Your press release is my spam
PRs are now targeting their invites towards influencers, with the expectation that they will sell their product launches and industry events in exchange for some free hors d’oeuvres. Natalie Giddings, owner of influencer agency The Remarkables Group, would beg to differ.
Giddings says
Every morning I open my inbox to endless press releases asking me to invite the influencers we work with to product launches and industry events. Or requesting I get them to mention a product.
Without a second’s hesitation, those emails are deleted. Not because I have something against PRs, but because the influencers I work with would, quite rightly, be offended by the expectation they should work for you for free.
Influencer marketing is big business, not a cheap way to get free exposure
No pay, no play
Influencer marketing in Australia is in roughly the position content marketing was half a decade ago. Businesses are vaguely aware it is something they should be getting into, but are fuzzy on how it the industry works. It has become increasingly professional, rather than a bunch of biddable teenage Instagrammers.
So, let me explain why the spray-and-pray ‘Please come to our party/plug our product’ press release is not a winning strategy.
Influencers devote an enormous amount of time and effort to accruing the influence they enjoy. For many of them, it’s a full-time job (and then some). They have usually created mini production studios in their homes. They have almost always worked incredibly hard to build an audience, develop top-notch social media skills, pump out vast amounts of content and get up to date about everything going on in their vertical.
Once they do start attracting the attention of brands – and that will typically only occur after countless hours of grinding, unremunerated effort – they can and will play a crucial role in developing a content strategy that delivers for their clients without alienating their hard-won fans. In short, they are professionals and expect to be treated as such.
A smarter approach
I can only assume those in my position continue to get the releases described above because PRs and the clients they work for believe they deliver results.
Granted, they kind of do.
Email enough people and you will manage to attract a handful of influencers. However, beggars can’t be choosers. They’ll almost certainly not be at the level you’ll need. That is, people at the start of their influencer journey with tiny audiences who are flattered that they’ve made it onto a guest list.
Sure, they’ll be sufficiently grateful for that Piper-Heidsieck or free lipstick that they’ll do a one-off Instagram post. But on any metric you care to choose – awareness, conversion, whatever – a few one-off posts from a handful of randoms not subjected to any form of examination or analysis will have a negligible impact.
A smarter approach for brands would be to identify a smaller group of professional and relevant influencers with a real and engaged audience.
A really smart approach would be for brands to have the systems and expertise to develop a comprehensive, sophisticated longer-term strategy to create awareness and/or conversions and then select the most appropriate influencers for that strategy. Then, offer them a reasonable sum of money to truly partner with your brand.
That all sounds great, but how much is it going to cost?
A magazine like Vogue Australia claims a circulation of around 53,900 and readership of about 400,000. One of the influencers I work with in the beauty vertical, Cartia Mallan, has 434,000 YouTube subscribers. What’s more, her audience is engaged. If she recommends a lipstick, tens of thousands of her fans are going to rush out and buy it. Hell, I’m going rush out and buy it.
How much would, say, L’Oréal expect to pay Vogue Australia for a campaign to raise awareness about a lipstick it was launching? More to the point, why would L’Oréal believe someone like Cartia is going to provide the same service for nothing more than a free sample or an invite to a launch party?
Influencer marketing can provide an impressive ROI, but only for those who make the appropriate investment of analysis, expertise, and, yes, money in it. If you’re not willing to make that investment, don’t waste your time.
Or our influencers’.
Natalie Giddings is owner and director at The Remarkables Group
Hi Natalie, when you say “If she recommends a lipstick, tens of thousands of her fans are going to rush out and buy it” – can you substantiate that? I’ve looked at all your case studies and they all talk reach, hours reading content etc., but I didn’t see any (apart from Westpac app downloads) that talked sales or product uptake? Happy to be corrected on this and genuinely curious.
Thanks.
Ummm. Last I jeard The Remarkables shut their influencer arm down.
Also. Would love to see the raw attribution data for 10k people buying after a youtube vid. Standard PR talking big game.
I’d also be interested in this, as it would surely be the best and easiest way to justify any investment in using an influencer.
Otherwise, it’s no wonder people keep asking to get influencers to work for free… there is no associated return for their work!
Cheers, James
The main focus is right though as I have been saying for years. Why should PRs get paid squillions to pass info on to people they expect to pass to their followers for nowt?
I think you will find that the sales spike referred to was a result of me complimenting my partner on her new lipstick choice. The correlation is 100%. 1 compliment => instant sales spike.
@ David Hague – nobody in PR is getting paid squillions mate.
While we’re pointing out things we dislike about our necessary industry collaborators, may I point out the fact that 9/10 of the ‘influencers’ with huge followings that I’ve worked with have either run for the hills when I’ve pulled out a list of KPIs or not been able to produce a single substantiated report on how their engagement on a campaign truly brought ROI to my client once the project was completed.
I also completely disagree with the statement about not working with micro, up and coming influencers. In my experience, they have been far more appreciative of being invited to an event, more genuine in their posting and a lot more effective in engaging with a real audience.
Once influencers get a larger following and profile, their message becomes diluted, their costs unjustified and their egos too big.
Spot on @Janelle Ryan
Surely influencers, as part of new media, should be held to the same standards as magazines and newspapers. There should be space for paid posts (advertisements) and organic posts (editorial). Working in PR I regularly invite influencers alongside traditional media to events – I pay neither and expect nothing. But if the product or event piques their interest (which it should, if I have done my job right and invited people that have a natural alignment to my client) then we will see organic coverage – be it in a magazine or an Instagram feed. Unless they are an ambassador for the brand, and actively working on the evening (hosting, MCing, doing meet and greets) I would never pay anyone to attend a product launch on behalf of a client.
Thanks Dave & James
We’re working with a third party insights company on an attribution study. It’s actually completely possible. The last two studies of a similar nature we did in 2016 (1200 respondent) & Feb (1500 respondents) this year confirmed 4 out of 10 buy products their favourite influencers recommended. Plus we about to launch a coupon program with online and in-store redemption. I’m very excited about this with my retail background. Though the later won’t be publicly available data. My point is – we absolutely love to measure.
Thanks James,
We stopped representing talent late last year and moved into strategy, implementation & measurement. We could see brands needed genuine support with ideas, solid strategy and consistent approach. This way, the activity could be appropriately governed and can be optimised towards for the brands ideal metrics overtime.
Most influencers are quite reasonable. If not, we don’t recommend them. Plus it’s access to audiences and content in one!
This is also how we work with KPI’s. Many influencers despite what I presumed, aren’t ex-marketers. In many instances it was just about teaching them what is important to brands or simply, where and how to find those metrics.
And absolutely, micro-influencers are a great tactic as part of a broader strategy. We use a layered approach if the budget allows. Some of the automation platforms have recently changed their key metric from potential reach to combined audience which I’m much more comfortable with. But if we really want to position and grow awareness of a brand, we work with a chosen group of professional influencers with considerable and dedicated audiences, after first assessing the brand fit. Pity about the ego statement though!
Huge generalisation.
I would simply expect that influencers provide actual reporting on their campaigns with sales results that link to the brief and the media kit that they should have provided.
In my little business, we assist influencers in their communication with their brands and clients to ensure that they are delivering and reporting properly so that they are re-hired.
Clients should seek the demographic information that links their audience to their influencer, see evidence of past results and devise a strategy with their influencer.
Janelle is correct – I’ve found that if your product launch is aligned with the influencer, and provides influencers with content for their audience, it doesn’t always have to be a paid approach. And sometimes a launch or new product is an opportunity to develop a relationship that can lead to a more extensive – and therefore paid – engagement. Comes back to that (unanswered) question of ROI …
This is all great Natalie, but I’m certainly not the first to have made mass generalisations here, your entire piece was a mass generalisation about the PR industry and our understanding about working with influencers.
If this article is an example of what you’re teaching them about working with PR people, I fear they’re certainly going to have a rough start in collaborating with us, to further themselves in the space.
Eh? Is this a line from “Utopia”?
When you are being paid nothing at all, even a few thou’ is squillions …