How B2B Can Leverage Influencer Marketing with Lindsey Gamble

PR Series

In this episode of the PR series, I interview Lindsey Gamble about the best ways for B2B companies to take advantage of influencer marketing to grow their business. Lindsey is an Associate Director of Influencer Innovation at Mavrck, a leading all-in-one influencer marketing platform. He has more than five years experience working with enterprise consumer brands on creator and influencer marketing campaigns and a deep understanding of the creator economy.

Some top tips …

LinkedIn and YouTube are great platforms to connect with and create influencer campaigns with B2B influencers. They can write a LinkedIn post about your company, have your company sponsor their newsletter, have a joint webinar, or consider working with them as a consultant to help generate more ideas and content about how to get your brand in front of your audience with your message. They can help you reverse engineer your target audience’s customer journey and offer another perspective of how and where you might build campaigns to achieve your goals.

Focus less on what’s popular in influencer marketing for the B2C market but more about what appeals to your target audience for your buying decision. It may be much less glamorous but much more effective.

B2B can leverage LinkedIn creators, podcasters, thought leaders, and build integrated campaigns that incorporate different channels and aspects from content creation to consulting.

In addition to reaching out to influencers, make it easy for them to find you and reach out to you on your website. It’s a two-way street.

If you want to pursue an influencer but don’t know the right way to price it for them, it’s better to reach out and have a conversation with them to share how you’re thinking about working with them and ask what their budget would be. That can help to avoid turning them off simply because you didn’t know their pricing.

Alternative ways to work with influencers include hiring to be customer service at a tradeshow to help draw more of your audience, hire them to host your podcast or YouTube channel, hire them to be a part-time member of your marketing team, and consider working with creatives to help you solve problems or be a part of the brainstorming aspect. They’re experts who know their industries but may think differently than an in-house marketing team or management.

Be as clear and specific as possible in the creative brief to avoid confusion or receiving content that doesn’t meet your expectations. At the same time, make sure that you give them enough room to create content that reflects them, their audience, and allows them to use their creativity.

This episode at glance …

>> (6:45-10:30) Strategy and tactics that often work well for B2B

>> (10:40-11:45) Where to begin, identifying goals and budget, consider bringing in an influencer as a consultant to help with that process

>> (11:45-12:45) Partner with an influencer platform like Mavrck or manually reach out to those you’re considering working with on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, or email

>> (15:25-17) Best practices and what to avoid in working with influencers

>> (17:15-18:30) Alternative ways to work with influencers

>> (19:30-24:45) Where issues can pop up in the process and how to avoid them

>> (24:50-29:05) campaign results, expectations, and the realities of the current customer journey

>> (29:10-35:00) How AI is changing the influencer space

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Episode Transcript

00:00:03:04 - 00:00:38:23
Speaker 1
Thank you so much for joining. We are continuing in our PR series. And today we are going to be talking about a really cool topic, which is influencer marketing. And I brought on a great guest to share with us today. I have Lindsey Gamble. And he is an associate director of influencer innovation at Maverick, which is an all in one influencer marketing platform with over five years of experience working with enterprise consumer brands on creator and influencer marketing campaigns and a deep understanding of the creator economy.

00:00:39:06 - 00:01:13:16
Speaker 1
Lindsay helps brands experiment and enter new trends in the Creator economy. He also writes a weekly newsletter that breaks down news, insights and trends across creator, economy, creator, influencer marketing and social media. Helping readers cut through the noise and stay up to date on ever evolving industries. Lindsay's expertise has been recognized by LinkedIn as a top voice in the creator economy, Business Insider as a rising star of the creator economy and a top creator economy and influencer marketing expert Channel and Hello partner.

00:01:13:17 - 00:01:28:17
Speaker 1
As a top U.S. partnership marketing changemaker, his insights and perspective have also been featured in digital publications like Vogue Business, Digiday, Adweek, Marketing Brew, The Drum, and more so. Lindsay, thank you so much for joining today.

00:01:29:13 - 00:01:36:09
Speaker 2
Yeah, thank you so much. I appreciate the intro and we're really excited to chat to you and, you know, talk a little bit about what I'm working on.

00:01:36:24 - 00:01:46:00
Speaker 1
Yeah, So first I'm just curious what, what did you do beforehand and what kind of led you down this path? Where are you at today?

00:01:46:24 - 00:02:09:10
Speaker 2
I have like a really unique career journey, so I've only really been working in social media professionally for maybe five years. I graduated back in 2010, worked at a hospital called Dana-Farber, which is really focused on cancer research. So I worked there for six, seven years doing clinical cancer research. But at the same time I ran a hip hop blog.

00:02:09:11 - 00:02:32:10
Speaker 2
I've always been very passionate about sports media and writing and just everything communication related. And so I did that job as my 9 to 5, but also made sure to kind of, you know, fulfill my creative needs. And that hip hop blog was really my way to create an internship within the social media digital marketing world that I wasn't able to do when I was at college.

00:02:33:08 - 00:02:50:13
Speaker 2
That's and yeah, and so after doing that for a little bit, I was able to get a job at an agency before for my current role at Maverick and was able to kind of make that transition based on some of the passion projects that I was doing. And if like the rest is history now, I'm here today.

00:02:51:03 - 00:03:06:13
Speaker 1
Yeah, well, a man of diverse interests. I love it. From cancer research to hip hop to influencer marketing, That's really cool. Really cool. So for those who aren't familiar with Maverick, can you just share a little bit about what that is? What they do?

00:03:08:00 - 00:03:39:08
Speaker 2
We're an all in one influencer marketing platform, so there's hundreds, maybe thousands of influencer marketing platforms out there. Now because of the current economy. You know, we're one of the key players. We, you know, we're SAS company at heart. We have a software that brands can license out and use to find social media creators, influencers, whatever you want to call them, communicate with them, you know, send them an opportunity for, you know, a typical Instagram or a Tik Tok sponsored campaign or any other type of creative brand partnership.

00:03:39:18 - 00:04:06:23
Speaker 2
They can opt in, you know, sign the contract, create the content. We have API, as with some of the major social media players, that when that content goes live, we can report on it as a marketer and you know, look at the reporting and pretty much use the whole platform to build out your influencer marketing program. And then the other aspect of Maverick is like our in-house agencies or professional services team, and that's the team I've been in on at Maverick since my time.

00:04:06:23 - 00:04:38:10
Speaker 2
At Maverick. First, after my career, I ran campaigns for brands, helping them, you know, at strategy, execution management. And within the last, I would say like two and a half years, maybe even longer. Now I role is really focus on innovation. So less campaign execution and more helping our internal teams and customers. We're portrayed as new ways so new platforms, you know, helping them use curators as, you know, consumer research really is looking at the creative economy and creators much more than sponsored content.

00:04:38:10 - 00:04:40:01
Speaker 2
So it's a really fun role.

00:04:40:16 - 00:05:10:19
Speaker 1
Yeah, it sounds like it now. I know. So a lot of the people listening are in legal and tech and health, so more the service side, some some products. But I think everybody is familiar with influencer marketing to a degree when it comes to different types of products. But I'd love if you could share a little bit about how it works with kind of B2B brands and and how they can take advantage of influencer marketing.

00:05:11:16 - 00:05:39:19
Speaker 2
So first off, I think any company can really leverage influencer marketing. You know, there's nuances between the different industries and, you know, the products and services. And the B2B space is really interesting because it's, you know, it's not influencer marketing isn't as used as much in B2B. Typically. It's the, you know, consumer products and goods. But, you know, I think there's a huge opportunity for not only brands or small businesses or corporations, but also for creators that are within the B2B scope.

00:05:39:19 - 00:06:08:22
Speaker 2
And so, you know, as I look at myself as a creator too, and I use LinkedIn, so that's not more platform, I think they exist for a kind of, you know, some of the industries you mentioned. And so where traditional influencer marketing today is really focused on your pitching products and, you know, having these bigger scale campaigns and going viral and, you know, short form video and Tik Tok content, all that B2B is a little different.

00:06:08:22 - 00:06:39:22
Speaker 2
You can still incorporate the traditional social media platforms, but it's it's like in a more kind of strategic approach to those campaigns where, you know, you're selling a higher price software that's, you know, thousands of dollars, you know, a TikTok video and maybe will, you know, get someone to convert. But if you work with someone that has influence and so that community in that, you know, the industry that reflects that are aligned with that software, they can kind of, you know, create content on LinkedIn.

00:06:39:22 - 00:07:01:19
Speaker 2
You know, if the podcast long form content and that content isn't going to always go viral because it could be a blog post and just really informational, but it's really kind of align yourself with those influential voices and thinking more beyond the metrics themselves, because you're not going to always get those big flashy campaigns. And so from so on, what was one of the industries you mentioned was civic tech?

00:07:02:16 - 00:07:28:12
Speaker 2
Yeah, tech's of tech. You know, I work at a tech company, you know, well, I share content on LinkedIn and it's mostly to provide value, but, you know, we'll see if there was a I wasn't workshop Maverick and other influencer marketing platform could, you know, reach out to me and, you know, have me create content since my audience is usually interested in a creative economy like a LinkedIn post, I could write sponsorship, my newsletter, I could, you know, join up for a webinar.

00:07:29:07 - 00:07:51:19
Speaker 2
I can help them. I think one of the biggest opportunities like consulting and so you can do the sponsored content, but I think you've either a brand that's trying to figure out, Hey, how do we get our software in front of this type of audience? You can work with those people that have a good idea of the industry from an individual standpoint and ask them what are their peers looking at when they're, you know, looking for new software?

00:07:52:02 - 00:08:18:15
Speaker 2
Are they using LinkedIn? Are they doing YouTube searches? Are they Googling? Are they going to ticktalk? Are they going to reviews and kind of reverse engineer that consumer journey through the eyes of an individual that's, you know, has a different perspective of their company and kind of build your campaign around that. So I think the sponsor content's one way, but also really work with those individuals as more consumer research to figure out your bigger company strategy.

00:08:19:18 - 00:08:47:24
Speaker 1
I like that. So really not focusing on necessarily what do you see as exploding in influencer marketing, but taking a look at your industry and seeing who are the influential key players and how can you connect with them, collaborate with them in places where your audience is looking. And even if that's unsexy, that's okay. It's, you know, you it's more credibility, it sounds like.

00:08:48:13 - 00:09:27:05
Speaker 2
Yeah. And that conversation could lead to you running, you know, a TikTok campaign. Right? And so it's kind of like not you don't want to actually take the same approach as like B2C. There are some similarities there, but you want to make sure it's more specific to be a product you start off with in your industry. But yeah, for anyone out there, I would say clever LinkedIn creators, you would have podcasts like yourself, people that are writing really thought leadership, you know, any of the be these platforms out there, but really kind of finding those influential voices and and building these integrated campaigns that incorporate different channels and different aspects from content creation to a

00:09:27:20 - 00:09:28:13
Speaker 2
consulting.

00:09:29:10 - 00:09:38:22
Speaker 1
And what would you say when when, you know, a brand decides, okay, we're going to start pursuing this, Where do they start? Where's a good place to begin?

00:09:39:19 - 00:09:54:17
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think first of all, you want to know what your goals are right before you even reach out to any creators are doing that like what's you know, what do we want accomplished? We want to you know, drive sales. We want to just create content assets that we can repurpose for media. Do we want to just drive brand awareness?

00:09:54:17 - 00:10:13:07
Speaker 2
Because that's going to play a huge role in the way you structure the program. And so I think sometimes with influencer marketing, we see these big campaigns and all that influence of creating great content and ultimately like the content is great, but there's a long way to go. It doesn't really matter. So setting the goals and that's going to set the tone for what your budget is.

00:10:13:14 - 00:10:31:06
Speaker 2
You know, if you're working, if you want to work with a, you know, big tech influencer that you know has a great following on YouTube, you're going to have to spend some money, right? Versus maybe you collaborate with upcoming, you know, tech writer on LinkedIn or someone that's just kind of creating content around the tech industry that has an audience.

00:10:31:06 - 00:10:47:06
Speaker 2
But they, you know, they're a little smaller, so there's more opportunity to collaborate with them where, you know, you can still want to incentivize them, but maybe you bring more that consulting aspect of it. And then once you've, you know, once you figure out the goals and the budget, you know, you can reach out to the creatives. There's a lot of different ways.

00:10:47:13 - 00:11:13:16
Speaker 2
Obviously, you know, working at Maverick, we have an influencer marketing platform, whether it's Maverick or someone else, depending on what the best platform is for you. You know, millennial outreach is a great way to especially if you're a small business and can't don't have the budget for that platform, just, you know, DMS and people through Instagram, LinkedIn or Twitter or whether platform it is sending emails, most people have a website with their contact information.

00:11:14:13 - 00:11:39:06
Speaker 2
And it I also think to, you know, creating some and experiencing a website or your social channels where people that want to work as a brand can easily fill out a form or get in contact with you. I think so often brands will want to reach out to people not think about tapping into their own community or their own CRM or email list that you know, our creators or, you know, would love to personal brand but are not don't know that there's an opportunity to do so.

00:11:39:20 - 00:11:57:06
Speaker 1
Yeah that's so good that it is a two way street and there could be people looking at you who would love to work with you and you have to make it easy for them. So that's a really good point. And then can you just share a little bit about how how it's kind of broken down in terminology like micro-influencers and macro influencers?

00:11:57:06 - 00:11:58:11
Speaker 1
Like how does it work?

00:11:59:19 - 00:12:25:12
Speaker 2
It's everyone has a different, you know, definition. You know, I would say like 15, but very simple and just like more standard, a micro-influencers, usually a small influencer. The follower account changes are varies across the channels. But I think, you know, micro-finance is where we have these engaged audiences. They typically focus on a specific topic. You know, they usually have it's usually not doing a full time, even though some can, but maybe they working on a five job.

00:12:25:12 - 00:12:51:21
Speaker 2
But they're really passionate about, you know, food and beverage or technology and creating content around to that micro-influencers I think that are the bread and butter for influencer marketing because they can create content, they can, you know, you know, like ratings reviews. So, you know, you give them your product, they can do the nuts, your typical they can do the product review like creating content, but also leave a review on your website.

00:12:52:16 - 00:13:10:05
Speaker 2
And then the third one is that they can kind of be consultants. You can really work with them, and so they can do a little bit of everything because they're not big where they're doing this full time or they're unreachable, unreachable, or doing something else. But you can really, you know, they're cost efficient, they're willing to work with you a lot of times.

00:13:11:06 - 00:13:33:12
Speaker 2
And then, you know, from a micro influencer, there's kind of like the mid-tier influencer, which is, you know, a bigger influencer that provides some of the benefits of the micro, but maybe they are doing it full time or they're really leaning into monetizing it. And then from there you have your macro, which is like I think probably the creators that we think of when we think of influencer marketing, like, Hey, this person is doing it full time.

00:13:33:14 - 00:14:03:00
Speaker 2
They're really, you know, pushing products that they're pushing curation of services or whatever it is throughout all the channels. And then, you know, your celebrity influencer to the person that, you know, you see movies or magazines that are more endorsements as opposed to like creating content, you know, all the time. Yeah, there's so many definitions. I, I kind of, you know, I think the biggest thing is like, you wanna work with smaller creators or do you want to work with, you know, full time creators of celebrities?

00:14:04:12 - 00:14:05:12
Speaker 1
I No, that's good.

00:14:06:04 - 00:14:22:20
Speaker 2
Yeah. And then another thing too, beyond the micro is kind of like nano and kind of like advocates where maybe they're not the greatest content creators and maybe they don't have the greatest following. But if you work with a big group and I mean, you can kind of get that reach that you might be able to get with bigger creators.

00:14:24:22 - 00:14:40:16
Speaker 1
And I appreciate that it can be a little bit intimidating. So how do you recommend what are kind of some best practice or things to avoid that? Someone who's new coming into this wouldn't even be aware of considering?

00:14:41:15 - 00:15:00:00
Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, you work with creatives now we're kind of we're kind of in a world where everything still like shock value. And so I think we see a lot of I see a lot of creatives calling up brands that reach out to them because maybe they only offered product or they offer it a small payment for a lot of deliverables.

00:15:00:11 - 00:15:15:15
Speaker 2
And I think those brands don't necessarily they just try and write a lot of money. Maybe they have an agency, a platform or in the scene that can help them out with knowing like, Hey, here's how you should appraised it, here's how you should approach them. And so I think the biggest thing is like thinking about it as a brand.

00:15:15:15 - 00:15:36:24
Speaker 2
Even if you have a great product or service, you shouldn't really think that everyone is just going to jump on the opportunity, especially if they're creating content. They want to monetize it. Like just like you wrote this podcast, it takes time and effort and you know, everyone should be compensated in a certain way. And so I think when you're whenever a company like thinking about, Hey, what am I asking creators to do?

00:15:36:24 - 00:15:54:01
Speaker 2
And I compensated them appropriately, and if I'm not sure, maybe just have a conversation with them. So reach out and say, Hey, we want to work with you. This is what we're thinking about. Like, what's your budget like? Does this work? Like before making that judgment of like, Hey, I'm an offer just $50 and you create ten TikTok videos.

00:15:54:14 - 00:16:13:20
Speaker 2
So people might be open to that just because they wanna work the brand. But you know in a different landscape with everybody wants to monetize that passion projects. So that's one thing I would also say, just like you can work with creators in a lot of different ways, I really push brands, companies thinking outside the box and working with creatives, not just sponsored content.

00:16:13:20 - 00:16:34:01
Speaker 2
And I talked about the consulting aspect, but creatives can really be integrated in every aspect of your business. They can be customer service. You know, if you're running trade shows like you can hire creative to that, you know, you brief them on your product or service, but they could be at that trade show and you know, if they're well known like that, could bring people there.

00:16:34:01 - 00:16:59:15
Speaker 2
But they also can just be a different personality that maybe you were as an owner, maybe you don't necessarily want to be in that aspect. You know, they can dig in. You know, you can hire them actually, they can be in-house. So you don't have a marketing team. Maybe there's a creator that wants to work part time at a company where they can not only learn from your business, but also get some, you know, sustained or a different revenue stream.

00:16:59:15 - 00:17:23:10
Speaker 2
In addition to the creative work. But I would say like whenever you if you think about a problem you have as a business, I think you can create a first think about how a creative can be integrated that because more times than not they can help solve that or either be part of that brainstorming aspect because ultimately they're experts, they know their industries and they usually think a little different than, you know, the average marketer or business owner.

00:17:24:06 - 00:17:29:04
Speaker 2
Just because the kind of the kind of unique role that creatives tend to play.

00:17:30:11 - 00:17:48:07
Speaker 1
I really like that. I like those creative approaches about taking them to a trade show or considering bring them in-house and and consulting, using them as a consultant. So that's that's really smart, especially for some of these B2B industries where they might think, you know, we can't necessarily do the same thing that consumer market does.

00:17:48:24 - 00:18:06:18
Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean, I really look on a panel with a B2B creator and what she's doing is really that aspect. She's consulting, but also for those businesses, they want to create content. And so some of them, you know, the owners aren't, you know, they're not really on camera or, you know, they don't know how they're gonna create content.

00:18:07:01 - 00:18:28:05
Speaker 2
And so she's actually helping them start their own podcast where she's the host and, you know, ask them questions and, and kind of guiding that process too. So like becoming the consultant, consultant, you know, doing the sponsored content too, but also like the in-house talent that helps, you know, prep those business owners and employees to also be content creators on there as well.

00:18:28:22 - 00:18:51:03
Speaker 1
Oh yeah. That is so, so smart. So that's really good. Really good advice. Where have you seen in the process? I know it's especially for people who haven't really gone down this path before, It's it's more than just, Hey, we want to work with you. Here's how much we're going to get paid. Everything's perfect. So where do you see if there are breakdowns?

00:18:51:03 - 00:18:58:06
Speaker 1
Where would you say the most common places are from? Kind of start to finish. The breakdown is just for people to be mindful of.

00:18:59:01 - 00:19:20:16
Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean, I think it's just that the creative outreach, whether it's the way that you reach out to creators and so I talked about this earlier is like you know that ultimate it's when you reach out to creator, you want to provide them with enough information to know about your campaign or opportunity. And particularly like what what what do they get out of it, right, from a payment standpoint or just opportunity.

00:19:20:24 - 00:19:37:02
Speaker 2
And so I think that, you know, that can really set the tone because if I reach out to you and I somehow do it in a way where maybe the language is wrong or maybe I'm offering a low incentive, that really kind of creates a lot of disruption right there. And you can get it back on track. But that's ultimately the first impression.

00:19:38:01 - 00:19:56:04
Speaker 2
So I think the creator outreach portion is really important along with it being negotiation. So, you know, as a creator, you know, as a brand and a creator, you know, there's a little bit back and forth and a little, little bit of give and take where ideally you can come to an agreement where you're going to get something valuable out of the partnership.

00:19:56:04 - 00:20:17:16
Speaker 2
And me as a creative is is going to get something valuable as a partnership. I also think when, you know, creators have been doing a briefing aspect, so when you contract and negotiate with, you know, when you give them the contract or the campaign brief, you know, setting expectations of what type of content you want, helping to get that content also allowed for creative freedom.

00:20:17:16 - 00:20:32:01
Speaker 2
You know, creative is on a billboard. You know, they have an audience, they have content creation abilities. And so you want to be able to make sure that they're creating the content or the messaging that, you know, aligns with the goals that you want, but also realize that they're the experts and you're reaching out them to create content.

00:20:32:01 - 00:20:57:14
Speaker 2
So allowing that creative flexibility whenever it's possible and I think, you know, outside the payment of opportunity, most creators want to be able to create content that really reflects them in their audience. And then I think also the reporting aspect, too, like, right, what's the if you don't set the KPIs at the beginning and you get, you know, a bunch of metrics and content and, you know, you just have it like you don't really know what it means.

00:20:57:14 - 00:21:23:16
Speaker 2
And so, you know, once a post goes up, you know, hey, this gets 50,000 views to that good or bad. Do we expect that how that relates for business, you know, what does that mean? And so you want to make sure that you have those the forecasted performance or sometimes expectation early on so that you can actually have a sense of was this video of this campaign successful and how do we optimize and continue to improve the next time around?

00:21:24:18 - 00:21:39:06
Speaker 1
Not that much, but do you see a lot of issues pop up around, you know, missed deadlines or wow, this is way off from the creative brief that we sent you. What do we do? Is there anything we can do? Those types of things?

00:21:40:03 - 00:21:58:12
Speaker 2
Yeah, that I've been in those situations plenty of times throughout my career, and that's just part of it. I think, you know, in life you're not going to always get things that come out perfect. I think as much as as technology and as much as it is, you know, influencer marketing has been really powered by platforms and kind of automation.

00:21:59:23 - 00:22:16:01
Speaker 2
You can have the perfect brands, but if the person on the other side doesn't understand it, you know, they can make that mistake. And sometimes what you imagine, you know, as a marketer, you create the perfect briefing, like I know exactly what type of content going to get. Like, we're so excited and the creator, you know, wants to do something different.

00:22:16:22 - 00:22:33:09
Speaker 2
And so those situations, I think it's just really thinking about the other person, the person on the other end, really taking the human approach to it. We're like being, you know, upfront with them, but in a respectful way. Displaying times where I've worked with a creator and we provide it, you know, a great brief, at least we thought every other creative.

00:22:33:09 - 00:22:56:15
Speaker 2
That campaign got it right, but maybe this created them then. And so we'll go back and sometimes we ask them to create that content if they really missed the mark. And sometimes we'll look at the brief and say, Hey, you know, we couldn't have made this clearer. You know, sometimes you just it really depends on the situation, but also thinking about the relationship aspect because as a brand, you know, you want to make sure that you're protecting your brand and making sure you're being respectful to the partners you work with.

00:22:57:05 - 00:23:30:19
Speaker 2
And sometimes it's better to think that you know that loss and maybe you don't get that piece of content than to, you know, have a PR nightmare. But what I have in general, obviously, if you have an issue with a creator that deadline, you know, just put yourself in their shoes, we all come in to those situations. And then for creatives to, I would say like being on both side as a market and a creator, it's really valuable because I know the pain points that come with being a marketer, work with creators when they do miss deadlines and to work on behalf of a brand and have to go back and tell.

00:23:30:19 - 00:23:46:20
Speaker 2
I'm like, Hey, we haven't heard from this creator. And it's kind of even though it's not my direct, you know, fault, but we're working on behalf of them and welcome them in person. So that could be really challenging. But so when I work as a creative with brands, I make sure that if I'm not able to deliver something, I try to be upfront with that.

00:23:46:20 - 00:23:54:03
Speaker 2
And most times people are really okay with that is just like any other kind of human interaction. Communication's really key.

00:23:54:15 - 00:24:19:17
Speaker 1
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And how, how long would you say in terms of seeing results? I think just having expectations that results aren't necessarily instantaneous and it can be a multiple campaign process. So can you speak to a little bit about just a realistic look at what you should expect in terms of results?

00:24:20:12 - 00:24:46:20
Speaker 2
Yes, it depends on the goals. I mean, if it's just really generating an awareness, you know, when you have creators creating content, those impressions, you know, generate those engagements generating like you know, depending on the platform, that can happen sooner than later, you know, tick tock. Usually a lot of that engagement happens early on and then sometimes it picks up because a video goes viral or is shared or there's some type of network effect when it comes to some more lower funnel activities.

00:24:46:20 - 00:25:08:06
Speaker 2
I think, you know, it's really important to be patient. If we look at ourselves as consumers, when we see a product, we might like it, but we don't always, you know, purchase it right away. So as you think about Instagram, as much as Instagram, as great shopping features are the platforms are expanding more into that. Like you really have to be realistic about how often are you going to swipe up on a story and purchase a mattress that you like right?

00:25:08:24 - 00:25:34:21
Speaker 2
Versus like, Hey, I seen this create a post, this, you know, a video of a mattress or maybe to make it more relevant, go back to the tech, you know created that there's a breakdown of a tech stack or software maybe as a business you know target audience or user. You're not looking for that at that tech right now, but you have that top of mind of like, I heard about this when I renewal and our current tech stack, whatever it is, comes up.

00:25:35:06 - 00:25:52:05
Speaker 2
I know about that brand to bring them in to look more into at that period of time. You're not going to swipe up on its story or you might not purchase, you might not get the demo right away. So conversions is really unique. It's like sometimes you have to really just think about the influencer marketing program matching the consumer journey.

00:25:52:12 - 00:26:13:16
Speaker 2
So for, you know, high priced items that consumer journeys really long, where people want to do more research, you know, I'll watch YouTube videos, I'll I'll ask you about good reviews, though, You know, you know, I'll go in store if it's available, then ask to be pulled there versus just something that's like maybe a, you know, CPG product where you're like, oh, like I want that.

00:26:13:16 - 00:26:38:14
Speaker 2
So I might swipe up to get on Amazon. I may go in store. It's, you know, five, $10. It's not going to really break the bank versus 1000, 2000, $10,000 software where you really needed to get buy in from you, your partners or company or employees or whoever you're looking into that software for. And it just I would say just to finish up like influencer marketing is, you know, I always provide results right away.

00:26:39:13 - 00:27:03:14
Speaker 2
You know, you run some campaigns, you see how your performance is and you kind of use those benchmarks and create, you know, performance metric performance metrics that you can build upon and measure over time. But I definitely see brands that will try to do influencer marketing that get discovery, just they don't get a certain amount of conversions and they'll look at it as like, Hey, I generated 500 conversions to a media.

00:27:03:14 - 00:27:10:11
Speaker 2
My influencer marketing program generated five very different and you have to kind of hold those expectations.

00:27:11:24 - 00:27:27:03
Speaker 1
Yeah, Yeah. No, I think that's true. It's, it's part of it should be part of a broader holistic marketing approach. And marketing in general is typically experiment. You have to experiment and try different approaches and different things, see what works for you.

00:27:27:18 - 00:27:53:16
Speaker 2
And then the influence of market has is just like going back to I said is that it's so hard to track. We're not always, you know, promo codes are great ways to track, you know, you know, if I have a promo code that's gamble 20% off and I share what you you purchase to that you know the company I work with with no that is a direct purchase but I know plenty of times through I've come across products and services, especially in the air field now where I'm not purchasing right away.

00:27:53:16 - 00:28:11:11
Speaker 2
I might go purchase directly, you know, on that website as opposed to that tracking link just because of where I actually see that content and some of that data gets lost where you know that you're saying your campaign isn't getting any results, but it actually is. It's just not tracking because of the unique consumer journey with that particular product and experience.

00:28:12:01 - 00:28:23:04
Speaker 1
Yeah, Yeah. That's a good that's a good point. And that brings up just what types of things are changing with AI or otherwise that are impacting the influencer space and how they work with brands.

00:28:24:00 - 00:28:51:03
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think everyone's been talking about that, right? And lots of marketing space. There is a couple of different ways is impacting, I think for creatives. First of all, A.I. is becoming kind of that copilot where they really, really accelerate their workflows, whether it's, you know, a creative that is YouTube videos and they can use the chatbot or a notion or some other tool to, you know, come up with a video title based on a couple of different bullets that they input.

00:28:52:00 - 00:29:10:08
Speaker 2
They might have to tweak it, but it's a great way to brainstorm an idea as opposed to them having to start from new. So similar to, you know, if you want to bring in someone, a colleague, you sit in a room and you to go back to back and forth. This is a little more powerful because it's using, you know, it's sourcing data across the Internet or some type of source and you can kind of tweak it.

00:29:10:23 - 00:29:46:13
Speaker 2
So that's one way with, you know, creatives uses that to explain workflows to captions titles. I think for B2B, you know, if you're not a great writer, but you have some great ideas, you can plug something in and catch up and come up with a whole blog post. I also would say repurposing content. So there's a lot of great tools that allow you to go long form video, or if you're not doing this already, I recommend this from podcasting standpoint where you can plug in your podcast and you know there's tools out there that will chop it up to be short form video as opposed to you having to do it yourself or outsources to

00:29:46:13 - 00:30:21:06
Speaker 2
a human being. You can easily get 10,000, 10,000 pieces of content that can repurpose, that you can repurpose across all different platforms. On the influence of art or the marketing side, you know, platforms like Maverick are including more API. So we launched a new feature where you can search for creators and as opposed to just having the typical hashtag search filters, Now we have a support where, you know, so if you look for a travel influencer, the able touch, you know different work associated with travel.

00:30:21:12 - 00:30:44:15
Speaker 2
And so it expands your travel and expands your pool of creators. So that's one thing. I also think coming or going forward is what specialty platforms is using able to find the best creator. So as opposed to you having to take the subjective approach, these platforms are populated. Hey, here the best 2030 creators to work with based on your your KPI of driving skills.

00:30:45:01 - 00:31:17:16
Speaker 2
And then to finish up on the conversation matter Tik-Tok, Microsoft, Amazon, they all have A.I. powered ad experiences. And so, you know, as a business you can instead of having to get 100 different creatives, you can maybe work with a creator ten creators to get some content, plug that in there. It can remove the background. So if you get a piece of content for a summer, you know, it can create, it can turn that piece of content and that same piece of content to be reflective of holiday shopping and those type of things.

00:31:19:03 - 00:31:24:24
Speaker 2
So yeah, I would say those are probably the top three or top three things that come to mind across the different parties.

00:31:25:23 - 00:31:31:10
Speaker 1
Yeah, Yeah. There's so much changing constantly there. It is just wild right now.

00:31:32:14 - 00:31:48:06
Speaker 2
Yeah. And then virtual influence has to do with virtual influencers. So that's going to be a big one too, where, you know, maybe you and I don't have to be the curators where a brand can build their own virtual influencer and, you know, they build a following. We're seeing that already.

00:31:49:01 - 00:31:51:09
Speaker 1
We'll talk more about that. What exactly do you mean by that?

00:31:51:21 - 00:32:16:21
Speaker 2
Yeah, so there's this a couple of virtual influencers out there. There's like, I think little Mikayla. So basically these digital avatars that have their own Instagram account that all are have TikTok accounts and, you know, created through a guy or, you know, someone creates them and they're not real, but they have really realistic features and they're actually the someone or agencies behind them that are, you know, really creating that persona.

00:32:17:08 - 00:32:35:19
Speaker 2
And what's really interesting is that is that, you know, people do follow them, right, even though they're not humans. But then there's the benefit of having that brand safety avatar. Your virtual influencer isn't going to have a PR crisis unless you decide to write something. You know, the caption, we're like humans, you know, as a brand to work with the creator.

00:32:35:19 - 00:32:58:16
Speaker 2
That is, you've done a background check, you've done everything that great, and maybe two years from now they have to get the rest to really do something. And, you know, that's a reflection of your brand. If people look back and say, Hey, this creative work for this brand and you know, that could impacts to brand safety and it also when you think of the metaverse, right, that's a concept that we're still far away from.

00:32:58:16 - 00:33:24:21
Speaker 2
But at some point when the metaverse becomes like a really real thing, the people that follow these virtual influencers are probably gonna follow those or follow these kind of influencers when they do get in the metaverse. Metaverse, these virtual clones is going to already be there, and that's going to be the first people that they they follow. And so that's going to open up the opportunity to have the opportunity for more brands to have this like immersive met the rarest or, you know, Oculus experiences.

00:33:26:01 - 00:33:28:12
Speaker 1
Wow, wild times we're living in.

00:33:29:13 - 00:33:55:05
Speaker 2
And one thing to I could probably talk for this all of that is that the opportunity for creators to really, you know, work with these platforms are coming up where they can create they can pretty much like licensed likeness so that instead of them having to always take a picture with a picture with the product or be in a photo, they can, you know, give they can give a brand opportunity to use their likeness.

00:33:55:05 - 00:34:08:22
Speaker 2
And that brand can kind of create that. That's a little it's not it's not often, but it's offers opportunity for them to really scale their business especially if it's a launch has become even more influential than they are today.

00:34:10:01 - 00:34:23:06
Speaker 1
Very interesting, very interesting. So I feel like we've we've covered a lot of ground here. Is there anything that we haven't discussed that you would like to leave listeners with today?

00:34:24:00 - 00:34:48:10
Speaker 2
Yeah, that's a great question. Let me as I would say, I mean, I would say for our listeners, you know, if you're not already creating content, I would definitely invest in it. You know, I think obviously the low hanging fruit is having creators do it, but I think every business owner could be a content creator themselves. And I think if they think about that, they do it all the time to create content, they really help.

00:34:48:10 - 00:35:14:22
Speaker 2
I think, you know, the lines between corporations and creating jobs are blurred a lot because we've seen a lot of corporations, especially like publishers, and just in people that, you know, publishers being more like creators or seem more creative, being more like corporations and publishers. And so I think because of that, the audience, you know, wants to be entertained and want to, one, enjoy, you know, the functions lines always want to be sold to do.

00:35:14:22 - 00:35:37:16
Speaker 2
And I think as a business owner or corporation, like the ultimate goal is drive sales. But sometimes you have to just think about how can I provide value that gets people engaged, that really gets them coming back to my page or really, you know, aligns with my brand. And when I need to sell something, I'm going to be a brand or a company I think of first because I provide so much valuable educational content or entertainment or informative.

00:35:38:15 - 00:35:42:14
Speaker 2
So I think like a creative worker creators and bring creators in-house.

00:35:43:20 - 00:35:47:01
Speaker 1
Yes, love it. You don't have to isolate yourself to one category.

00:35:48:08 - 00:35:48:22
Speaker 2
Not at all.

00:35:49:21 - 00:36:10:10
Speaker 1
Well, thank you so much, Lindsey. I really appreciate everything you have shared. I feel like there's a lot of kind of mystique behind this for people who haven't thought then. So I appreciate you kind of pulling the curtain back and sharing with us today. And for those of you who enjoyed learning more about this, he actually, Lindsey has a great newsletter that you should check out.

00:36:10:15 - 00:36:24:08
Speaker 1
It is on his website. It is Lindsey Gamble dot com forward slash newsletter and that's Lindsey with an E we will have that in the show notes as well. Thank you so much for listening and have a great week.

63: How B2B Can Leverage Influencer Marketing with Lindsey Gamble

How B2B Can Leverage Influencer Marketing with Lindsey Gamble

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