Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / GEMS: Influencer Marketing Playbook (from both sides) with Oat Haus co-founder Ali Bonar

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GEMS: Influencer Marketing Playbook (from both sides) with Oat Haus co-founder Ali Bonar · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:08
  I'd love to hear what your kind of key learnings and key takeaway advice is when it comes to influencer marketing. I know that, you know, it's something that a lot of young founders and early stage entrepreneurs are looking to do, and it would be great to hear kind of what those key takeaways are. Yeah, absolutely. So I'm going to share, I'll share sort of my learnings on the influencer side, as well as on the brand side. So I have about
• 0:36
  I haven't checked lately, but I think I have like 55,000 followers on my personal account. So, you know, I'm not one of these that has millions of followers. I would probably be still considered like a micro-influencer to some people. I don't know. But I, you know, have been doing this for about 3 years and just really have so many learnings of what brands, you know, should do and shouldn't do. So I would say, you know, the do's and don'ts. First thing, you know, when you're approaching an influencer...
• 1:04
  I would actually argue that the influencers with millions of followers, like don't be drawn to just the number of followers because, you know, and on the brand side, we've kind of felt this as well. Like when you work with such, you know, huge, um, people in the public eye, a lot of times they're following isn't very loyal. First of all, it's a lot of thoughts and like, you know, not even real accounts, um,
• 1:28
  And then also it might not even be your demographic. So, you know, our main demographic is women, moms, you know, health conscious, female millennials. And so if I'm sending product to, you know, a swimsuit model, then all of her followers are likely male, and you're not going to see that conversion.
• 1:57
  super loyal. They feel like I'm their friend. You know, they feel like someone that I respond to as many DMs as I can during the day. So it's like, there's that, you know, communication. And so they don't feel like it's this sort of person up on a pedestal. That's just like, you know, advertising different products all day. Like they actually take my recommendations and feel, you know, and trust me. Um,
• 2:20
  And so when brands reach out to me, you know, number one, I want them to treat me like I'm a person, like a lot of brands will slide into my DMS. And they'll be like, Hey, you know, we'd love to send you this pair of underwear. If you know, you post eight times. And it's like,
• 2:35
  Okay, number one, underwear doesn't pay my rent, you know, as much as I would love that to happen. And so as a brand, I would really recommend, you know, first building that relationship with the influencer, maybe it's commenting on their, you know, on their stuff, engaging with their content, learning what they're about. So obviously, I have a huge past with disordered eating and orthorexia. And, you know, if I get like spammed, for some reason, with all of these
• 3:05
  And I'm like, did you even take one look at my page? Because like, I am so, this is not me. So obviously, you know, take a look at what they're posting about. But also what I was saying was, you know, don't be afraid to work with micro influencers, even people that have 5,000 followers, 10,000 followers, you know, sometimes they have the most loyal, engaged communities of anyone's.
• 3:26
  I would also look to TikTok. Obviously, that is exploding right now. That's like my number one source of anxiety is like not having enough time in my day to also, you know, start posting on TikTok. I have an account, but it's like always an afterthought for me with running the business. But it's like, that's a huge, you know, that's where all of Gen Z is. So that's a huge one, too.
• 3:48
  And then I would say on the brand side for your own, you know, personal, like Instagram, trying to grow your own following, treat yourself as an influencer. So if you take a look at, so I have Avo Queen, which is my personal account, Queen & Co is our brand page. If you watch, you
• 4:03
  Instagram stories. Even today, I literally just did a selfie of me taking a podcast interview from the bathroom floor of our facility, you know, like, hashtag startup life. And it's really treating yourself as an influencer. I'll show, you know, us shipping out packages, I'll show myself crying in my car after a long day, like, I'll talk about how the ups and the downs, you know, and of course, there's gonna be brands that are
• 4:29
  multi-million dollar brands and like that's not their day-to-day but you know you can show the behind the scenes what it's like working for your company and you know different highlights of who's on your team and what are they passionate about and really just giving your customer a face to the brand I think so often people are just
• 4:45
  especially during COVID, like we're all on our phones more than ever. And we're searching for that, you know, shred of humanity and just a face to some of these big organizations. So that's been really powerful for us. And then when you go to work with influencers, you know, especially with the micro influencers, you can send them products. And a lot of them are super excited about it. You know, they don't need thousands of dollars of payment. Like a lot of them probably have full-time jobs. And this is sort of like a fun thing they do on the side, which is what I did for a long time.
• 5:15
  And so they'll be happy to share about your product. And I think that's a really great way to go. And if you're confident in your product and you believe in it, then you should be confident enough to just send them product, no questions asked, like never send products expecting them to post about you or even requiring that because that's just not the way it works. Like, if they are giving you free marketing, then that's the exchange.
• 5:41
  So yeah, that's sort of like, in a nutshell, I've written articles on this for some different companies. I have one coming out with Forbes in a couple weeks. But like, just from the top of my head, I think those are sort of the most important ones I can think of right now.
• 5:55
  Thank you so much. I love that advice. And that's so key. I think when you send to influencers, not having that, you know, pressure asking them to post and making that relationship a bit weird because also they need to like your product. They need to actually want to talk about your product rather than that pressure of it being, you know, not authentic and putting something on their page that they don't want to represent after all.
• 6:19
  When you do your influencer marketing, how many influencers are you reaching out to on a monthly basis, say, and sending out to on a monthly basis? What's a good benchmark to aim towards? Yeah. So another, I guess that kind of reminds me of another tip too. If you can, I actually reach out from my personal account. So if you have, you know, maybe you're
• 6:43
  still a super small business and you are the founder and you are doing your social, like it's perfect. You don't have to reach out from like your personal account. Cause I know my situation's a little different, but reaching out and saying like, Hey, I'm so-and-so I'm the founder. It just, number one gets people's attention. Doesn't feel like you're just
• 7:00
  you know, an agency reaching out on the company's behalf. It adds that personal touch. Sometimes I'll even send a video of myself talking to the person and say, you know, cause that's just adds that personal touch or a voice memo is really powerful. Um, side note, voice memos are great when you're super busy. Sometimes I'll do it when I'm driving. Actually, I don't know if I can like condone that. So don't come for me, but, um, if you're, you know, like commuting or whatever, um,
• 7:26
  I think that's a great one. But in terms of benchmarks and how many per month, I sort of do it very ad hoc. And I would say it's something that we need to have more of a system around. And we're about to hire someone in the marketing position, sort of just like an extension of myself, which I'm super excited about. Because right now, it's like when I'm sitting on the couch watching The Bachelor, I'm reaching out to Instagram.
• 7:48
  and it's like something I do sort of at the end of the day or if I'm in the car and Eric's driving and we have like a 40 minute commute, then I'm like, all right, I'm gonna take these 40 minutes and just reach out to as many as you can. So a trick that I use is I try and get
• 8:03
  the different sort of leaders in each like sphere. So whether it be the Weight Watchers community, you know, whether it be, there's like fat weight of fat loss, soul cycle, you know, whole 30, these different tribes that people really associate themselves with, you know, there's sort of leaders, Peloton,
• 8:22
  I do Peloton, you know, workouts every day. And the instructors I follow on Instagram and like, I find them to be influencers. So kind of hitting those leaders in each group. And sometimes maybe it's, you know, mommy bloggers or, you know, moms of kids with allergies. Like it doesn't have to be this massive organization. There's, you know, real life influencers in each one of those spheres. So I'll try to go to them and send them products because what's gonna happen is suddenly, you know, people in the Peloton community are gonna see their favorite instructor
• 8:52
  post about it. And then if I send it to all the Peloton instructors, suddenly everyone is like, I feel like this granola butter is everywhere. Like I'm seeing this, this, you know, instructor post about it in this one. And then they're going to be like, I have to try this shit.
• 9:06
  of making people feel like it's everywhere because you know when you're in a community like that that is your world you know crossfit right um veganism like all of these sort of communities you're like oh this i tie myself to that so that's number one number two um there's this feature on instagram i don't even know what it's called but it's like it's a little down arrow and when you click to follow someone it shows accounts and profiles that are similar to that person
• 9:29
  I love that feature. Like I will, you know, send like a stock message, tailor it obviously a little to the person, but I'll say, you know, Hey girl, this is Ali. I'm founder of clean and co. Um, love your content. Love what you stand for. Love to send you some granola butter. Let me know if you're interested, like no strings attached. Um, and then you can kind of go through and see similar people that you might want to reach out to.
• 9:52
  So those are just a few tips that I use. I would say in terms of benchmarks, like just do as many as you can. Like my goal really, once we kind of hire this person is to be just constantly reaching out, constantly sending out products because just the ROI has been huge for us.
• 10:12
  Hey, it's Dune here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 10:36
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• 10:59
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