 2 (37:47):

So, um, this, obviously we got this list, this list based on all the sort of unsuccessful, um, campaigns that we've done, but so, um, wildly offbeat pricing, if they're just too expensive in comparison to your benchmark cost, to how much you can just afford, um, as well as that unwillingness to negotiate, um, if they are relying on you solely for ideas, um, or just are very like rigid with their ideas. Um, that's also a bit for woman sign again, you want to get a good dialogue going with them. Um, if they lack enthusiasm for your brand, it kind of shows that they're in it for the money and not because they actually care about your brand. Um, and also a lack of curiosity, if an influencer isn't really like asking you questions or isn't sort of, um, being like, prove, prove this, prove your claim. Cause I want to be authentic to my followers and that's another warning sign. Um, but they're probably the main ones

Speaker 1 (38:53):

And they are fantastic ones. Fantastic. Yeah. And again, it's, it's really, and of course, I mean, it's so obvious, but hearing you speak about it and I mentioned it earlier, but it is just that authenticity coming through all the time is that it has to be like, it has to resonate with, they have to resonate with your brand, like who they are and what they produce them as a, as a, as an influencer or a social media person has to resonate with your audience. And then you personally have to resonate with them because otherwise it just, it's just, it feels a lot more collaborative than I thought it was going to be.

Speaker 2 (39:32):

Yeah, definitely. It really is like every little step that you've just mentioned, it is so important to just be authentic and be honest. Um, and you can get a good relationship out of an inference and maybe even do more campaigns with them after that, um, and build loyalty with their following and yeah, it all, it might seem like it's just for this one campaign, but actually there's trust that you build with an influencer means that later down the line, you might have even further success.

Speaker 1 (39:58):

And so how would you know whether or not you want to work with an influencer again? Is that how would you measure success?

Speaker 2 (40:04):

Um, I think that is that easy to communicate with if they're like responding on time and kind of just, you know, just having a conversation with you. Um, that's when you know about, you know, you know, if someone's easy to work with, you want to keep, um, again, it's the exchange of ideas, um, rather than like you doing all the heavy lifting. I know I kind of mentioned that, um, you should spoon feed them, but it is to a degree. Um, and also there's kind of a bit crap, cause some people might be advantage of character, but um, just if you can just sense they're genuine. Um, then they're worthwhile working with, so you're like Yasmin the influencer that I showed in the PowerPoint, just then we've done multiple campaigns. We've heard all about different topics that like mother heard veganism, charitable giving, um, renamed and shame. Um, because all of those things, I just mentioned, like she takes more. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (41:03):

And the, and the, and there must be a commercial, like the KPIs, I suppose, as well would dictate whether or not you work with them. Like how do you measure success on a, on a campaign level? Is that going back to your original goals and gaining? Yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:17):

Uh, yeah, it's just the benchmark costs again. Um, so we normally do a report a month after the influences posted. We'll ask them for their insights, blah, blah, blah. Um, and then, um, once we've sort of calculated cost per result and all that kind of stuff, we'll compare it, the benchmark costs and decide whether it will successful or more that way. Yeah. How'd

Speaker 1 (41:38):

You calculate cost per result? I couldn't work out a percentage earlier ask someone else who could

Speaker 2 (41:48):

No, no. I do know customer results is the cost of the post. So I would, for example, a hundred pounds divided by the results of engagements will be like a hundred divided by, let's say like 500 equals

Speaker 1 (42:04):

A hundred divided by 500 everybody. Um, I reckon it's going to end in a zero or a five. That's my pump.

Speaker 2 (42:15):

Yes. Leave it came through. I was going to get added to in it. Oh, hopefully you didn't

Speaker 1 (42:20):

Make this by the way.

Speaker 2 (42:24):

So yeah, that means, um, each engagement cost, cost, cost, cost, sorry, cost. Um, okay. Yeah. And then if every engagement customer repeat. Yeah, yeah. That's actually quite new.

Speaker 1 (42:39):

Yeah. Is it because you made the example up on the fly?

Speaker 2 (42:43):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (42:46):

Okay. So, and you've talked about working with, we've talked about working with the same influencer. We have got a stack of questions So well before ours, it's two things before we, before we go further, is that, can everybody else see that a far better looking, um, bearded much more hirsute version of me has joined the, uh, call, uh, in a Starsky and Hutch card. Again, sat in front of a map. Um, welcome the better looking younger version of me. Um, I don't know who that is. I presume it's Josh from New Zealand.

Speaker 2 (43:24):

I was wondering why fake Josh was there as well. I was like, Oh, he wants to support me now changed his name to, Oh, he is here. Oh, right here is here.

Speaker 1 (43:36):

Thanks for underlining the professionalism at noisy little monkey by being able to log onto a webinar, which I'm allegedly hosting. Um, so that's question one, question two. Is, would you like the questions from the community put to you by, um, myself, Jonathan, Mark Payne? Um, or your co-host from, just to go podcast Ms. Katie Roberts.

Speaker 2 (43:59):

I didn't know. Your middle name was Margaret for one. Um, but also I would actually love if Katie asked me the questions. Shut the hell up.

Speaker 1 (44:12):

Come on, Katie. Are you? Oh, there's you there?

Speaker 2 (44:15):

Oh yeah. Hello? Hello. How are you? Yeah. Good. Thanks mate. That was amazing. Well, thank you so much insightful. So inspiring. Right. We have a tonne of questions. So I'm going to drop Natalie's Twitter handle in the chat box, just

Speaker 3 (44:32):

In case we don't get round to it.

Speaker 2 (44:34):

Yeah, please. [inaudible] sorry, Katie.

Speaker 3 (44:39):

John knows that because he listens to a podcast. Um, right. I'm going to just start from the top. Some of them you might've answered. So, um, you already answered Gemma's one. So we've got a question from Cindy Ram saying, do you use or recommend paid platforms that have a database of influences to find relevant influences? Or do you always do your own research?

Speaker 2 (45:02):

We always do our own research. I think that they are a waste of money because they just look through, they don't consider stuff like engagement rate really. And they sort of look through hashtags and stuff like that. Um, they don't really get like the whole sort of feel for the influence sites. That tree just kind of, yeah. Keywords basically. So no, don't use those use what I said earlier in the talk, which is YouTube hashtags on Instagram. I'm on Google search will just ask me for free time. Yeah. Maybe. Why not? Give me a, Spikeball

Speaker 3 (45:35):

Another question from Emma that says, what are your views on paid work and gifted work? A lot of influencer marketing that Emma does is mainly through gifted products due to having a smaller marketing budget. What are your thoughts on that?

Speaker 2 (45:49):

I think gifted is cool. Um, we've done some gifted stuff before, um, and we got some stories from it. Um, and it's essentially like free for your business. I have a cost for the project. Um, but I think you can't, you can't guarantee coverage is the only thing I think that influences like freelancers generally will think it's, I think they'll look at you differently if you don't want to sort of, um, what's the word Haven, if you don't want to pay them, they'll be like, Oh, they're just expecting free work, blah, blah, blah. So gifted is fine if you aren't expecting coverage, um, or shares or anything like that. Um, but if you want to guarantee that then you should probably do paid stuff.

Speaker 3 (46:33):

Yeah. I guess it's could be like less focused could net because they might just put it on one story like, Oh yeah. Rather than feeling connected to the campaign, I guess.

Speaker 2 (46:42):

And for us specifically, because we have to be very specific in what an influencer says. Um, cause that's been science involved. Um, if we like gift somebody and they, um, cover us, they might say something that's not accurate. Um, so that could be quite bad. Well, yeah,

Speaker 3 (47:00):

Actually leads on to a great question from Livi that says, have you ever had any campaigns not go so well? And what did you learn from that? So in the example he gave was if the influencer relayed the information wrong or has anything like that ever happened,

Speaker 2 (47:16):

Part of our process is that we make sure that we check captions and check videos. And it's from stories before and influence influencer, publish, publish. I can't say that word today for some reason publish. Yeah. I don't know why. Maybe I never say it. Um, but yeah, so we'll make sure we'll double check it. Um, so normally it's okay. But the way that something has gone wrong is more, if we don't get any return from it, basically like we did do a Facebook post with an influencer. This was ages ago. Um, um, no engagements whatsoever, um, board, but, um, we just kind of said, look, there's not, we've not really had anything. Um, this is like, you know, a bit of a waste of our money. And they were like, okay, we're happy to, you know, just refund you. So that was really nice of them to be fair. Um, uh, we've had, we've just had, we've had influences, um, delete posts not long after they've published it. Um, gosh, so we were like, we just contacted them being like, crap, can you look back on? Um, and they did, they were like, so I'm so sorry, blah, blah, blah. I think that was actually what they said.

Speaker 2 (48:32):

Um, but they, yeah, they put it back on and then after that we were like, okay, we need to put this in our agreement slash contract. They have to keep it on for like at least a year. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (48:43):

Cool. Um, another one from the lovely Gemma, Brian, I think you did touch on this, but um, just to reiterate, do you continue to use the same influences for campaigns to build ongoing trust and a relationship with their network? Or do you always try and engage with new influences for a wider reach?

Speaker 2 (49:01):

Um, yeah, I did mention that with Yasmine. So we've continued to work with her. Another influencer called Lex Croucher. We've worked with multiple times. Um, I think hopefully we will work with Jessica. Megan, if anyone here works for one of my competitors don't work. Uh, but we're hopefully gonna work with her again. So I think if, um, if an influencer has proved their worth to you, then definitely work with them again. But there's also like no harm in reaching out to more people because coverage

Speaker 3 (49:30):

Let's just come back and the one with the perio pattern, hip hop love, huh? Queen queen question in the chat from flora that says, do you have contracts with your influencers for a paid campaign? Yes.

Speaker 2 (49:45):

Yeah, we do. Um, because of stuff that's gone wrong in the past, um, initially we had a sort of like informal, it wasn't informal. It was, we just call it an agreement because if that's something that's stingy, it sounded on here because we don't want to put it off by having like this giant like sort of more jargon thing, blah, blah, blah. Um, and that worked well with some influences, but then we, it just felt like, cause we were working with like way big influences. We were like, okay, we probably should have a more solid thing in place. So now we have a big contract. Um, we just kind of say to an infant. So if there's anything you're not sure about, like just ask us. Um, but yeah, it's definitely definitely off contract.

Speaker 3 (50:29):

Excellent. Good answer. Um, another question from the lovely Livy, which social media platforms have been the most valuable to nature occur?

Speaker 2 (50:39):

I would say definitely Instagram and YouTube. Um, Instagram, because actually, um, whenever I look in analytics, the, um, social media platform that does drive the most traffic is Instagram. Um, but YouTube just because, um, I think the people who are on YouTube are so engaged that, you know, yeah. Like I mentioned before, we're just still getting website visits from YouTube collaborations that we've done. And also it just allows an inference as to, just to sort of talk about us a bit more, um, and with like a truly genuine voice. Um, so yeah, definitely those two.

Speaker 3 (51:15):

Excellent, excellent. Um, question from queen safety, Creighton and illiquid liquid has Sophie cry cause of parents. Um, if you start to get bad vibes from an influencer or their manager, how late is too late to back out and do you have ways you do so while maintaining a positive relationship?

Speaker 2 (51:34):

I think that, um, too late is when they've signed the contract because the contract is binding. Um, but honestly like anytime before that I think is okay. Um, I think that, again, it's the authenticity, as long as you've been authentic throughout the entire conversation beforehand, these of won't hold a grudge and I think they don't understand, um, why you wouldn't want to, obviously you'd kind of have to like what a nice you'll just come up with something else, but, um, yeah, about sort of like the best way we kind of just say like our marketing plans have changed or we found out we don't really have a budget for it anymore. Cause usually the ones that give us the more expensive ones anyway. Um, so it's true. Um, but yeah, I don't think there is a too late until you signed the contract. They signed the contract, um, and just be as nice as possible. Just kill them with kindness.

Speaker 3 (52:27):

That was my mantra creatively.

Speaker 2 (52:28):

I said that cause of year actually you said it to me the other day.

Speaker 3 (52:31):

Oh my God. I can't remember what that was about anyway. Um, draw.

Speaker 1 (52:35):

I hate to, I hate to kill the love in. Um, we've got another minute, one more, one more question. 

Speaker 3 (52:41):

Okay. I've got two questions that I don't know which one to choose from, but I was going to ask Gertie's question of why are you such a legend?

Speaker 1 (52:54):

Okay,

Speaker 3 (52:57):

I can ask that we will finish with Connor's question or the answers. And as we know him, how would you compare the success of influencer marketing compared to the likes of paid search, SEO etc especially in terms of budget and return. Uh, it's quite different.

Speaker 2 (53:15):

Cool. Because if you're like putting a lot of effort into SEO and like, um, PPC, then the results will be quite different anyway. Uh, well not the results. So like your objective would be quite different. Um, but I guess it's simply like, again, the cost per result, if, and especially that conversion, that's why you're sending something to your website at the end of the day. So it's um, is the cost per conversion, cheaper via, um, organic buyer, which is free anyway, via PPC or via, um, influence marketing and you know, whichever one, but influencer marketing works really well for us because we're obviously not just trying to get conversions. We're trying to get general brand awareness and yeah, hope that answers your question. Caller queen. Thanks for everyone's questions, John Ali wrap up.

Speaker 1 (54:06):

Um, I, I'm actually thinking of adding onto a little bit of too a little bit of, or a little bit to your answer that, sorry, just if my coax had stopped working, cause Katie came about that, I'll just, um, uh, but like if you do a really good, um, nice. It was a great look if you did a really good influencer campaign, right? Yes. Then like the one where you've got press coverage, that's giving you SEO as well as branding. Which column are you going to put that in? If you're dividing it all up by channel and I know we do need to do that, but there does come a point where you go, well, it's just an integrated campaign. Just give it this. We did press advertising. We've got press, we've got influencer. So naturally that is brilliant. Thank you for all the hard work you put in. Thank you everybody for staying on.

Speaker 2 (55:05):

I hope everybody learned.

Speaker 1 (55:07):

They, they did learned, they did learnt, um,