The Power of Influencer Marketing

On this episode of 1000 Ways to Market Your Business, Samantha Scott, APR, is joined by Bethany Chadwick Cordero, Digital Marketing & Design Coordinator at PTE. The two discuss how using influencer marketing can help grow your business.

The episode explores what influencer marketing actually is, tips and tricks for doing it the right way, and examples of good influencer partnerships.

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Transcript

Samantha: 0:06

Hi, welcome to the next episode of 1000 Ways to Market Your Business. I'm Samantha Scott, APR. And today we're talking about influencer marketing, how to use that to grow your business and some tips and tricks. And today I am joined by Bethany.

Bethany: 0:18

Hi, everybody. I'm the Digital Marketing and Design Coordinator at PTE. And I'm really excited to be here and talk to you guys about influencer marketing.

Samantha: 0:25

So influencer marketing, if you're not familiar with what that is, how would you break that down? Explain this to my dad. I love you, dad.

Bethany: 0:33

Basically, it's almost like having a friend sell you something. Like you are so much more likely to be trusting of your friend that's telling you about the new shoes that they bought or the new car that they saw at the lot that they really liked. You're so much more likely to trust them over a celebrity or a complete stranger. So this is kind of the thought process behind influencer marketing is this idea that it's someone that people build relationships with through social media, through online, and, you know, they follow these people that are just regular people like you and me. They're not these A list celebrities. So they have a level of relatability that those people don't have.

Samantha: 1:09

And shared interests, that's usually where that stems from. So maybe I'm a foodie and I'm going to follow somebody else who's a foodie influencer, and I'm going to, you know, try to go to those restaurants that that particular person goes to. So influencers, if you're not familiar, we're not just talking about, I think you made a great differentiation there, it's not just celebrity endorsements. That kind of was the beginning, I think, of this. Influencer marketing is sort of the new gen way of doing that, and it is much more localized, much more specific, and really very attainable for businesses. You know, not everybody can get major celebrities to endorse their products, but you can get somebody who's got a really good following in your major metro area who can help your business. So when you're working with an influencer and they're growing your business or trying to drive traffic, that's influencer marketing.

Bethany: 1:52

Yeah, exactly. I think that sums it up perfectly.

Samantha: 1:55

So what are some ways that you can use influencer marketing to grow your business? And give me some examples that you've experienced.

Bethany: 2:03

So I think some of the ways that we've probably all seen it is through sponsored posts being one of the main ones. So you'll just be scrolling through your feed, and you'll see all these different posts that look like it could be someone that you already follow. And they'll be talking about a product, all the different things they like about it. And it comes across very genuine, and it's only when you see that it's a paid for advertisement that you realize, oh, this is influencer marketing at its finest. Even with that, I think it's still a very successful way to showcase products, to get people on board with your brand. Don't be put off by the fact that people have to disclose that it's a paid for advertisement, because I think a lot of the time people do see past that and they see that, okay, I trust this person or I trust this influencer and I know what they're selling to me, even if it's something that they've been paid to mention, will be something that aligns with me.

Samantha: 2:47

It's been around for a really, really long time too. I was doing some homework before this and I saw an article that referenced even Mary Kay Cosmetics and how they were essentially using this. This is not anything novel, it's just a different way of approaching it, using digital resources that are available. So, I mean, sponsored posts is one way, you also see, like, unboxing, things like that. Amazon now even has that when you go on and people are talking about the products and their experiences, I don't follow any of those influencers, but it shows up in my feed, it's, it's really amazing how this has transitioned and I feel like there's also a tie to user generated content. You know, we just talked about that in a previous podcast and how getting other people to tell your story and talk about how great your brand is, is so valuable.

Bethany: 3:28

Absolutely. Yeah. And I think like you just mentioned with these unboxings and different things like that. It's something that brands are still learning as they go. What's the best way to approach that? What are the things to avoid? I know in the beginning it was all about, you know, sending these influencers really flashy packagings of this new perfume or this new product and like the more extravagant the better. Sometimes they'd even have like a little TV on there or like all these extra adornments, and then people started to see that as wasteful and that was very scrutinized. So I think, even for big name brands, it's still a learning curve of meet in the middle in that sense, where do you strike the right balance?

Samantha: 4:05

Yeah. And I think the other key is picking the right influencer. So it has to obviously align with the interests of your target audience, but also the most effective marketing is where people can see themselves in it. So, does this person look like me, talk like me, act like me, you know, making sure that you have diversity in it as well is so critically important. This is really, really something to be thinking about is not just does this align from a, a interest perspective, but are all the other boxes checked as well.

Bethany: 4:35

Yeah, definitely. Cause I think that's ultimately what's going to make the campaign successful. If you're choosing influencers that align with your brand and that your audience is going to resonate with, that is what is going to really drive that conversion and make people interested. I think we've all kind of felt that when we've watched certain influencers that we really do relate to on a personal level. When they speak about things, it becomes a lot more enticing in a way to see what, what they're talking about. And you really do see yourself in their shoes in a sense, even though this is someone you don't even know. So yeah, definitely aligning your brand with the correct influencers. Also thinking about as well that you want to align yourself with influencers, not just interest wise, like we were saying, but, in terms of ethics as well.

Samantha: 5:16

Yes, I was just thinking that; putting my PR hat on. So say this person has a great following, they are right in line with your business topic, they've got the right audience just like yours, but maybe they've had some bad press recently, maybe they aren't ethically aligned, maybe they don't have the same cultural perspective and things like that. That's so important because if that part doesn't match up, just like people were scrutinized for the wasteful packaging, your audience is going to see through that and shred you.

Bethany: 5:43

Absolutely. I mean, I think we've all seen that, you know, brands that we've liked have maybe been affiliated with people we don't like so much or that, you know, become involved in recent scandals after the campaigns and it can really dampen the entire brand identity when that does happen. So I think that's something really crucial to keep in mind and it is a gamble and one of the kind of downsides of influencer marketing is that risk that you're taking by partnering with a third party. You do have to put your trust in them, that they're going to represent you and your brand effectively.

Samantha: 6:11

But you can do a lot of due diligence in advance, making sure that you've done your homework on this individual and or group of influencers. The other thing that we'd recommend if you're going to work with an influencer is making sure everything is really clear on both sides in terms of expectations. So, if you're paying this influencer, how much and for what? If it's in trade, so maybe you're a restaurant or a professional service or something and you're going to give them something for free, making sure that's documented, and then being explicitly clear about what your expectations are of this influencer. How many posts? Are these reels? Are these stories? Are they actual posts? How long before they archive them? Think through all of that. Are they going to tag your business or not? There's lots of specifics to go over and make sure you think about that so that everybody walks away happy.

Bethany: 6:56

Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head with that. I think the more specific you can be, the better outcome you're going to have. There's a lot of gray area I feel like with working with influencers sometimes, even small things like don't feature other brands while you're mentioning our product or different things like that. I saw one post recently that I realized was an ad because the girl had blurred out the Nike wristband that she was wearing, or other things. But I had not even realized before that, cause she had made it like this conversational day in my life kind of video. And she was talking about this hair tool that she uses, and she had blurred out all the other brands that she was wearing in that video. So that's another thing that you should keep in mind is do you mind if other brands are visible or not? All of these kind of technicalities I think are really important.

Samantha: 7:34

Yeah. And if you want brand exclusivity or even category or industry exclusivity too, I mean, we're kind of getting down in a deep rabbit hole here, but something to keep in mind. So I think about restaurant critics and those foodies and people like that, you know, how important is it to you that if you're paying for this person to come there and do something that they wait X period of time before they go to your competitor or something like that, making sure you think through all of those components. We are not legal counsel. We can't give you legal counsel, but I would tell you there's lots of different things you can do in terms of documenting that and contracts and things. So do talk with somebody who's an expert about that for those areas. Okay. So what's a great example? I'll give a local one and maybe you can give one. Some time ago we worked with a restaurant and instead of going big, so you talked about some kind of national things in the course of our conversation so far, but we have a local restaurant and they're not looking for national exposure. They don't need, you know, a Martha Stewart level person to be an influencer for them. So we actually found local foodies. These are people who were in their market and like going to restaurants, would regularly review, and negotiated to have them come out and do some influencer appearances and things on social. It worked really well, drove traffic to the restaurant and it was specific to the audience that they were trying to reach. You know, we wanted to make sure we were working with influencers in market to drive people there versus just getting exposure that would really be meaningless otherwise. So that's a kind of local example. So influencer marketing doesn't always have to be grand scale. What's another one that you might be able to share?

Bethany: 9:02

Yeah, that's a really great example of a local way to use influencer marketing. Another more global example was the McDonald's menu hacks campaign, which I don't know if you all are familiar with, but it was a 30 day campaign. They partnered with different influencers for Tik Tok and Instagram, and they basically had these influencers sharing their favorite McDonald's menu hacks, and just creating videos about that, encouraging people to go and try these hacks, to create new hacks, and share those videos. It was hugely successful. A lot of us are very familiar with McDonald's already, but this was a great way of showing how different McDonald's fans enjoy their products and how it really can cater to a lot of different people. The campaign drove 1.4 million engagements, which is just mind blowing. They had 9.6 billion hashtag views, and the campaign only cost$0.03 per visit so 70% more than they benchmarked which is really impressive.

Samantha: 9:56

Yeah. So that's one way of rethinking your marketing. That was kind of creative. Instead of just saying, we're McDonald's and we're known for, you know, burgers and fries and nuggets and things like that, they said,"How can you make this different and what do you like about it," and then just leverage the power of other people telling the story. They could have very easily done a campaign where they just showed different ways to make your burger or different sauces you can make by combining things, but it wouldn't have performed the same way because it was them telling it instead of somebody else telling it. And we've talked about that in other podcasts recently is it's not about what you're trying to sell. It's about what your audience is interested in, what they need or what they want. So, some of the benefits of influencer marketing: it can be very cost effective, low cost to no cost depending on the scale that you're trying to accomplish, but also believability. Right? Is somebody else telling your story, an influencer, someone that means something or is looked up to by your target audience? What other benefits can you see from influencer marketing?

Bethany: 10:51

Like you mentioned Samantha, I think there's that relatability as well. And that authenticity that comes through with that of it being just a normal person, not a celebrity, not the brand itself telling you why you need the product. Because I think a lot of the times brands will just have different, you know, celebrities working with them or different people kind of showing the products that are affiliated with the brand. And for some reason, a lot of the time that can come across as very disingenuous, versus influencer marketing, you're not even looking for it, you know, it's like you're just scrolling through and you're already seeing like your friends and different people that you like, that you're following. And then the way that they format these ads per se is, is so informal in a sense that that really adds to that relatability.

Samantha: 11:28

Yeah. And that's the trend in social media now is it doesn't have to be pretty, perfect and shiny and overly commercial. It's real. It's just day in the life, genuine, I can see myself in this, I can relate to this, and I can see how this would benefit my life. Or make somebody want something that they maybe were previously unaware of.

Bethany: 11:47

Yeah. And I think another great positive of influencer marketing as well is the fact that, these influencers, they know their markets so well. So if you are aligning with this influencer in terms of target audience, they know what that audience is responding to. They have experience with that. They have experience with other brands working to try to reach them so they know what they've responded positively to and negatively to in the past.

Samantha: 12:09

That's a great point, you can take advantage of that. If you're new to influencer marketing and you're working with somebody and they're giving you feedback on, ah, maybe that wouldn't perform so well, or I tried it this way in the past, be willing to kind of put your opinions to the side and leverage their experience to your advantage. Well, this has been a really awesome discussion on influencer marketing. I hope that this was helpful for you. If you have tips on how you do influencer marketing, feel free to share them in the comments below. Or if you have questions about how to do this, we would love to answer them for you. Thanks for tuning in to 1000 Ways to Market Your Business.

Bethany: 12:39

Thanks, everyone.