How To Successfully Use Influencer Marketing To Grow Your Business 6 Figures & Beyond With Amber Renae
In the podcast:
00:35 – Guest and Episode Overview
04:19 – How To Incorporate Influence & Marketing into Your Business
05:30 – Identify the Influential Influencers
07:58 – How To Spot Influencers With Fake Followers
13:42 – Ways To Get In Touch With Influencers
15:56 – Results You Expect in Influencer Marketing
18:17 – Monetary & Non-Monetary Exchanges Between You & Influencers
24:25 – Common Mistakes That People Make
26:58 – Ways of Tracking Influencer Marketing Effectiveness
30:26 – Which Types of Businesses Influencer Marketing Works Best
34:47 – Deliverables of Output
37:08 – Learn More About Amber Renae
Guest and Episode Overview
Ilana:
Welcome back to another episode of Teach Traffic. today. I’m really excited to welcome Amber Renae from Influencer Nation to talk about all about influencer marketing, admittedly, I know absolutely nothing about this.
So I had to ask an expert because I know this is a really well used and successful strategy that people use to grow there, you know, service business, ecomm businesses, they, you know, collaborate with influencers.
So I thought I’d invite Amber to talk about the strategies in how best to do it, the pitfalls to avoid, and how you could possibly explore this avenue to grow your business. So welcome to today’s show Amber!
Amber Renae:
Great to see you, Ilana, we actually go way back. We were in a Mastermind together a couple of years ago.
So it’s exciting to connect with you and hear all about how your business is going. We’re just having a little chat to find out what the latest is with the crazy 2020. So I’m excited to chat.
Ilana:
Yeah, no, thank you so much. And yeah, God doesn’t that mastermind feel like a long time ago! (laughs)
Amber Renae:
It was so great that I was talking to someone about it the other day, and like it was really great, great connections to have with, you know, some other interesting and intelligent people in this industry.
Ilana:
And I guess that’s what I love about this space is that, you know, you and I come from different worlds and we participate in different worlds.
But yet there is an overlap in what we do because it’s so applicable in so many different ways, which is kind of what we’re going to talk about today.
Before we kind of get stuck into the nitty-gritty of influencer marketing.
Do you want to maybe give our listeners a bit of a high-level background about the kind of what you’ve done and how you fell into this really?
Amber Renae:
Sure. So my I, I’m actually a qualified, civil engineer.
So like you, I do love crunching numbers and crunching data. So I’ve had my first business, which was a product business, my second business was a service business.
And this is my third one, which is a digital business like you. So I find this is the first time that I’ve been really lit up in what I’m doing with my business because as you know, half of this industry is crunching numbers, looking at data reading analytics.
And the other half is, you know, creativity, creating products, teaching, you know, educating people. So like you, I do really love that side of things. In my first ecourse I actually created a course on how to be a fashion stylist.
So this was back in 2015, there were really no ecourses back then that wasn’t really very popular in Australia.
And it was certainly not ecourses teaching how to be a fashion stylist. I created that course and then spent about a year trying to figure this whole thing out, right because back then there were no courses you could do, you just had to try and piece it all together.
I did ATD courses in that first year I met monetize to six figures in that first year with that first equals and then I went on to kind of realize that I have all of these other passions and interests and you know, the knowledge that I’ve acquired so I want to monetize all of them, right multi-passionate Entrepreneur of the Year because was how to be a fashion stylist.
My second one was a personal brand and brand awareness ecourse, we monetized that again, under six figures and under 12 months.
My third ecourse was a personal development mindset for success kind of ecourse. And again, that is six figures in six months. And then my latest ecourse, which is freedom funnels, which teaches you how to launch scale and automate your ecourse did six figures in pre-sales.
So I actually made 104 grand in pre-sales for that course. And so that was about a year ago.
And then since then, I’ve launched Influencer Nation, which is what we’re gonna be talking about today, which is an Instagram growth and monetization program, which teaches you all aspects, not only of Instagram growth and engagement but also of influencer marketing. Yeah, that’s a nutshell
How To Incorporate Influence & Marketing into Your Business
Ilana:
God. I mean, I think we could have an episode in itself, just talking about what you’ve done. Right? Amazing.
So before we kind of get stuck into how somebody can incorporate influencer marketing into their business, do you maybe want to touch on why you think it’s important and why it’s been so successful for you.
Amber Renae:
So influencer marketing, I really think what I’ve learned well, the biggest takeaway for me for 2020 is that moving forward, people are really going to want to look at people are really going to place a lot of importance on trust.
So we really like we feel very unsafe in our external environment right now and I feel like if people are going to make the investment with an agency or you know, a course provider or sign up to something, they are really going to look for that recommendation.
And moving forward, a peer to peer recommendation is going to mean, you know, it’s going to have much higher value than it has done in the past, I think people are going to really be looking for, you know, is my friend recommending it? Or is that person that I follow, have they done it? Have they been through it? How are they recommending that person?
So I just think moving forward, peer to peer recommendations is where it’s going to be at. And the easiest way to do that at scale is through influencer marketing.
Ilana:
Yeah, absolutely. So what would you say? So let’s say somebody is thinking to themselves, okay, yeah, this is an avenue that I would like to explore, what’s probably the first step that they would need to take in order to sort of explore that possibility.
Identify the Influential Influencers
Amber Renae:
So step one is really identifying which influences are going to be influential to your demographic to your target market, because obviously, not everyone has the influence that you want them to have, right?
So if you think about, for instance, a bikini model, if you’re thinking, well, I sell swimwear, I’ve got an e-commerce brand that sells swimwear, I’m going to get my swimwear on this bikini model.
But if you go and look at her demographic statistics, probably a large portion of her audience of men, right. So if you’re trying to sell bikinis, and she’s wanting men, not a good market fit.
So step number one is trying to get a really clear understanding of obviously, you’re going to know your own demographic, but really making sure that that influencer has influence or has audience within that demographic.
And there are some free tools on the marketplace, you can just google things like Social Blade, or, you know, some of the other tools we’ll talk about in a second. But you can actually get a breakdown of audience insights.
So you know how when you go to your own Instagram, and you can see your audience insights in there, that information is now publicly available.
So you can go and look at someone else’s audience insights and see if that’s, you know, largely males or largely females, are they you know, what age are they in? Which location are they in?
So it’s a top-line demographic, not kind of like the nitty-gritty data that you and I are used to, but it is certainly enough for you to understand like, Okay, great, I’m trying to reach you know, for me, I’m trying to reach 35-year-old women in Australia, Cool, well, then, then I can see, is that person who I think, is speaking to those people?
Are they actually speaking to those people? Or have they got a skewed audience? Or do they have fake followers? You know, this is what you’ve got to try and figure out first.
Ilana:
So on that, like, let’s say, we’ll go with that bikini e-commerce brand that you sort of illustrated?
Let’s say they are that particular brand only sells in America, for example, in terms of shipping, etc.
So you would use some tools to see, are their followers actually present in America? Or are those followers in, you know, other countries of which they couldn’t service?
Amber Renae:
Correct. And, you know, a lot of the American influencers have a really big South American audience.
So are you able to ship to South America? If you can? Great. If not, then, you know, try and find someone who, you know, is more suited to the demographic?
How To Spot Influencers With Fake Followers
Ilana:
Yeah, awesome. What would you say is a way that you could determine that somebody’s got fake followers?
Because I mean, that we all know, you can easily go to Fiver.
And you can buy 1000 followers for like five bucks or something, you know?
So what are some of the clues that people would look forward to use if somebody’s accounts got fake followers?
Amber Renae:
So again, there’s a tool like Social Blade, which is a free tool, and that will actually tell you if there are abnormalities in follower growth.
So if you, if you look at it will show you the graph of like, you know, on this date, they had this many this date, they had this many they say that this many, and now they have like triple that, right?
So there’s tools that you will actually see, but if you don’t want to go through that route, the obvious thing to do is to use a desktop, so you can’t see it on your mobile.
But if you go to a desktop, open your Instagram and put in their handle, if you scroll through, there’s usually a correlation between the number of followers they have and the amount of engagement they have.
So what you’re trying to look for here, not necessarily likes, because again, likes can be purchased, you’re looking for comments. So if they have like 100,000 followers, and they’re averaging like one comment per post, then you know that that’s a fake account.
So really, And again, it comes down to engagement rate. So again, this is a statistic that’s readily available using these tools. But your engagement rate tends to drop off, the larger your account gets.
So again, there are industry-standard engagement rates. So if you’re an account with, you know, zero to 5000 followers, you want to try and get an engagement rate of about 3 to 4%.
But then when you’re getting up to an account my accounts got I think I’ve got about 50,000 followers, my engagement rates about 1% so it has dropped off.
But again, looking at that engagement rate is pretty much the quickest way to figure out if it’s a fake account or not.
And looking at the, even if it’s like looking at how engaged the audience is, is also another really great checkmark to make sure that you’re if you work with an influencer, they’re actually going to, again, have influence.
So, you know, there are some accounts that were inactive for a long time or like for me, for instance, I don’t post for like six months on it for a while. So then my audience drops off.
So there are accounts like that, that they don’t have a very high engagement or people aren’t commenting, they aren’t having conversations, things like that.
So that’s another, you know, it comments and engagements is what you’re really looking for here.
Ilana:
Yeah. Also, what about an account that might not have a large quantity of followers, but yet still very engaged? What would you say to that?
Amber Renae:
I actually think as someone who’s been on both sides of influencer marketing, so I, yeah, as I said, I’ve grown my account to 50,000.
And back in the day, before I started this business, I was basically an influencer. So I was working as a fashion editor and a celebrity stylist and a TV presenter.
And at that time, I was monetizing my Instagram through brand deals. So I was with like Dior, and Renault, and Vesper and traveling all around the world, and, you know, everything, you know, doing deals with all the biggest brands.
And at that stage, my audience was, I mean, I’m gonna say small, but it was like five to 10,000, which does sound like a lot, but it was, it was small compared to what I have now.
And I know that I had more influence when my audience was that size. Like, my audience was way more engaged, they were much more, they had a much higher level of trust.
And they also felt more connected to me. So that know, like, and trust factor, right?
So then when you start going up to like an audience of 100,000, a couple hundred thousand well you know, that, that whoever’s following them is just flicking through, they’re not like raving fans and not having conversations and not having two-way engagement.
So then the level of influence starts dropping off. So my personal opinion, and when I’m working with influencers, to promote my courses, I actually go from micro influences.
Today, people with between one and 5,000 follower accounts. So most people would think that would be too small.
But for me, if you’ve got 1,000 people that are following you, they’re pretty intimate, you know, they’re in your intimate circle, you probably have a level of connection like a, you know, something, you’ve sort of met them, or they’re friends of friends, so you have much more influence over them than a complete stranger.
So I always recommend going for, yeah, a micro-influencer, they’re more affordable, they’re more authentic than usually war, they usually deliver a better service when they’re working with you because they’re so excited that they got a brand deals or they’re, you know, gonna go above and beyond and over-deliver.
And also that feed probably isn’t saturated with a whole heap of brand deals. So that was where I built my audience out for about a year, every single post for you was a brand new, like 300 brand deal.
So by the end of the year, I was like, Oh my god, what is she promoting now? Like, oh, now she’s at another hotel.
And another this another that. Whereas if you’re starting with someone with like, 5,000 followers, you’ll probably be the first person that they’re promoting, you know, you’re hardly ever promoting people.
So you’re much better off starting small In my opinion, than going for a bigger audience.
Ilana:
I can totally see that actually. And I kind of think, maybe I’ve just always got my Google head-on, but I always think it’s like the long tail, right? Where there’s not a lot of them, there’s a lot of traffic, but then they convert really well.
And the longtail really adds up actually, to be incredibly valuable versus you know, the big fish, which, which is the same for the influencer? Yeah, same thing.
Okay, so step one, we have used one of those tools like Social Blade, is that right? Yep, Social Blade, and we found micro-influencers with high engagement. What’s step two?
Ways To Get In Touch With Influencers
Amber Renae:
So just to talk about a couple of other ways that you can find your influencers, once you’ve understood like, where you want to, you know, who you want to get in front of two ways of doing it is either direct outreach, so you know, finding someone, going to the searching hashtags that your audience will be searching for, and see who has 2,000 3,000 5,000 followers, and if using that hashtag over and over again, that will let you know that that account is someone who is communicating to your audience that you want to get in front of, and that will let you know, like cool, I want to do a collaboration with them.
So that’s one way of finding just direct outreach, you slide into their DM’s, you hit them up and I can give you some tools to let you know how to go about that.
But direct outreach is a totally normal and acceptable way of doing business.
I get them all the time. I just did a brand deal this morning with someone who slid in and asked if they knew if they wanted to collaborate. And then the other way of doing it if you want to kind of go on bulk, which is what I’m doing at the moment to feel one of my webinars is to use an influencer marketplace.
So the one that I really recommend here in Australia is called The Right Fit. The Right Fit and that is basically like a marketplace, right?
So it’s got influences on there. With every size, every shape, every demographic, most of the ones on the right feet are from Australia.
So if you know you’re targeting an Aussie audience, you would sign up for the right fit. It’s pretty affordable like it’s a monthly subscription, but it’s pretty affordable.
And then as a brand looking to hire an influencer, you go on there and you post like a job ad saying what you’re, you know what your job is and what you want to influence it for. And then people effectively bid on it.
So that it all says go, hi, I’d like to do that job. And then like 10 influencers sign up and go, yeah, I’ll do that. I’ll do that. I’ll do that. And then you log on and you go, cool. I want to work with you. Not you, you, not you.
Ilana:
Very cool. Yeah, I like it! Wow, that’s awesome. Okay, so typically, I probably should have asked you this first.
But what would be some of the kind of results that you could get using this influencer marketing strategy?
Results You Expect in Influencer Marketing
Amber Renae:
I guess, I mean, obviously, brand awareness is a big one with this one. Obviously, as you know, it’s hard to convert from Instagram, because there’s no links allowed.
And, you know, a lot of these micro-influencers don’t have a swipe up or anything like that. So, for me, it is obviously, brand awareness plays heavily in this.
However, again, going back to that peer to peer recommendation. So what I’m using influencer marketing for at the moment is to have micro influences promote my free webinar. So my master class, which leads to my freedom funnels course. Right?
So I’ve got a bunch of influencers. I posted it on the right fit, I said is, does anyone communicate to an audience of entrepreneurs, small business owners, people interested in working on laptop lifestyle, you know, talking about who my audience that I want to get in front of?
So I said, do you communicate to that audience, if you do, let me know about a collaboration opportunity for you. And then we can talk about, you know, what the opportunity looks like.
So um, so once I got my array of influencers, I got like 12 influences. And then I sent them all, like a copy and creative of what I actually wanted them to say and how I wanted them to say it, of course.
Ilana:
So you provide that for people do you?
Amber Renae:
Yeah, I do. I say it’s not compulsory, because what you want to assume is that your influencer knows how to communicate to their audience better than you do.
So you assume that they know what to say and how to say it, that will engage their audience, and you provide as much information as they need, but I always leave the creative decision up to them.
I’ve done it. I’ve done a bunch of brand deals where, you know, like, the brand has dictated what I had to say and how I had to say it and it fell flat.
Like my audience is like, “This is not her, this is not her voice, like, clearly she’s getting paid to do this. And it and it just bottoms, it makes both brands look really bad. So you better…
Ilana:
It all plays into like, the whole point of doing this strategy is the authenticity and leveraging that relationship, right. And suddenly, it’s like, Whoa, it’s like switch voices.
Amber Renae:
Exactly. Yeah.
Ilana:
Okay. So we’ve gone through to steps two of using a broadcast method to find that once, let’s say you found, you know, three to five influencers that you’re happy to work with, what’s the best way to approach them?
Monetary & Non-Monetary Exchanges Between You & Influencers
Amber Renae:
Yeah, so I guess, like what we’ve touched on there already. So sliding into DMS and just saying, hey, I’ve got a collaboration, are you interested in collaborating, this is my audience, this is what you’re, I always say, this is what your audience is going to get out of it.
Because as someone who is, you know, respectful of my audience, I always want to make sure that they’re getting something that they need.
And it’s not just like me getting a quick buck or something like when I’m on the other side. So thinking about what they would want to share with their audience and framing it in that regard is always really good.
You know, your audience is going to get this, isn’t it. So when I’m promoting my masterclasses, I say your audience will get a free one-hour training, that’s better than most of the paid classes.
And they go, Oh, great, my audience would love that. I’m happy to promote that, you know, yeah. So always framing it in that regard.
And then in terms of what the influence it gets, well, that’s entirely up to you. So again, there are no guidelines with influencer marketing at this stage.
That’s why it’s all a bit of a cowboy, you know, situation. So you can offer whatever you want in return for that post or for that story, or whatever it is.
So again, I don’t dictate what creativity I want. So I say if you think stories are going to work better do a story if you think a feed is going to work better do a feed post if you think a video you know do a live stream, whatever you think is going to work again, that comes down to you trusting your influencer and trusting that they know how to communicate to their audience.
And then once a, yeah, once they’ve done the post, then you perform some kind of payment. So again, there are actual industry guidelines around what level of following account should have what amount of payment.
Hmm, yep. So currently, remember I think the rough rule is like it’s one 100. So if you’ve got three or 30,000 followers, it’s about $300.
Ilana:
Okay.
Amber Renae:
50,000 followers about $500, rough rule.
Ilana:
And that’s just like a one-off payment that you pay people?
Amber Renae:
One-off payment. But again with influencer marketing, so you can definitely go down that route, and you can offer someone a cash payment, or what I do is I offer a payment of an ecourse.
And so I say, do you want to promote this e-course? If you do, I’ll gift you the e-course. And so my courses are priced at $1,000 $1,500 $2,000.
So the great part there is that they’re getting extra value, you know, they’re getting like a $2,000 ecourse, where they should have only been paid 200 bucks.
So they’re gonna go above and beyond. And also, it’s, you know, it’s not a huge muscle mine, obviously, because the course is created.
Ilana:
Yes, exactly how it actually costs you anything really?
Amber Renae:
No…
Ilana:
And typically, is that one post that, that influencer would do for you? Or is I committing to a series of posts or what sort of the…?
Amber Renae:
That’s a negotiation that you and your influencer have, just as you would be doing just as you do any deal with any letter with your agency, what’s your agency going to deliver on?
Or what you know, what, what is anyone going to deliver on in any deal?
That’s literally a conversation that you have with your influencer, you can ask off the bat, hey, I’m going to give you a $2,000 e-course.
I’m going to need five posts over the course of five weeks, and they might come back and go, I’m happy to do that, or no, sorry, that’s gonna seem inauthentic.
I can give you three over a month. Are you happy with that? And then it’s literally just a conversation like this. So don’t ever think that you can’t negotiate with your influencer?
Or that, you know, what if it’s too much, or what if it’s not enough, you just go back and have a conversation as you would enjoy any deal?
Ilana:
Okay. Would you say that the range really varies a lot. I mean, I just like, my job is to ask what the question is, somebody would be thinking, so if somebody’s never done this before, they might not be thinking like, I don’t want to offer it’s completely unreasonable.
And the person will be like, that’s it, you know, you’re being completely, you know, versus, you know, you haven’t asked for enough, you know, so what would you say is like the range of what is reasonable to ask for?
Amber Renae:
I guess, when you’re looking at those. So for instance, if you have 30,000 followers, you get paid 300 or $300, to do one post?
That’s my cue guideline, but again, you know, it’s, you know, I’ve done deals like this for me as an influencer. I’ve done deals where I’ve been massively underpaid, but I love the brand, right?
I love the brand, love the concept, love what they are doing, want to support them, want to, you know, get the name out there.
So again, it’s not you know, if someone is super passionate about what you’re doing, they will negotiate with you to make sure that it’s that you’re getting what you want as well.
Ilana:
Yeah. Is it the kind of situation that the influencer would need to disclose to their audience that this is a paid collaboration? And, you know, to sort of heads up to the audience? I mean, my feeling is yes.
Amber Renae:
Yes. So, in America, absolutely. It’s a law in Australia, I think it’s a guideline. And you have to if it’s a cash exchange, so if you’ve been paid money in return for the post, then you must disclose what it’s recommended that you disclose, you know, the word ad or the word sponsored in a hashtag.
We can even say it more about, like, Amber Renae reached out to me to promote her course, I’m excited to promote Amber Renae’s Course, you know, like, that’s pretty obvious. it’s a collaboration.
Ilana:
To me, it feels like you could always search for that hashtag of like, paid collaboration, and find the influencers that are open to do it.
Amber Renae:
I hadn’t thought of that. But that’s a great way of doing it, for sure.
Ilana:
In your opinion, like, would you say have been some really elegantly done collaboration collaborations that have worked really well?
What are the different types, you know, because, as you say, the influencer respects their audience just like, you know, I respect my audience in my database, I would never exploit that relationship?
So what are some ways that people have had Yeah, I guess, you know, treated their audience with respect, but yet at the same time, collaborated with others.
Like they sort of, I guess what I’m kind of asking is like, what are some of the mistakes that you see people make?
Common Mistakes That People Make
Amber Renae:
So in terms of when you’re an influencer. I guess the biggest mistake is taking on a brand deal that doesn’t suit your audience and you’ve just done it or, you know, cash or the collaboration or whatever it is.
So for you as a brand on the other side, when you’re trying to hire an influencer, that would come down to making sure that you have understood their audience and that you know, that your audience will be interested in what you have to collaborate on.
So for instance, you know, someone contacted me this morning asking me to do a brand deal for baby formula. I have kids Ilana, so I was like, “Baby Formula?!” (laughs)
So like, you know, some influencers be like, great, give me the cash, I’ll talk about the baby formula, you know, so. So it’s that whole thing.
What I’ve personally experienced in terms of like longevity of, and actually having real influence is a longer campaign. So when you’re really working with an ambassador rather than a flash in the pan, hey, I did a post Give me my money kind of vibe.
So, the campaigns that I’ve done as an influencer, I’ve done. You know, I’ve been, I’ve done campaigns with Renault, but you know, the car company, they’ve given me a car on an offer for a period of like two or three years.
So I’ve driven brand new cars whenever they have a new car or drive to brand new rent over a few months. And so I’ve sold two cars off the back of that, like, I’ve had people DM me going, I bought the Renault, I see you driving it, I bought the Renault.
And so things like that, where it’s like, this person is an actual ambassador for them, you know, like, they’re clearly not doing it because they’re getting paid.
They’re doing it because they’re passionate about the brand. And they really love the brand. So that’s where we’re going as well, like, yes, I’m using influencer marketing to fill my webinars.
But then I’m also collaborating with a number of influences that are really interested in building ecourses. And I’m gifting them my courses. And then they’re going to share their journey week after week, every week as they build the course.
So again, that’s just showing that they have so much more interest in the course at doing the course themselves. And it just means their audience is going to be taking on a journey with them.
Ways of Tracking Influencer Marketing Effectiveness
Ilana:
Yeah, I have to say it, or maybe this is just my training in the back of my head, and you’re a woman after my own heart being a data person is the word that I have that going on in my head is tracking, and therefore justifying spending the $300 on this post, etc.
So how do people track the effectiveness? Because it is quite vague and opaque really?
Amber Renae:
Yeah, for someone that loves Facebook and Google ads, it’s not you can’t you gotta like fill that hole.
So what you can do after your influencer has done your post is to ask for a screengrab of their analytics.
So when they go into their Instagram, and they can screengrab and go, Well, you know, I had three swipe ups, and I had five clicks to the website, and I had 10 people tap on your sticker.
Okay, then you can sort of gauge whether that was effective for you. Like if, you know, I could call those 10 people that followed me were as a result of this post or, or that kind of thing, but it certainly doesn’t have the tracking abilities that you and I enjoy.
Again, that’s what I’m saying. So you kind of got to look at it more as a brand awareness kind of exercise. Really.
Ilana:
Have you ever gone down the route of creating a dedicated landing page for that specific influencer? Just so you can see that traffic?
Amber Renae:
I haven’t done a landing page, but I’ve done UTM
Ilana:
So for our listeners That UTM links are trackable links, so you can see it in your analytics.
Amber Renae:
But again, it’s going back to that whole thing of like, it’s hard to get people to click off of Instagram. Mm-hmm. Like, whilst they might have in their post, the URL, and a link to my profile?
It’s hard to know whether that person clicked on my profile and then signed up on my link, or if I signed up on the trackable link from the influencer.
Ilana:
Yeah. It’s funny because I was once talking to a guy who sells some. He’s got an information product business, basically, it’s a really, really big business.
And he was saying that he woke up one morning, he lives in New Zealand, actually. And he woke up one morning, and he had all these sales, like completely abnormal. And he’s like, something’s happened.
And went through a process of trying to deduce what’s happened. And some, and I probably should know this, but some massive celebrity in America had said, I’ve just gone on to this website and done this thing, and it’s amazing, you guys should go.
And, you know, it wasn’t a paid collaboration by any means. Anyway, it took this person a long time to work out where all this traffic was coming from. And that’s what kind of made me think about well, I wonder if you could somehow track it better, because now he wants to do more of this type of stuff because it was so profitable, and it was so effective, and it was obviously a good match to hit that influencer’s audience.
But yeah, he was sort of in the dark as to how effective it could be.
Amber Renae:
Right. I like that idea of creating a dedicated influencer landing page. That would be one way of tracking it.
Ilana:
Yeah, I guess you’d have to put that landing page on your profile, then wouldn’t you? Maybe just for the time, when that is the length of the campaign?
Amber Renae:
Yeah, that would be good. Yeah, because I assume most people are going to click to your profile and then click to your link. Alternatively, what you can also ask your influencer to do is to replace their own link with your link.
Ilana:
Yeah, they might not do that though.
Amber Renae:
Yeah, I’ve done that before for Yeah. Yeah, it’s like four days. Yeah.
Ilana:
Maybe that’s something somebody could ask in terms of the negotiation, you know?
Amber Renae:
Yeah. Look, you just ask, right? Again, it’s your negotiation, as you know, your influence, we’ll just come back and say, No, they think it’s not gonna work.
Which Types of Businesses Influencer Marketing Works Best
Ilana:
I’m mindful of the time that I wanted to ask you, are there certain types of businesses that you think it works best for versus others? Like, say, you know, I’m a lawyer, and I do local legal practice?
I mean, an obvious one is e-commerce, but you know, not everyone’s got an e-commerce business.
So what are some really good businesses that you think it could work for versus others that aren’t?
Amber Renae:
Yeah. I’ve never actually started to think about that, obviously, e-commerce, and anything to do with fashion, beauty, you know, shopping anything like that.
I guess, you know, there’s so many different influencers these days, and people who have influence over weird things, you know, I guess it’s just a matter of finding the influencer, who’s talking to people who are passionate about, you know, grass, like, someone that, you know, booming grass business, you know, like, I feel like, there’s an influencer that’s passionate about that.
So then you need to go and find the person that’s having those conversations already. And surely, if they’re talking to your demographic, then they, then it would work.
Ilana:
Yeah, you totally, I was just thinking, like, a lot of my, I guess listeners of this podcast are service-based businesses, maybe lawyers, accountants, or, you know, and they’re looking to employ digital marketing into their marketing and if that’s sort of a possible avenue for you, but maybe it’s not, you know, maybe there’s not really a message to that, you know,
Amber Renae:
if I was a service-based business, say for instance, if I was a dentist in let’s say, John Coast, I would, I would absolutely use influencer marketing I would get my influencer in for a clean and scale or like a, you know, an easy to treat treatment that’s that everyone would want to come and do and I would give my influencer free dental treatments which you know, as an influencer, I would love for dentistry.
And then I would, and I will make sure I was picking the mommy influencer who talks about mommy fashion in Caloundra.
Yeah, the health and fitness influencer, who works out at the gym around the corner, or the, you know, the local lifestyle influencer, the drinks at the coffee shops around the corner.
So, again, that would be going to the hash searching hashtag Caloundra, or hashtag Sydney or hashtag Brisbane and finding who is like the Brisbane influencer and then inviting them in for free treatment.
Yeah, totally be doing them.
Ilana:
Well, like that idea. That’s awesome. It seems to be like you could really like this strategy is so versatile, you could use it in so many different ways.
Amber Renae:
Yeah, and it’s new. And that’s the thing, like only, like, I’ve only just realized that because I’ve been obviously on the flip side of influencer marketing for so long.
And I’ve taught the course I teach in the course I teach you both sides. If you want to do brand deals, or if you want to hire influencers to promote your brand, I teach that both in the course.
But this is the first time I’m watching those talk to you. I’m watching one of my signature courses on freedom funnels right now.
And I was like, I’m using influencer marketing to launch my course, I was like, This is good. Getting people to my webinar is such a great idea. Like, I’ve only just figured it out.
And I like teaching yourself. So I feel like though, you know, we’re really just sort of tapping into what it could look like.
And I think you know, as people that have come from heavily paid traffic backgrounds, at this point, there’s still the option to get free traffic, you know, so I think that’s why that’s what’s exciting about it right now.
Ilana:
Absolutely. And as somebody who has obviously gone all-in on paid traffic, I, I say to people all the time paid traffic is important.
But it’s not the only thing. And it should never be the only thing. It’s an important piece of a big pie. But it’s not the pie itself.
And I think this really taps into kind of what’s long been happening in China, really, with the integration between social and e-commerce. It’s all within the one app with WeChat.
And this is really just, I guess, where we’re at, we’ve been going on for a long time. But this is a long-established way that Chinese people do business in China through that influencer marketing, and we’re just sort of coming on to something very cool.
Alrighty. So I think that kind of is about it. Is there anything that I’ve missed that I should have asked you or we pretty much-covered everything?
Deliverables of Output
Amber Renae:
That’s about it. Yeah. Aside from you know, I guess. I guess the other thing when you’re working, I guess deliverables is something to talk about, right?
Because, again, we come from a heavy tracking base, back We want to know when it’s happening and what’s going to happen, what the deliverables are, I guess, if you’re working with your influencer in terms of collaboration, so if you’re gifting them something in return, you just want to be a little bit relaxed with when they’re going to post.
So, you know, unless you’re actually buying a slot on their feed, like if you’ve purchased a post, then yes, you can say, I want this post this week, next week, you know, whenever you want it done.
But if you’re offering something as a gift in return, then you kind of need to just trust that your influencer is going to do a good job.
I guess there are we always see on Facebook people only ever ragging influencers, like I only ever say, like, gave this influencer some free bikinis and she never posted like, I see that a lot.
And I, I don’t know, that’s not what that’s not been my experience in influencer marketing, like, I’ve only ever had a really good experience with people.
And I guess that comes down to me, vetting my influences first and making sure that, you know, they’re respectable, even, and you can figure that out in your communication, like, are they replying promptly? Are they, you know, are they using correct grammar and a conversation or things like that?
We’re like, Okay, cool. You’re taking this as a business, you’re acting respectfully to me as a potential client, you know, that gives me confidence that you can actually deliver on your promises.
And then you can also ask for previous brand deals, you know, insights and examples.
So testimonials sort of thing, you know, you can say, Who have you worked with previously, showing me what results in you’ve been able to get for them.
So again, someone who was running it as a business, or if they were an influencer, that was really trying to, you know, run it as a business. They have testimonials, they have, you know, insights that they can say, well, these are the brands I’ve worked with, and these were the results, I was able to get them.
Learn More About Amber Renae
So that’s the sort of thing that you’re looking for when you’re trying to figure out who to work with.
Ilana:
Yeah. Awesome. That’s been an amazing source of info. Thank you so much. Where can people find out more about it? Yes, that the course that you provide? And yeah, about you.
Amber Renae:
If you go to amber.courses, there’s four, five free masterclasses on there, including the one about Influence Nation.
So there’s a whole free training program that goes into much more depth about what we spoke about today, including some strategies on growing your grant.
So if you want to go and check that out, there are all free classes on their courses. Or if you’re thinking you want to sign up to influence a nation, I’m sure you’re gonna drop the link below.
But that’s an evergreen course so you can go and get involved in that one.
Ilana:
Awesome. Amber, thank you so much for coming on. It’s been lovely to reconnect with you, and thanks for sharing your wisdom.
Amber Renae:
Thanks for having me!
