During a session at eTail West in Palm Springs, CA on Wednesday, a panel of retail leaders discussed strategies for building an influencer marketing program. Amber Reyes, senior manager, acquisition and media, Kopari Beauty; Jordan Roberson, director, digital marketing, Johnny Was; Catherine Seaton, vice president, marketing, Windsor Stores; and Meghan Shea, senior director, growth marketing, Bonafide Health, detailed their companies’ influencer marketing strategies. Here are some of the highlights from the discussion.
Finding the Right Influencer Match for Your Brand
Shea: It’s not always your customer. It was hard to find women creators aged 50-plus that wanted to talk about some of our products [women’s health and sexual wellness products]. Therefore, Bonafide pivoted and began using doctors and medical professionals to talk about the brand’s products authentically. White-coat content, as Shea called it.
Seaton: Research your influencers thoroughly. Go back through all of their social channels. They need to be right for your brand. And that person doesn’t need to be a product fit. For example, Windsor Stores, a fashion brand, has worked with travel and food influencers, which are not a natural product fit.
Roberson: Research which other brands the influencer has partnered with. Johnny Was is an elevated brand, and it wants its influencers to be in that realm. Premium brand partners are what we’re looking for in potential influencers that we work with, noted Roberson.
Measurement Tactics
Reyes: Influencer affiliates are viewed as direct response and thus commissioned on sales, tracked via URL code. For earned influencers, the beauty brand is tracking video views, social engagement (e.g., the amount of comments around the post). Lastly, for paid influencers, Kopari is looking for an increase in site traffic and search volume. Affiliate is the only arm that needs to drive immediate revenue, Reyes said. Paid and earned influencers are more top-of-the-funnel brand marketing tactics.
Seaton: Content creators are an extension of the creative team. By understanding why you’re working with the influencer (e.g., drive sales, increase brand awareness, announce a new product or service, etc.), then you’ll understand the metrics that you need to track.
Compensating Influencers
Shea: For medical professionals, we need to make it worth their time. As such, Bonafide is paying a premium there, Shea said. But the performance merits their compensation. Furthermore, the health brand agrees to a percentage split with its influencers for the revenue their whitelist ads produce.
Roberson: Influencers can be expensive. And the more distribution channels they are putting the content on (e.g., whitelisting, email), the more expensive it gets. One way that Johnny Was has tried to cut spending on influencers is by reusing its most popular and effective creators and then getting special bundled pricing from those influencers.
Seaton: We ask influencers to stagger and tier out their social posting to control costs over a longer period of time (e.g., 6 months).
An Evolving Influencer Market
Reyes: What I believe isn’t evolving is that people will continue trusting authentic opinions of your brand, said Reyes. Third-party validation of your brand will always matter.
Shea: Your brand needs to have its finger on the pulse of the culture and then be able to capitalize when given the opportunity. For example, Shea noted that menopause used to be a taboo topic; that is no longer the case. As such, Bonafide is using influencers to promote its menopause products.
Seaton: Influencer strategy is never set; it needs to be a living doc. Your brand needs to be constantly watching. Constantly test and have diversity in your content. You never know what the next big platform is going to be.
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