Influencers as Storefronts: The New Era of Personalized E‑Commerce | Vinod Varma

Vinod: [00:00:00] we like to use kind of a funnel system where we'll be, we'll use gifted campaigns or less expensive collaborations. To see to almost, you know, test the waters with influencers in the sense that, you know, does their, will their audience really find this, you know, we like them, we think they're a great fit, they're on brand, you know, love the style of their content, you know, and the, the last part of that equation is, will their audience resonate?

And, you know, we like to take multiple smaller bets up front. And then start to double down as you understand what, you know, what really resonates.

Matt: Welcome to the e commerce podcast with me, your host, Matt Edmundson. E commerce podcast is all about helping you deliver. E commerce. well. And to help us do just that today, I am chatting with my guest Vinod Varma from creator. co about [00:01:00] influencer marketing.

Yes, I am. And this is not the first time we've talked about influence marketing. No, but it is the first time we have talked about it on the e commerce podcast with the legend. That is Vinod. Oh yes. Now you can find our entire podcast archive for free on our website at ecommercepodcast. net if you want to check out other episodes.

Plus if you sign up to our newsletter, uh, whilst you're there on the website, all of the show notes, all of the links, everything comes to your inbox automatically for free. with no drama. So make sure you signed up to that. Now are you struggling to grow your e commerce business? Do you feel like you're constantly spinning your wheels, trying to figure out what to focus on next?

Well let me tell you, we have been there, I have been there especially, and I know how frustrating it can be. That's why we did Cohort. Oh, yes, the eCommerce Cohort, which is the proud sponsor of this show. Now eCommerce Cohort helps eCommerce businesses like yours deliver an exceptional customer experience that [00:02:00] drives results and to help you get started, there is a free resource called eCommerce Cycles.

It's a mini course which walks you through our proven framework for building a successful eCommerce business. eCommerce business. I'm going to show you the specific steps I take in my own eCom companies so that you can see exactly how to put these concepts into practice in your own website. Oh yes, and the good news, it's free.

You don't even need an email address. Now you can just go watch it at eCommerceCycles. com. That's all one word, eCommerceCycles. com. Now, we get into it, it's probably worth saying that Vinod and I met at Subsummit, so big shout out to Subsummit, uh, if you haven't done so already, check it out, subsummit.

com. And if you're not going in 2024, you probably should, uh, and we'll probably talk about that. Uh, now Vinod is the founder and CEO of creator. co, which is an insane domain name, Vinod, I'm not gonna lie, uh, a globally [00:03:00] recognized influencer marketing platform that pushes the boundaries on how creators and brands collaborate, grow, and earn.

He serves On the advisory board of the Influencer Academy and as a business mentor for League of Innovators, which just sounds very superhero y, doesn't it? Uh, Vinod, welcome to the show, man. Great to have you on. How are we doing today?

Vinod: Fantastic. Thanks for having me. Appreciate you, uh, bringing me on.

Matt: Oh, no, it's great. Now it is fair to say, bud, that we met in the speakers lounge at Subsummits, the very posh speakers lounge, don't you know? Yeah, it's lovely. It was very posh. We just had a great time. We just chatted. We chatted for a while, didn't we? We just kept going and going and going it felt like. Did you enjoy the show? Did you, did you enjoy what was going on there?

Vinod: the show was great. Yeah, it was, uh, it was a great mix of, uh, a lot, a lot of, you know, entrepreneurial minded, uh, subscription box, uh, [00:04:00] owners and, and those who are, who are running the ops for companies like, like that. Um, but yeah, I found it, I found it very, very fascinating to get a little bit more. Uh, in depth on that space, particularly, and how subscription boxes work, and how they're a little bit different from your standard, uh, e commerce company, or, or CPG brand.

Matt: yeah, no, absolutely. I learned a lot, actually. I learned a ton from some of the speakers there at the conference, which was great. We've got some of them coming on the show, which is awesome. Uh, but yeah, I learned a lot, so, uh, great time at SubSummit, and the speakers lounge was nice, actually. Uh, yeah, nice sodas in there.

It's awesome. Easy. Uh, so, tell us about Creator Co. What, what you guys do.

Vinod: Yeah, Creator, you know, when you peel everything back at the end of the day, we just make collaborating with brands and creators easier for the two parties. So, sort of like a marketplace, uh, that's, that's run by some, some pretty intuitive software that essentially makes... It [00:05:00] easier for the brands to find the influencers they want and manage collaborations to the finish line.

For creators, it gives essentially a marketplace of opportunities for them where they can find and. Sift through different opportunities that might appeal to them and then apply to join any and all that they, that they're interested in and that they qualify for.

Matt: So how did you get started in that? Is that something you sort of went into by accident, or was it more by design?

Vinod: Uh, starting a business seemed like a good idea at the time. Um, I mean, prior, prior to this, I was one of the buyers at Best Buy, uh, responsible for launching actually a lot of the wearables that you might be familiar with today. So I had been launching brands like Fitbit, the Apple iWatch, the Garmin Forerunner.

Samsung Gear, um, and a number of other products as well through dash cams and, and some cameras as well. Um, wearables is really where I really kind of cut my teeth on, on the influencer space. And what we learned was just [00:06:00] how difficult it really is to scale influencer campaigns. Um, you know, for everything from finding the influencers to, you know, managing them.

Sometimes it's a little like herding cats when you get to a big enough campaign. Um, and that's just because, you know, they're people and they have schedules and this isn't programmatic advertising. So we, you know, we like to think we eliminate the pain points. of what is becoming more and more realized as a necessary marketing cog in your wheel.

Matt: Yeah. I mean, it's, uh, it's one of those, and you're quite right to say that, um, right at the start. We've done, we've talked about influence marketing on an e commerce podcast before because it is such a big part of our marketing strategy now. Right. Um, And I, I was reading somewhere, I can't remember who said it, I was reading somewhere, um, the comment that every customer is a micro influencer in a lot of ways, because they're telling somebody, usually something about your brand.

Um, so... [00:07:00] What are, I guess, you know, you, you talked about how your software eliminates some of the pain points that people have. So, what are some of those pain points that we experience with influencer marketing? Not necessarily what, just what your software sells, but what are some of the common things that we're going to come up to, uh, come against when we're doing influencer marketing?

Vinod: I think there's a few pain points that most brands are experiencing, and we'll speak from, you know, because creators also have their pain points as well, so for the purpose of this answer, we'll, I'll stick to the brands for now. But brands, I mean, first and foremost, it's really trying to understand or create a strategy that complements It's the overall marketing strategy and or a specific goal you're looking to accomplish using influencers.

And that could be anywhere from, from more UGC, more content for your product or your brand to, you know, building an ambassador program or affiliate program that contributes revenue to your top line. Um, [00:08:00] and you know, you start to build a little bit of community around the brand. Um, so yeah, I think, you know, understanding your strategy first is something where brands, you know, it's not like SEO, where the goal is to be more prominent on, on the web and web searches.

You know, that, that's, there's, there's a pretty good focus there and, and a lot of different ways to tackle it. With this, with influencer marketing, I think brands kind of go in maybe with misaligned expectations or, uh, and, and tailoring that, um, can really help identify where. to look for ROAS and where to identify ROI and how to move things along because there is an inevitable pivot, iterate, pivot, iterate process.

Um, so yeah, strategy would be one. Finding the influencers, I think, is a very common pain point for brands that are more savvy in the space and understand the strategies that they need to create. I think finding influencers is probably their number one. Pain point. Um, [00:09:00] we have a database of over 200 million creators with industry leading data, so it makes it really easy.

But I think finding the creators, uh, being able to recruit them at scale, vet them, understand data points that go beyond the surface metrics and vanity metrics, that number two, managing creators. So, you know, they're, it's not something that's easily done in Excel. And although it's possible because I know brands and indiviuals that are doing it..

I think once you get to a certain size, size of campaign being, you know, anything over 10-15 influencers, uh, is going to be more and more difficult to manage without something a little bit more focused on that, on that pain point. So managing creators, and that would include paying them. So, you know, there's contract issues, you know, PayPal, global payments, all sorts of.

Friction in that area as well. And Creator makes that a little bit smoother [00:10:00] and does it all kind of in one platform. So I think strategy being one, finding the influencers, managing and paying them, uh, and then number four, the big one, which most brands usually start with is, is what is ROAS? Like how do you evaluate

Matt: Yeah.

Vinod: And that kind of links back to the first question as well. What is the strategy that we're driving?

Matt: Yeah,

Vinod: and what. You know, and what are the milestones you want to hit, or what are the KPIs that we want to, that we want to impact.

Matt: what do people typically want to do? What do they do? What's the typical thing that people aim for with their influencer campaign?

Vinod: Most brands understand that it's, you know, A, paid ads performance is not doing so hot, and with Google depreciating cookies next year, it's going to get worse. So brands that we work with are typically looking to find influencers to create more content for them, drive that organic awareness, build that trust.

Um, and really poke through the [00:11:00] noise, understanding that, you know, very rarely are, you know, our brands in a, in a siloed space, there's usually a lot of competition, especially in the CPG space. How do you break through that noise? And community is, you know, the number one, I would say, and, and probably the biggest and most underrated contribute, contribution that an influencer marketing campaign can bring, um, building community.

We know that, you know. Coke and Pepsi are nothing more than cola, but it's the community they've built around them

Matt: Yeah.

Vinod: Makes them you a billion more brands. And same with Nike, it's not just a running shoe, it's the community, right?

Matt: Yeah.

Vinod: It's those things that separate brands from the pack, and, you know, that should inspire a lot of founders and challenger brands, because it's definitely possible. Um, it's just, it's just... Done differently now and, and you know, you wanna go where, where your customer's attention are and I [00:12:00] believe that that's on social media today.

Matt: One of the things, talking about community Vinod, that you said that I, um, when we met up at, uh, SubSummit, um, it was in my notes here, and I thought it was a really interesting phrase. You said, um, There are parts of community that people ignore. They see influencers transactional rather than nurture them as Community, which is always better.

What did you mean by that as we're talking a little bit about community here? It just reminded me and I thought this is going to be a really interesting thing to dive into. So let's dig into that.

Vinod: Yeah, because Can you repeat that for me? There was a bit of,

Matt: So, um, there are parts of the community that people ignore. So they see influence as transactional rather than nurture them as community, which is always better.

Vinod: yeah. So. A lot of, you know, programmatic advertising is transactional and a lot of marketers have been, have been groomed to operate in that, [00:13:00] you know, you give me, I give you, or, you know, I put money in and I get some impression counter reach or engagements and that's fine for, for programmatic advertising ads, banner ads, potentially even a little bit of, you know, PR as well, but with influencers, because there's a real human there nurturing the relationship and actually Thank Inviting that individual to be part of your brand versus just someone who's going to create content and post about it and forget about you.

That can make a huge difference in the way influencers respond to your brand and the way they think about your brand after the collaboration has transpired. So, putting a focus on really treating these individuals like, you know, like, like they're fans, right? Like they're fans, like they want to contribute, making them feel, uh, like they're a part of the brand.

is, is gonna, is gonna really impact the, the overall reach and impact of the campaign itself. Um, just given the human nature [00:14:00] of, of relationships and partnerships in general. Um, we've all been in partnerships where we probably feel it's lopsided or not as valued as maybe some other people or the, or the partnership in general.

And I think for influencers, it's no different. Being able to, you know, feeling valued, feeling heard, those are all things that just like, you know, just like a team, really, just like an extension of your own team. You wouldn't shun ideas, you know, ideally if you're, if you're a good leader, you're looking for ideas everywhere within your company.

And I think that's becoming more and more apparent with influencer marketing, you know, you have fantastic brands. Um, like Lego that, you know, they build community around their brand and use it as a, as a feeding source for new ideas and innovation, um, as well as a lot of, a lot of other Fortune 500s are understanding the power of that and culturing that community around their brand to use as a sounding board, to use as a PR amplifier, to use, um, as a way to get, you know, [00:15:00] boots on the ground without officially having boots on the ground.

Matt: yeah, that's powerful stuff. I really like the idea, when you said it I thought this was a really interesting comment in the sense that I think you're right. Many of us that have done influence of marketing have just seen it as another transactional channel, like okay, I need my return on investment here, you, this is what I want you to do, go and do it.

If you, if you, if I like what you do, I'll give you money. If I don't, we're going to have an argument kind of a thing. Um, and yeah, the, the, this concept, this idea of actually that's, that's what everybody does. Why don't you to be a little bit different, build community. And in that sense you build, um, You build that loyalty, don't you?

You build that sense of a tribe, um, with people that, sorry, go on, uh, it just

Vinod: No, you're totally right. Yeah, the loyalty, the fandom. Um, yeah, that can carry you a long way. And [00:16:00] that is what differentiates you at the end of the day. It's those group of people that are unwavering and, you know, live and breathe your brand value.

Matt: Yeah, totally. So you said, uh, again, from my notes, Vinod, uh, just referring back to our conversation, uh, in Dallas, find the right influencers, invite them to try the product and personalize it, invite them to be part of something bigger, um, and get their feedback, uh, was, seemed to be the, the sort of the strategy, uh, in a very simple nutshell.

I appreciate this is probably slightly more nuanced than that. Um, but this was. Um, this was sort of all part of that, it all sort of tied in, that actually it don't see influencer marketing as just another transactional outcome, build a tribe with these people. Uh, yes, you are paying them. Um, but it's this kind of, it's the, the way I think about it, it's the old school way we used to run companies years ago, you know, well, I'm paying you, you will do what I tell you.

That doesn't go well now, does it?[00:17:00]

Vinod: it doesn't work today. Um, yeah, and that's it. I think, you know, yeah, I mean, yeah, that's, that's definitely a simplified version. But I think at the end of the day, Taking that approach and I'll speak for more challenger brands that are maybe introducing products into market or have recently introduced products in market.

You know, I, you know, I'm totally aware of both sides and, and what, uh, you know, a slim budget looks like. So you don't need to spend a ton of money, but you do need to invest the time and the thinking and the thought process and what this community looks like, who are going to bring it to them. Uh, you know, and gifting products for smaller influencers is, is, is totally fine.

There is a win win where the brand is, is getting some cool content and trusted exposure, assuming the influencer likes the brand and the product, and the influencer gets to flex their creative muscle, gets to earn a little bit of clout showcasing a new brand that maybe other people haven't heard of yet.

Um, so there's, [00:18:00] there's a good, you know... There's a good symbiotic relationship there, and if you can nurture that and grow, uh, and you can grow together, well, as the brand gets more exposure and grows and, and camaraderie, then that influencer gets to grow their own clout because they're seen as being partnered with that brand, and vice versa, that influencer grows and grows their following and earns more trust, and, uh, then that brand is also piggybacking off that.

So that's kind of what I'm, You know, trying to, trying to show is there is a symbiotic relationship and the more influencers you can bring into your community and nurture, um, the impact of those relationships, uh, is really exponential.

Matt: So, uh, just going back to one of the things you said then, I guess one of the first questions in my head is if I'm looking to do influencer marketing, unless maybe I'm already involved in influencer marketing, Vinod, um, and I'm looking to grow, yeah, looking to grow the amount of influencers we have.

What's a, [00:19:00] how do I, how do I know what a good number is? Should I have 10 influencers working with me? Should I have 3, 000? Is it, is it more budget driven? I mean, how do I know whether I'm on the right track?

Vinod: You know, there, it's, it's, uh, that's almost like saying, how do I know I'm painting a good picture? And so there isn't, you know, it's a little subjective. There isn't a defined answer for that. I would say, you know, By virtue of reach and impressions, the more that you have, the more, you know, reach you'll have, the more content you'll have, so there's advantage in the volume for sure.

Um, but the 80 20 rule applies to this too, where you'll see that, you know, it is 20% of your influencers that end up driving 80% of the results. What I would, you know, we like to use kind of a funnel system where we'll be, we'll use gifted campaigns or less expensive collaborations. To see to almost, [00:20:00] you know, test the waters with influencers in the sense that, you know, does their, will their audience really find this, you know, we like them, we think they're a great fit, they're on brand, you know, love the style of their content, you know, and the, the last part of that equation is, will their audience resonate?

And, you know, we like to take multiple smaller bets up front. And then start to double down as you understand what, you know, what really resonates. Is it a style of content? Okay. Is it a certain, you know, caption, hashtag, CTA that's getting the reach? Uh, or click through that you're looking for? Let's double down there.

Uh, or is it, no, it's, it's the audience and we found an audience. So now we need to go find influencers that, that speak to a similar audience and you take that path. So there's, there's three different reasons that we observe. That make a successful campaign. One is the content itself, which could include the visuals, the video, captions, hashtags, CTAs.

The other is the influencer themselves[00:21:00]

Matt: yeah,

Vinod: you know, speak to a brand, how people resonate with them. And then third is the audience of the influencers. And yes, the two, the latter two are definitely. Correlated, but there is a distinction between the two. You can have different influencers who speak to a similar audience.

Matt: yeah, yeah, yeah, that's very true. And I, that's very, very helpful. So, one of the things again we talked about in SubSummit was scaling with your top 20 30% of influencers. So, you do your lot of smaller bets, you're figuring stuff out, what's working, what's the audience, you know, your, your, what content's working, what influencers are working, what audiences are working, you start to figure that out.

And then you scale that, don't you, you sort of push those, um, you, you push those sort of areas as far as you can take them, I suppose.

Vinod: Yeah, exactly. And, and, you know, there you'd be surprised where these results come from. We're, we're working with a billion dollar brand right now in the beauty [00:22:00] space and their best performing influencer who is driving sales has 3, 500 followers.

Matt: How does that

even work?

Vinod: you know, I, I, I think they're just trusted individuals. I think that, you know, those followers that they've cultivated really, really believe what they're saying

Matt: That's really impressive, yeah, so that's an important point because it's not about the size of the Instagram followers, is it, on the account, it's, there's a whole lot more to it than that. But is that billion dollar brand who's using that influence, just three and a half thousand followers, is, is he or she, I'm not going to presume, I know what gender, but, um, do they promote just to their three and a half thousand followers, or is that brand then using The content that they create because it's, it's so good in like their ads.

And is that why, you know, there's a massive scale in, in performance?

Vinod: [00:23:00] So short answer is, is yes and no. So, so they are selling more organically. So we have this set up through running through an affiliate integration so we can track all the organic sales from the influencer. And they're leading the pack, there is no promotional spend coming from this brand, there is no amplification, so it is 100% organic.

Does the brand, at the same time, also has the rights to do as they wish with that content? Turn it into an ad, put it on their social, emails, newsletters, etc.? Uh, we don't have visibility into that, so, so I'm just talking about what we are connected into, so, uh, yeah, it's, it's coming purely organic. Um, yeah, so you can't really, you can't always tell, uh, you can't always correlate size to performance.

Matt: That's really interesting.

Vinod: As most, as most males would agree.

Matt: Let's talk about that on a different podcast. Um,

Vinod: That's it. That's[00:24:00]

Matt: I dare say we'd have quite a

Vinod: my 100 hour show.

Matt: Yeah, I love that, I love that. So... Let's, um, talk about maybe then some of the, the, the companies that are listening. Let's, let's stay, let's start with a startup, right? So I'm, I'm starting out, I'm selling a product online. Should I think about influencer marketing straight away?

Is it something that I need a certain budget for? And so I think about later, should I do Facebook first and then influencer marketing? I appreciate there's no straightforward answer to this, but I'm just going to throw that out there, um, and, and let you have your opinion.

Vinod: Yeah, you know, and, and we've had a chance to, to learn truthfully the hard way through this. If you're launching a new brand, what we would say from an influencer marketing space is, you know, the budget that you need does not need to be astronomical, but it definitely should, you should prepare to, to, to instigate a fair transaction.

By [00:25:00] that I mean, Typically, one of the fair, you know, the most common approach would be to align the size of their following and engagement with what we're offering them, whether it's a combination of cash and product or just product. So, for example, an influencer with 10, 000 followers is typically getting paid 150 to 200 a post.

So, if we're going to target those influencers and ask them to collaborate, make sure we're sending that influencer at least enough product that covers that retail value. Um, before you get started... Our team at CreatorCo will always look at a brand's website, a brand's social media. The truth is, is, and, and, in my opinion, most, most marketers and full serve agencies are probably doing the same and hopefully giving the same, same advice.

But when you start spending on marketing, whether that's influencers or programmatic or PR or whatever, you want to give yourself the best chance of success. And what I mean [00:26:00] by that is... The ad creative can be phenomenal. It can be targeting the perfect audience. You can be getting fantastic click through.

Um, but if, you know, if that ad leads to a website that's subpar or has no reviews or has no UGC user generated content and people can't see other people using it, it's going to sacrifice conversion rate significantly, probably by, you know, probably by half, um, if it's not optimized. And that's the thing with influencer marketing.

If you think of the path to purchase with An influencer, they post on social media, the first thing a consumer does... is they go to the Instagram or the TikTok of that said brand and then from there to the website and to the website to convert unless their Instagram is shoppable, in which case that's being more and more adopted.

But when you think of the path to purchase, it's not just influence or buy right here and away you go. You are going to the brand to discover more. Especially if you're on that, you know, let's call it 29. [00:27:00] 99 price point, I would say sub 29 is impulse and you have a better chance of a quick in the moment purchase.

But over 30, especially in today's economy, I think customers are, you know, great. They're getting exposed to the brand through an ad or an influencer. But they're not, uh, you know, if you're not set up to complete that path to purchase and to have a strong landing page, Then I think you're, you're wasting dollars.

So for brands, I would say, make sure your website is in order. Make sure your social media is at least groomed well. It doesn't have to have hundreds of photos, but it does need to show you're off to a good start. Um, and then start with gifted campaigns and roll slowly. There's not, you know, what, what we've found is you lose leverage if that's your first influencer campaign.

And, and what I mean by that is the influencer knows. They are the value in the equation here, and they hold all the leverage. Versus if [00:28:00] an influencer sees that you collaborated with, okay, 10 or 15 other influencers, they're more likely to know that, you know, to have faith that you know what you're doing, you've worked with other influencers, you know, they're not risking as much with their name, uh, associated with it, knowing that other influencers are, are collaborating with them as well.

So, um, yeah, making sure your social media, your website. Um, is appealing to the audience and that will also help you attract more influencers at the same time.

Matt: yeah, no, there's great stuff. Just explain what you mean by gifted campaigns for those that might not know.

Vinod: Yeah, gifted, so product in exchange for, for posts or, or content.

Matt: Okay, So it's as simple as that.

Vinod: no, monetary, no, no fiat exchange. Um, just, yeah, gifts. I'll give you, uh, you know, a swag bundle or, or, you know, our, our new. Shoes, our new, you know, our new chocolate bars, you know, a whole lot built in exchange. We'd love for you to, uh, to talk about it with your audience if you like.

Matt: And that's a good place to start, [00:29:00] isn't it, with the gifted campaigns, because there are plenty of influencers out there that are also trying to get started on the influencer journey

Vinod: Yeah,

Matt: aren't they? And that kind of thing works quite well. Right, going back again to the symbiotic relationship. Um, and they'll help you grow.

You help them grow and together you'll, you'll hopefully figure something out. What sort of, um, so we've got to start, you know, if I'm starting up, I can, I can understand that. Uh, I can try that and I can allocate some kind of budget towards influencer marketing. Realistically, what do I need to be thinking about?

Even, I mean, even with gifted campaigns, I still need to be thinking about some kind of value, don't I, to that.

Vinod: Yeah, uh, so there's a few ways that you can do it. One, I mean, obviously everybody loves cash, so that would be, you know, the first and foremost. I think the other way is also bringing them in to become an ambassador for you. So if you, if they really align with your values, and I [00:30:00] always use that before I say this, before I would recommend anyone bringing them in to, you know, your brand family.

Um, but if they align with your values, you know, inviting them to be part of an ambassador program where they can now have. A piece of what they're driving for you, that's another way that you can compensate them. Um, and you know, it's, it's on performance. So for the brand, you know, you understand that you're gonna, you have a CPA anyways.

Um, does it make sense to, to give a little bit more to an influencer who can not only drive conversion, but you'll get, be getting content. There's a trust factor. There's a whole other, uh, there's a whole other slew of benefits that come with an influencer versus just an app. Um, so yeah, cash, gifts, um, Exclusive events, you know, influencers love to be able to experience things that, that us normal folk can't or don't have that.

Matt: hmm. Sure.

Vinod: So, yeah, you know, exclusive events, cash, gifts, ambassador programs, those are [00:31:00] probably the most common ways to, to reward your influencers. Um, and then making them feel valued in, in ways that, you know. They might not be used to with other brands, you know, if brands are just giving them cash and product, well, how do you make them feel special?

Even inviting them to, you know, a founder's webinar to understand, you know, what the, what the direction of the company is getting, you know, do they want to come to a, a share, like, you know, if it's a larger company and there's a lot of shareholders inviting the, the influencers to participate in those.

larger meetings or those, uh, town halls, um, and really making them feel, you know, embracing them, making them feel part of the brand is, is a way you can give them kind of that extrinsic value, I guess.

Matt: It's a great idea. And that way, so when you talk about doing events, um, we don't necessarily need to go and run a hotel in New York and bring everybody over. You're actually just a founder's webinar is, is, is, is a good idea. You can do this, [00:32:00] you know.

Vinod: how it started, you know, asking for their feedback, asking for their opinion. You know, if there's, if there's one thing I've learned over the years is how to get someone to lean in on something is ask their opinion. Uh, they, you know, people, you know, will influencers included will, will really lean in and tell you what they think.

And if you're truly listening, you can probably pick up a way to, to, to nurture that relationship for the long run.

Matt: yeah, no, fair play, fair play. What sort of, um, products work well with influencer marketing? In one hand I can, I've seen influencer marketing work well for clothing, or supplement brands, but can you get influencer marketing to work well for, I don't know, a couch? Do you know what I mean, it's, it's, um, what, what, what do you see there?

Vinod: Yeah. Ikea does a ton of influencer marketing, a lot of furniture companies, you know, with, with that type of, so [00:33:00] the brands that perform well with influencer marketing are, are, are definitely, you know, in the CPG space. We do really well with health and wellness, food and beverage, uh, fashion. Pets is a big emerging category.

You don't need to necessarily pay the pets, so there's a big advantage there. Yeah, Pets Beauty is another one. Lots of beauty brands emerging that, that have fantastic products and, and they're trending in the direction consumers want to go in terms of. B Corp certified or PETA certified, you know, cruelty free and, um, all organic, that stuff.

So, brands like that do really, really well on social media. Think demonstrable, I guess, so the more demonstrable they are, typically they do well with influencer content. There are tons of brands like Article and Ikea, that, Article's a furniture store, of Europe. I, that does furniture restoration, like, pardon me, I can't remember the name, but there was a big case study where they had a [00:34:00] 387% ROAS by having in, you know, influencers, um, talk about the, you know, these, it's basically a secondary marketplace for refurbished furniture.

And that campaign I think generated over a million dollars and it was a gifted campaign. Uh, but what they found was the influencers. You know, we're truly aligned with that thrifting lifestyle, and they were, you know, they were passionate about it. They were, you know, they were really on board with that movement, um, and it worked great.

What I would say is it's probably difficult to scale a campaign with couches, understanding the logistics involved to getting somebody a couch, or the prices involved, and, you know, the pricing's one thing, because you just You can find larger influencers to warrant, you know, who have the reach to warrant that gift, um, but the logistics, so it's probably a little bit slower and a little bit more difficult to do, but I would, you know, where I would, for, for a brand like that, that's probably also getting a lot of their awareness and click through, [00:35:00] uh, through different articles, through PR publications and probably some paid ads as well, leveraging the influencer for their organic content or working with the influencer for their organic content.

Um, is one thing, but then leveraging that content through the different funnels, uh, in, uh, in marketing, that's where you can really start to take advantage of the ROI because typically you'll find that that influencer's content will drive better click through, will drive better engagement,

Matt: Um, um, um, um,

Vinod: uh, and ultimately better conversion.

So it's, it's the effect of, of that content being used multiple times and how consumers When, you know, if they relate or if they know who that influencer is, that, that automatically kind of drops a bit of that trust barrier that's inherently there.

Matt: yeah. One of the things that as you're talking, one of the things that I'm thinking, you know, it is, is, um, I, a little known fact, I mean, I have talked about this on EP before, but [00:36:00] one of the things that I like to do, in fact, I was doing this very thing this morning. I was in my wood workshop

and I, I just love to do wood.

I just love to make furniture. Um, uh, usually I had a scrap wood, but sometimes I had a really nice expensive wood. I'm thinking about a lot of the tools that I own, um, or have purchased recently, I've purchased because I have seen somebody use them on a video which tells me how to do what I want to do, right?

So it's not just people that I follow on Instagram going, Hey, buy this, you know, because it's a really cool tool. Um, What works really well is to see that in context. Do you see what I mean? And so I go and I get inspired by the projects and think, Oh, that tool is going to help me do that particular type of joinery or whatever.

Therefore, I will go and find a way to buy that. And, um, That is a, is a combination, uh, where there is some kind of instruction or some kind of inspirational [00:37:00] content, some kind of how to around it, um, like with beauty products, like how to do this particular style of makeup. And here's the one that I, do you know what I mean, this, have you found that when you mix things like that, I know this is getting a bit granular now, isn't it, but do you find that mixing things like with the how to, um, and the product. Creates a much better outcome than just showing the product, or is it just woodworkers are a bit weird?

Vinod: No, I think the how to always performs, I won't say always, but typically performs better, especially mid to lower funnel. I think there's a place for that awareness play, right? If they don't, you know, they might not even know they're interested until that awareness play exists, but I think the how to is proof in the pudding, um, so yeah, the how to content, you know, especially when you're working with things that are of utility, like tools, uh, you know, one could argue even makeup fits in that category [00:38:00] as well, um, that, yeah, anytime you can show the how to, that's going to be a lot more powerful, and if brands, you know, Typically, an influencer will ask for a little bit more, knowing that the video might be longer, need to be more polished, and things like that.

But yeah, definitely, definitely performs better when you can do a how to or a tutorial. Um, and it comes off a little bit more, um, organic, I would say, from a consumer basing. An example would be from, like, a cooking brand, like, um, oh my god, I'm drawing all the blanks on the big case studies that I usually have at the tip of my tongue.

Matt: hmm.

Vinod: Big cooking brands would give kitchenware, you know, pots, pans, kitchen utensils, cooking utensils to chefs. Well, you know, the feature of the chef's content is always the food. Like the recipe, the food, you know, baking, all of that stuff. But they're building that fabulous finished product or meal using the tools from [00:39:00] this.

So they're, they're doing those subtle drops of, of. You know, hey, I'm a chef, I make fantastic food, and this is the brand that I trust in my kitchen when I'm cooking.

Matt: Yeah, Hexclad have done that with Gordon Ramsay, haven't they? The the pans Gordon Ramsay used. And he just says, Oh, these pans are brilliant. And then you'll see him cooking the most amazing food. And you think, well,

Vinod: yeah,

Matt: if I get those pans, I can cook that. Not realizing,

Vinod: yeah,

Matt: because what you're not buying with the pans is his 30, 40 years experience.

You're just not, it's just not, it's not coming with them. I'm sorry. Uh, you're still going to be a crap cook, even though you've got the best pans in the world, right? But I get what you mean. And I think that. Uh, that's interesting, isn't it, because your product becomes slightly more background, but there's a, there's a definite association with something there, um, which again is that, you know, it's all, is it on Netflix now, the whole, uh, Air Jordan thing, uh, you know, with Nike and, and that kind of thing.

So, uh, that kind of story, isn't [00:40:00] it really, um, and again, I, I assume an influencer marketing that has its place, uh, and there are different levels, I guess, of, of, like you say, top of the funnel, middle of the funnel, bottom of the funnel. Where do you think the industry is going? But where do you think, uh, influence and marketing's, cause it seems to have come of an age in the sense that it seems a lot more established.

We kind of know the rules a lot better. And there's companies like yourself now, which have, you know, great companies in the middle of this, making the whole thing a lot easier, adding a little bit of sensibility to what was, you know, uh, free for all at one point. Um, but where do you, where do you see it all going?

Vinod: I, I would sum it up like this. I think that creators are more and more becoming their own storefront. And I think companies like Amazon are realizing it, which is why they've set up specific influencer storefronts on their platform. Um. But the way I see it is, with the [00:41:00] depreciation of ads, with the emergence of D2C, we already know we're significantly behind in live shopping, um, compared to Asia.

Matt: Mm,

Vinod: All of the trends that we're seeing in Asia, if they hold to be true over here, um, and I think it's just a matter of time, I think that influencers will eventually start to understand. I own the, the, the, the DTC space and I feel like people will be looking at certain influencers as almost storefronts, um, what are the products that they use, they recommend, they stand behind, you know, their vetted products, there's a trust factor there, the influencer's entertaining for a number of other reasons potentially, um, and it's just more dynamic of a brand, of a, of a way to shop and, and, and probably.

Um, a little bit more personalized in the sense that, you know, buying online [00:42:00] from a brand is one thing and it can make you feel some sort of way, but when you're buying from an influencer who's connected to the brand, who's used the product, who, you know, might be compared, you know, you might roll into an influencer storefront and they might have, you know, Bose, Beats.

Sony and some other headphone brand that they all recommend and they're different price points, but for different reasons. There's a huge trust factor in that, right? And guess what? If you're the customer that's spending 200 plus on headphones, then, you know, you're not really worried about two or three of the other reviews there.

You're going to like, okay, this person knows what they're talking about. There's an assortment of products that they recommend and that's the one, you know, that's closest to the budget I'm looking for, the quality that I'm looking for. Buy that one. You know, every time you buy from like, the brands are never going to say, our product's okay compared to those guys.

They're, you know, you know what I mean? Their brand is never going to say anything bad about themselves or necessarily even questionable about themselves. Whereas an influencer, [00:43:00] um, hopefully they're honest and forthcoming and that instills a level of trust because I think consumers know that no product is going to be necessarily perfect.

Matt: Mm, yeah, very, yeah, really good, really interesting stuff. Vinod, listen, I'm aware of time, I'm aware that, uh, you know, people have been probably enjoying what you're saying. So if they do want to find out more about Creator Co, more about you, want to connect, what's the best way to do that?

Vinod: Uh, visit us, www. creator. co, you can also find me on LinkedIn, Vinod Varma, um, or shoot me an email, [email protected] co.

Matt: How did you get that domain by the way, was that, um, was that something you stumbled across or was that an intentional, I had to go and mortgage my right kidney and buy it kind of a purchase?

Vinod: A little bit of a right kidney purchase, um, we, we thought it was, we thought it was, That's exactly what we needed

Matt: Yeah.

Vinod: and, uh, and made the move to buy it [00:44:00] and luckily we have some fantastic advisors on our board who actually knew the individuals who are brokering the domain and probably got, uh, got a favorable deal.

So a little lucky.

Matt: good. We will of course link to all of those links in our show notes, um, which will be available on the website or if you sign up to the email, they're going to be winging their way to you as always. But Vinod, listen, great to catch up again man, great to talk about this topic, super inspiring stuff and, uh, just love it.

Love what you guys are doing at Creative Co. And, um, yeah, let's, uh, let's do it again soon my friend.

Vinod: Let's definitely do it again. I appreciate your time. Thank you for having me on the show. Appreciate you very much.

Matt: Ah, it's been great. It's been great. What a great conversation. Huge thanks again to Vinod for joining me today. Also, a big shout out to today's show sponsor, the e commerce cohort. Remember to check out the free training at ecommercecycles. com. [00:45:00] Also, be sure to follow the e commerce podcast wherever you get your podcasts from because we've got yet more great conversations lined up and I don't want you to miss.

Any of them, not a jot, nor a tittle, as we like to say. And in case, by the way, no one has told you yet today, you are awesome, dear listener, yes you are, created awesome. It's just a burden you have to bear, Vinod has to bear it, I've got to bear it, and you have got to bear it. As well. Now, the e commerce podcast is produced by Aurion Media.

You can find our entire archive of episodes on your favorite podcast app. The team that makes this show possible is Sadaf Beynon, Estella Robin, and Tanya Hutsuliak. Our theme song was written by Josh Edmundson. And as I mentioned, if you would like to read the transcript or show notes, head over to the website.

ecommercepodcast. net. That's ecommercepodcast. net where, like I say, you can sign up for the newsletter. But that's it from me, that's it from Vinod. Thank you so much for joining us. Have a fantastic week [00:46:00] wherever you are in the world. We'll see you next time. Bye for now

Vinod: Thanks everyone. Thanks, Matt. See ya.