Navigating oversaturation with meaningful partnerships

[00:00:10] Dave Yovanno

Welcome back to The Partnership Economy podcast. I’m your host, Dave Yovanno, and today we have a fantastic guest joining us, Brianna Doe. Brianna’s career path is anything but ordinary. With experience across brand, agency, and creator roles, she has honed her expertise in influencer marketing and brand strategy, culminating in her role today as founder of Verbatim. an influencer marketing agency, and a B2B creator herself. In this episode, we’ll dive into the evolving creator economy and the disconnect between marketers and creators, tactical insights into how to work with creators, compensation models, and measurement techniques, and finally, innovative ways for brands to adapt to new consumer behaviors. Plus, Brianna shares her perspective on how the creator economy is still full of untapped potential and how brands can rethink their approach to influencer marketing. Stay tuned. I’m excited to introduce today’s guest, Brianna Doe. She’s founder of Verbatim and a B2B creator herself. Brianna, how are you doing today? 

[00:01:13] Brianna Doe

I’m great, thanks for having me. 

[00:01:15] Dave Yovanno

Awesome, I’d love to start at the beginning and just wondering if you can share with our audience just a few highlights of your career journey and exactly how you got to where you are today. 

[00:01:25] Brianna Doe

First things first, never thought I’d get into marketing. I studied film in college, fully planned on becoming a screenwriter and then ended up working for some nonprofits during my junior and senior year. Completely fell in love with marketing and decided to pursue it full time after I graduated. So I spent the next 13 years just really diving into like the fast paced startup life. I call myself industry agnostic. I worked in D to C e-commerce, sustainable tech, B to B SaaS, you name it, I probably worked in it. And I always just wore a lot of hats. So, my main focus was mainly influencer marketing, but I did also dabble in graphic design, brand strategy, content marketing, and I think that really set me up to create more of a full service or full-fledged influencer marketing program for different brands, because I understood how they work really well across other departments and across other teams. So, like I said, worked in-house for 13 years, was always doing fractional marketing work on the side, and then ended up launching Verbatim in October, 2023. You know, the job market and the economy was what it was, and I really wanted to build something for myself. So a couple weeks before I was set to launch it, I actually got laid off, so the timing was perfect. 

[00:02:31] Dave Yovanno

It sounds like you’ve worn a number of hats across a number industries. You’ve been on the consumer side, business side, design, agency side, operation side. Is there a common thread, would you say, that’s tied your journey together so far? 

[00:02:44] Brianna Doe

Yeah, I think it probably sounds a little cliché, but I will say storytelling. I am just really passionate about helping brands tell the entire story of their brand, not just pieces of it, and to tell it in a way that actually resonates with their target audience and with their buyer. Regardless of whether you’re optimizing for revenue or clicks or impressions, you should be trying to tell that full story and make sure that your customers and your buyers feel like they’re part of a community and feel like they are part of the journey with you, because that’s how you actually build those raving fans that we all talk about. 

[00:03:14] Dave Yovanno

But you’ve been in, call it influencer marketing, before it was cool. I remember you telling me in the past, and that’s kind of the way you put it essentially. Now that you’ve recently become a creator yourself, how’s that experience shaped your view of what’s working and maybe what’s not yet, and how brands are at least attempting to work with creators today and vice versa? 

[00:03:34] Brianna Doe

Great question. So for context, I wasn’t it before it was cool back when it was a little weird and people didn’t know why you would pay somebody to promote your brand. And I only started creating content about three years ago on LinkedIn. And, I didn’t go into it expecting to partner with brands. I really did just want to kind of dissect my career journey and network and make more connections. But when I did start getting those requests for brand partnerships, I saw it as a really cool opportunity, right? I’d always been on the marketer side. I knew how to negotiate for a brand, I knew how to build an influencer program, but I had this opportunity to actually see what it was like as a creator and what the experience was like and what my goals were and how they shifted when I put the creator hat on. And I do believe that it’s made me a sharper marketer. I think it’s really easy to just focus on your own goals as a marketer, right? We’re looking to drive X amount of revenue or increase our market share or whatever the case maybe, but creators, whether they’re full-time or do it on the side. They put a lot of work into the content that they create and the audience that they’ve built. So making sure that we’re valuing that and giving them the tools that they need to succeed. It’s exciting to be able to be on both sides and really help both parties navigate it in a way that I wasn’t able to before. 

[00:04:47] Dave Yovanno

That’s another theme that I’m really anxious to unpack with you, because there’s a lot to learn from your experience and what you’re seeing on that creator side of things. But before we take a look at that side of the equation, if you will, maybe first wanted to start with, just acknowledging the fact that there’s just so much noise, so much oversaturation from brands in general these days. When you look at it from the consumer perspective, how do you think that affects the modern consumer journey today? Like how they’re, you know, finding out about brands? How they are making decisions to buy from brands, etc?

[00:05:23] Brianna Doe

I feel like a broken record with this because I feel like I rant about it all the time. But to your point, we are oversaturated with content and ads. I mean, if I open my inbox right now, like my personal email, I wouldn’t even be able to find the emails that I am looking for because they’re just going to be so many promotional, so much promotional content in there. If I went on TikTok or Instagram right now. Same thing. I could be trying to find my friends content, but I’m just going to see influencer posts, add collaboration, just just this constant scroll. As we’re seeing this oversaturation of content, both good content and not so great content, we’re craving more and more actual connection, whether that’s in-person or digital. And it feels a little counterintuitive. I’d be curious what you think, but especially with this rise of like AI and tech and all of that, you would think that we would fully embrace just this, you know, all of this content and all these ways to engage, but if they don’t feel genuine or authentic. It kind of just becomes noise, right? And so I think for brands, that’s the new challenge that we have to figure out or the new-ish challenge is, okay, the problem isn’t creating content. Brands are doing it, creators are doing, brands and creators are together. What we really need to do is create content that will stand out and that will resonate and that we’ll actually help our buyers or target buyers feel like they’re a part of something. And I think the goal posts are always shifting, like the way that we define success will always shift. If we’re craving connection as consumers, then as marketers and brands, how are we actually setting buyers up to experience that? 

[00:06:55] Dave Yovanno

Just on the topic of just the noise and the overload of information, I would agree 100 percent, there’s just too much. Whether it’s email, messaging, there’s too much choice. I can’t remember, you might know, there’s a term or a description of somebody called, where there’s this oversaturation of choice. Like we used to walk into a store, it could be a drug store, and there was like three different products that we would choose from. Now there’s like 100 of the same thing. And so how do you, you know, process all this choice and make a decision without feeling kind of overwhelmed. And then the other side of it, from a consumer standpoint, I think you would agree that, you now, for the last 100 years, you’ve had brands talking at consumers, right? Sharing unverified messages, their claims, their perfect image of this utopia sort of thing. The end result, they get the product and it’s not as advertised, essentially, generally, as a society, we’ve just accepted that that’s just the way it is. You don’t quite trust exactly what you’re being spoonfed. But now, what I think is that we’ve shifted to a much more dynamic and circular path that has been built on community-based discovery. You hinted at that already. And I think the big challenge here is, you know, brands. are kind of in this tough spot now where they’ve got to build trust and credibility with their consumers, and they’ve never had that challenge before. I think that’s the biggest challenge. They used to just say it, the way they pictured the world as perfect, and that’s not reality. And these community-based interactions and engagements is really what’s verifying now what brands are saying. And so, I think to be successful, brands have to be dependent on these other voices advocating for them and promoting them. You got any tips on how we can urge brands to prioritize this and potentially even measure trust and credibility in that way? 

[00:08:49] Brianna Doe

Trust and credibility are huge. And I think we like to talk about social proof when it’s positive or when it benefits the brand, right? Like when we’re getting the good reviews and customers are happy. Social proof can also work against you. Like if you’re getting a lot of bad feedback or just negative feedback, that’s proof for your customers or potential customers as well. And so first things first, yes, definitely prioritize it. And I thing the way you go about it, there are multiple ways too. One thing I would recommend is leveraging or leaning into your customer base. The people that are already using the product or the service, the people that have been with you for a while or that you have retained and haven’t churned, what do they love about it? How can you incorporate them into your marketing strategy, right? And what kind of social proof can you glean from them and leverage? I always recommend starting with your customers. It’s a lot easier to get somebody to talk about your product if they’re already using it and they love it than it is to bring in somebody completely new. And I would also recommend, if you are gonna partner with influencers, and we’re going to dig into this a bit strive for longer term partnerships, because it’s a lot harder to build trust off of two sponsored posts, right? Or one collaboration than it is a longer term, like more intentional or deliberate partnership where the creator is able to build trust indirectly for you, like with their audience over time, as opposed to relying on just a few pieces of content. So I think that’s definitely a good place to start. And when it comes to measuring it, I mean, social listening is gonna be your best friend, right, and just tracking like the brand sentiment online. 

[00:10:23] Dave Yovanno

Not only do brands want longer-term partnerships and relationships with these creators, but creators want the same thing. It takes time and effort to kind of understand each other, really get behind each other and advocate, essentially, for each other and kind of make that work. It’s hard to, you know, keep rinsing and repeating. This isn’t a transactional, you know sort of partnership, you know, there’s some longevity to it. It may not be years and years and years, but, you know, it’s certainly beyond like a typical campaign 30 day flight date, you know, that the world of advertising is most comfortable with. 

[00:10:56] Brianna Doe

Deep down, I think I understood that when I just worked in marketing, but I think it clicked on a different level or to a different extent when I started creating content too. Like as a creator, I don’t want to be working with a new brand every month. I don’ want to look like a billboard. Nobody wants that. You know, and even outside of that, if I’m working with the brand, it’s one that I either have already been using and I’m a huge fan of, or I was able to use the product or service for a while first and now I’m huge fan. Like I want to able to cultivate those relationships and keep the partnership going. And so longer-term partnerships just make sense for both parties, right? Now, if it’s not a good fit, you don’t have to force it. But I think you bring up a good point, like it is important to remember creators want that too. Most of them aren’t looking to rinse and repeat every couple of weeks.

[00:11:42] Dave Yovanno

They relate to a creator’s relationship with their audience, right? They want to be authentic and true to them. And if their audience sees them switching from one brand to the next, all of a sudden this seems like a sales pitch, right, that they’re just being a cheesy salesperson, if you will, and they’re not really believing in what they’re saying, and trust starts to diminish essentially. I think that’s a big part of it. 

[00:12:03] Brianna Doe

Yeah, people are wary. I mean, I’ll be honest, I am too, like, as a consumer, I, I want to know if when a creator that I trust posts about something that they’re posting about it, because they want to, or they’re disclosing that that’s a paid partnership, like it’s so easy to break trust, especially in such a digital landscape, right, where so many brand partnerships are popping up and as a creator or as a brand, like trust and credibility, like I said, are easy to brake, and easy to lose. And so making sure that you’re prioritizing that, like i said, even with disclosures. Like I, as a brand, I don’t wanna work with creators who don’t prioritize being upfront about partnerships too because that’s just another thing that can reflect poorly. 

[00:12:40] Dave Yovanno

Yeah, when I think about it, now that you’re talking about it more, like my career in Martech, if you will, started back in the 90s and working with publishers back then in your traditional advertising model, they cared about those same things. They cared about the quality of ads on their site, but there was some separation there. They could accept lower quality ads. They didn’t want the shaky, shaky banners and things like that because obviously those are annoying, but I think they tolerated some lower quality. advertisers, I think, because there’s a degree of separation there. They understood that it’s the brand running the ad, their content is separate from the ad if you will. And in this world, they’re interwoven, right? It’s like if a creator is advocating for a brand, like the content is woven into, you know, the promotion, essentially. And so there has to be a higher bar in terms of quality, essentially, and and belief, I guess, in what they’re saying. Otherwise, you’re gonna get the unsubscribes, you’re going to get the comments, it’s going to detract from their product essentially. 

[00:13:49] Brianna Doe

I think you hit the nail on the head, especially when it comes to marketers or brands that don’t want to give up control of the content that the influencer is creating, right? So like, I run into this often, I’ll work with a client, they’re really excited to work with influencers, they have all these ideas. But then when the influencer starts drafting content, they want to change all of it, control what they’re saying, control the narrative, control the messaging. And as a creator, I think it’s easy to get frustrated. But as a brand or marketer, there’s so much on the line. Right? Because to your point, it’s just a lot different than like a third party ad. And it’s a lot easier if you can control it from beginning to end. 

[00:14:24] Dave Yovanno

And it’s understandable, to be honest. I mean, if brands for the last 100 years have developed a certain muscle memory that they control everything. They control the image, they control the narrative, they control message, and they’re now thrown into this world where they’ve gotta give up some of that control. It’s hard. I think it takes time for them to embrace that, truly understand it, get behind it, and be comfortable with it. I do think that we’re making progress. What are you seeing on that front? 

[00:14:50] Brianna Doe

I think we’re making progress too. I think the more established or comfortable the brand gets with influencer marketing and working with creators, the more they kind of release the reins. And I think too, especially in B2B as we’re seeing influencer marketing kind of proven out a bit more. Okay, you don’t have to control it from beginning to end. You don’t to treat this like a paid ad. You can give them control. I think, we’re starting to see more trust kind of being built there between brands and creators. And I’m also seeing creators advocate for themselves more, which I do think is important. You know, like negotiating a certain number of revisions or final creative control or, you know, whatever the case may be, which I like. I think it’s important for both parties to have some say in the relationship and how the partnership is formed. The ones where I see, the brands that I see struggling with it the most are the ones that are brand new to influencer marketing, which makes sense to your point. Like it makes sense. Have they been operating a certain way? You’re gonna struggle to give up control at first. And I think as long as you’re willing to put certain parameters in place to support the influencer or creators along the way, especially at the beginning, it’s gonna make it easier to give a control, like a creative brief or messaging guidelines, things like that. 

[00:16:00] Dave Yovanno

And I think there is a bit of seasonality to it as well. We’re getting a little tactical here, but as brands call it cyber week, let’s say, they want a strong outcome during a strong seasonal period. And they may have like an always on program where they’re giving up more reigns in programs with their creators. But it’s crunch time. They need to really push it. They may push more fixed fees, which I think are gonna demand, they’re gonna just by default then. They’re going to have certain guidelines that they’re going to kind of require if the creator is to get this hundred thousand dollar budget, if you will, that’s kind of fixed and guaranteed versus maybe performance based or a combination of the two. Would you agree with that? Like there’s some shifting of balance. You know, if they’re really requiring, you know, certain things in the content that these creators are creating that, you know, typically the trade there is like more of a financial commitment or a fixed commitment and compensation. and there’s a bit of that shift in balance of how they’re compensated in that way. 

[00:17:01] Brianna Doe

Yeah, that’s a great point. So yes, completely agree on the seasonality point first and foremost. Sometimes there are just going to be campaigns or seasons where the brand needs more control. We are promoting something very specific. Here are the do’s and don’ts. Please stay within these parameters. That makes perfect sense. And I agree on your second point as well. The monetary compensation conversation, I just find really interesting because I am seeing creators essentially say, you know. delicately. Like if you want this level of control over our partnership, this is my rate. Or if you want unlimited revisions, like, you know, we’re hacking on a couple extra thousand dollars or ten thousand or whatever that plays out to. I do still see, generally speaking, pushback from brands in that regard until we have a conversation about it. But I think to my point earlier, that’s where creators advocating for themselves comes in to a greater extent. And as The creator economy is booming, and we have so many content creators popping up. They’re starting to see that they do not so much have the upper hand, but they do have more leverage than they thought. So that’s where, I mean, I would say if you, as a brand, if you want that level of control, you are gonna need to be prepared to cough up some extra cash. 

[00:18:14] Dave Yovanno

So maybe in summary, I think the key points there are, maybe it’s okay and it’s even to be expected that brands lean in a bit more at times with guidelines and things like that. But maybe two takeaways from that. One, it shouldn’t be all the time, right? It should be sparingly. Maybe during an important seasonal period and two, they should be expected to kind of balance out how they’re compensating creators if they’re asking to engage with them in those ways, meaning the more they’re trying to assert control, the more you’re paying fixed fees, you’re maybe paying a premium, that sort of thing. But again, do it sparingly because it is gonna cost the creator something with regards to trust and relationship with their audience the more that they do that. And that’s not a good thing long-term. 

[00:19:01] Brianna Doe

Yeah, 1000 percent, and just to tack on one final thing to your first point, the brands that I see struggling with it the most, like struggling to give a control, are sometimes the ones that don’t have a clear idea of what success looks like for the campaign either. So they just want to be able to control all of it because they’re kind of figuring it out along the way. So I do think it’s important as a team to step back before you start working with influencers and say, okay, maybe it’s our first time doing this, or one of our first times. How are we actually defining success? Is it impressions? Is it book demos? Is a trial signups? Whatever the case may be, making sure that you at least have some understanding of that and have aligned as a team internally. I found it’s a lot easier to then go to the creator and say, this is what we’re trying to do. Here are our goals. How would you recommend, like what kind of content would you create for your audience that’ll help us actually achieve those? So just a note there that’s important to remember. 

[00:19:52] Dave Yovanno

All right, Brianna, you mentioned that the crater economy is booming. Those are your words, not mine. We’ve touched on a few catalysts, but is there anything else that you think is behind this boom? You know, why do you think now is the moment for creators? 

[00:20:07] Brianna Doe

I think there are a few reasons. One, not to be a downer, but the economy. People are stressed, right? And so they want, one, we’re seeing just an uptick inside hustles, inside gigs. And then we’re also seeing this elusive life of a creator where they’re able to have so much control over their finances and how much money they’re bringing in and they’re doing all of these cool things. So I think that’s part of it. I think it’s really appealing, especially to younger generations. And then I also think as platforms are providing more support for creators in general, like the creator fund through TikTok, right? Or how YouTube is really starting to lean in to the creator economy. Since there’s more support there, the barrier for entry is a lot lower. So you can just get out there and start creating and see where it takes you. I mean, it does look appealing, right. Sometimes I think about starting on TikTok, I’m not going to, but I still see people just starting every day and starting to create content. And I think there’s just a level of freedom that comes with it that really attracts folks. 

[00:21:03] Dave Yovanno

It is fun when you create something and you put it out there to be judged by someone and people engage with it and either like it or don’t like it or they add comments. There’s, that’s really what social media is all about. It’s just like, I think tapping into our nature as humans and we are social animals. So I think there’s that aspect of it. And that combined with just the fact that we’ve been evolving. Like if you’re a think back 10 years ago, YouTube, it goes back probably beyond that, but I think roughly 10 years ago, people were posting content about products on YouTube. They’d get a new laptop, put it on the workbench, hook it up, run these benchmark tests against the old version of a laptop, and they would just kind of test everything and calculate how much faster things are. Those are kind of some of the videos that I would look at. And they, the people who were doing that were just passionate about it, and they weren’t really doing it to get paid for it. Maybe somewhere, but you almost didn’t want to, because it was almost like multi-level marketing or sleazy if you’re getting paid for some of that content. I think people did it more out of passion and social currency maybe. But it has evolved. I think where it is to be expected that as you’re sharing information about products, it’s expected that you’re earning some form of compensation from that, and that shouldn’t detract from the authenticity of the content that you are publishing. I think it’s just generally expected now that people are putting content out there not just for a job, they really are passionate about it, but it’s okay if they got compensated for that as well. And that ties in with your other point about the gig economy and just people looking for a side hustle, just different ways to kind of monetize maybe some of their passions. To me, I think that’s a big part of it. Now it’s kind of like even moving to, you and I will both share with our friends and family, things that we would recommend. Yeah, I just love this thing, you gotta check it out too. Pretty soon, it’s gonna be normal that they’re using one of your links and you’re compensated for that referral even at that micro micro level. And I think that’s okay, to be honest. So I just think that that sort of sharing is really becoming the norm and compensation for that sharing is becoming the normal as well. So I think it’s partly what’s driving it as well, which is this flood of, you know, endless commercial content, commercial information available, like anything and everything that you’re looking for. Somebody’s got an opinion on that. That’s pretty cool. Compare that to, call it 20 years ago, where all you heard from was the brand and there’s no community to verify what was being told. And now you may find out about something through an ad or through some other means, but the very first thing that you gonna do as a consumer today is you’re gonna get online, you know see what other people have to say about it. Get the straight scoop, both the good and the bad, and you’re still going to buy even though there are some bad things said about it. That’s reality, that’s life, nothing’s perfect. I think that’s the hardest thing, going back to the challenge that brands have. They want everything to be perfect, but that’s not reality. It’s okay for people to share some of the negatives about a product. It doesn’t mean that someone’s not gonna buy, essentially, and I just like the evolution of reality, essentially, authenticity that everyone’s being forced into. It’s also raising the bar. for brands to create better products, right? Because if you create a bad product, consumers are going to talk about it. You’re not going to get repeat purchases. So quality goes up. At the end of the day, the consumer wins, right. They just get a much better experience. They get better products. I think that’s all good, generally, in terms of our evolution. 

[00:24:45] Brianna Doe

A million and one great points in there. And I agree with you on the authenticity piece. Like, yes, as a brand, do we want it to be perfect. We want no bad reviews. And everybody loves the product, of course. But as a consumer, if I’m looking up a new product, and I see, like a 4.3 rating with 10,000 reviews versus a 5.0 rating with 10 reviews, I’m going to go with the one that’s more realistic and where there’s been just more honest conversation about the product. I think it’s easy to expect perfection, but what consumers actually want is authenticity. And they want things that they know are gonna work. And that’s why we leverage like our communities and our friends and everybody else for their opinions. You alluded to it earlier with, I don’t know if this is the official term, but decision fatigue is what I call it at least. I was talking about that with a friend the other day. It’s exhausting. Like you have 10 of the same products, right? With 10 competitors, how are you supposed to pick one? You’re gonna probably go to the one that has the most honest reviews where a lot of people think it’s great, some think it okay. Two people in South Dakota think it sucks, you know, but that’s the most authentic and real experience as a consumer to completely agree. And when you mentioned, you’re right, we are social animals. And as you were talking, I was thinking about back in middle school and high school when Tumblr was big. I don’t know if you were ever on Tumblr, but it was you weren’t actually like you were you could gain followers, but you had no way of seeing how many followers somebody else had. I believe it was really just about self-expression. And I think that’s a really cool part of content creation too, is people are realizing to a greater extent, like, oh, I do have a voice and I can be heard. Like, I can express myself and people are interested in hearing that. And so I think it’s, that’s the beautiful side of content creation that I think is also contributing to the rise. 

[00:26:31] Dave Yovanno

All right, let’s talk shop for a bit here. As someone who has worked on the brand side, the agency side, the creator side, what would you say are some different ways that brands are working with creators today, right? From influencer to affiliate programs. Can you share any real life examples along those lines? 

[00:26:47] Brianna Doe

Yeah, I mean, the most traditional version that we’ve all seen are just straight up influencer programs, right, they pay X number of creators X amount of money for certain number of posts, posts are sponsored posts go out, they have custom links, all of that. I think where the fun really comes in is when you’re starting to see more of the hybrid models. So I’m seeing, especially in B2B brands that are working with influencers or creators, but they’re also really actually leveraging them as advisors. So they are a good example is a company called Novatic. They pulled from their actual customer base, I believe, and found folks who have anywhere from like 5,000 all the way up to a quarter of a million followers. And they actually utilize their product feedback along the way and kind of integrate them into their marketing strategy more holistically. So I think that’s incredible. I mean, I mentioned it earlier, but the more you can actually work with your customer base the better. That’s where you’re gonna get the most value. And then another model that I’m seeing Is this focused on? partly sponsor posts and traditional influencer content, but also just community-based activations, right? It’s like in-person dinners, micro dinners micro networking events, sending an influencer or creator to an event on behalf of the brand and creating content that way. I think it’s just, it’s a really cool way to kind of break the mold, especially right now. And I think for folks that either are content creators or marketers, like if they want to kind create those more energetic and authentic experiences, the more that they can integrate into the whole marketing strategy, I think is crucial. So I love anything that brings people in person to actually connect. And then the final one I would say is kind of this hybrid affiliate and influencer model. I feel like they used to be very separate. You had like your affiliate partners and you had your creators and we’re starting to see the lines be blurred a bit there. I’m seeing it with some of my clients. So those are four that I’m seeing. 

[00:28:45] Dave Yovanno

Excellent. Excellent. You mentioned events and just us as a company, Impact.com, we have stumbled across this ourselves. I don’t know if you’re seeing it. I think it’s what you meant by it, but it’s interesting when you host an event and creators participate, you get very strong turnout if it’s an amazing, I’m not going to give up venues that we’ve been using that have been high turnout. I give away trade secrets, but it’s amazing to me, and it makes sense, right? Because creators especially need that backdrop, they need the storyline, they wanna look special, they wanna unique that they’re at this amazing place with these amazing people and there’s pictures and videos to verify it, you know what I mean? It kinda helps with their content. So if you’re looking to engage with creators, I think that’s an important part of your strategy, actually, are the venues, right, the places that you’re gathering with them to help with how they’re producing content. It just verifies them as a creator with their audience, I think. 

[00:29:37] Brianna Doe

That’s a great point. Yeah, you don’t want to just plop them into like a warehouse that you rented and have some food in the corner. Like what is an experience that you can create that the creators can actually benefit from and that will make them, like what will have them leave still talking about the event and what can you give them at the event that they can use that your name is then attached to? I think that’s an important question too. I mean, I’ve seen it done different ways, like having a photographer there so they can get new photos for new content, or having like a booth set up in the back where they can work on their podcasts or produce video content, things like that. There’s so many ways to go about it, but turnout is very strong when you incorporate creators. It’s interesting. 

[00:30:18] Speaker 3

If you’re enjoying this podcast, we’d love to see you at Impact.com’s partnership experience in Austin, Texas, from June 9th through 11th. Join us for three days of partnership innovation, including future-focused keynotes, panels, and workshops, tons of opportunities to network and book meetings with publishers, brands, and more, a welcome reception at Bangers on Historic Rainey Street, and iPX Fest. A festival-style party filled with all things Texas hospitality. To secure your ticket and a $150 discount, check out the episode description or go to events.impact.com/IPXAustin and enter code podcast. Finally, if you’re interested in sponsorship opportunities, please email events at impact.com. Now back to the show. 

[00:31:10] Dave Yovanno

Do you have any tips on the right way to compensate creators? We’ve touched on this a little bit so far, but what else would you say, just recommendations or advice to our audience here about how to work with creators in terms of how they’re being compensated. 

[00:31:23] Brianna Doe

You have to focus on providing value for the creators. A lot of the time, that’s gonna be monetary, right? But it doesn’t have to be. Like if you have a really strong product that people just love and maybe the price point is such that it’s not accessible to everybody, how can you incorporate that into your negotiations? But it has to be something that people actually want. I think we have to have a certain level of self-awareness as marketers about if it’s worth negotiating. So yeah, the most straightforward option, monetary, right? Don’t be afraid to negotiate, but there are different ways to go about that. It could be a straightforward fixed rates. Example, you have Jane Doe, the influencer. She charges 5K per rate, two posts, you pay her 10K. Or there’s more of like a performance-based model, which you alluded to earlier. So maybe Jane reduces her rate to 2K a post, but then you pay here a certain dollar amount, you know per impression or per thousand impressions. That’s one performance-based model that we’re seeing a lot of, and it depends on the creator truly if they’ll go for it, but that is negotiation tactic. The nice thing with that is that creators aren’t capped with their rate. The bad thing about that is that it’s harder to budget as a brand, especially if a post goes viral. Then like I mentioned or alluded to, a mix of gifting and monetary compensation can work too. Giving them access to your product if it’s a service, for example, I would not consider that gifting. that you need. access in order to test it out. But if you have a physical product or something that you can give them as part of it, that can be appealing as well. 

[00:32:58] Dave Yovanno

Yeah, I would agree, especially on the hybrid side of things. I think brands come into this, again, it’s understandable, 100 years of doing something one way where they’re perfectly controlling the creative, the message, the narrative, and all of that. And because they’re giving that up, I think most brands, especially when they’re new to partner-led marketing, is they feel because they are giving up that control, they shouldn’t have to pay anything. It should all be performed based. And that is not the reality, I think, you would both agree in working with creators. Like creators have to invest the time to get to know the brand, you know, do their research, produce their content. There’s some real cost time, you know, resources, there’s an investment there on their side. To me, it’s only fair that they be compensated, even if it’s a nominal form of compensation on a fixed basis to just post something. And that post, depending on who the creator is, and it’s something that as a platform at impact.com are working to improve, giving brands the insight, hey, what is the value of just that post, essentially, so that you can kind of justify some form of fixed payment plus the performance side of compensation, right, as they generate business results, let’s say, from that post. So I do think that that is kind of the winning strategy, at least to kind of start with. And to your point, as they get to know each other, you can flex between performance and fixed and kind of find the right me. But it’s really hard. Career is excited and motivated. And I’ve seen some very abusive, I call it abusive, sorts of expectations where it’s like, okay, I’m only going to pay you commission on sales and starting when sales first reached this threshold. It was like, are you kidding me? Like, who’s gonna work with you under those terms, right? And stop like punishing creators because you feel like you’re having to give up control. Like that’s not how it works in this world. 

[00:34:53] Brianna Doe

I completely agree. And I just find it so interesting. Like, you want to work with this creator because they have taken the time to build this audience. Why should you not have to compensate them for the work that they’ve done to build that audience? You want access to it. I just, I’ve always found that fascinating. But have you seen like the equity based model. Yeah, I’m starting to see a rise in that. 

[00:35:11] Dave Yovanno

Now, how does that work? 

[00:35:13] Brianna Doe

A brand gives and it’s not anything huge, but the brand will try and negotiate like giving the creator one percent or I mean, in some cases, like five equity and things like that, or stock in the company. I don’t know how I feel about that. I think it’s kind of like a long term high stakes performance based model in my opinion. But I’m starting to see that a bit and I find it interesting. I don’t know if I’d recommend it, but 

[00:35:43] Dave Yovanno

I wonder if that’s a bit of a play. I don’t know if this is true or not, but when I see Shaq, for example, partnered up with Epson printers, the general insurance and things like that, my assumption is he’s got some kind of equity deal with these guys. He’s gonna hit these commercials hard. He’s going to use his brand to advocate for this brand. It’s definitely a collab, if you will, between a celebrity and maybe not a tier one, big kind of spender advertiser, but you know that he’s having a significant impact on their sales by leveraging his brand with theirs, there’s got to be an equity component to. And if that’s true, I think what you’re saying makes 100 percent sense, essentially, in terms of doing something similar on a more distributed basis. I’m going to research that and look into it, and it’s a great pro tip there. Also, I think brands are struggling with measuring creator partnerships, right? How do you think they should be measuring success? 

[00:36:43] Brianna Doe

Make sure you’re having this conversation before you start working with influencers. You can start having conversations, but before you actually partner with them, because there are a few different ways that you can go about it and that the option you decide will determine how you partner with influencers, potentially which partners you decide to work with. So there are few main ways. For some companies, it’s just direct revenue, like revenue generated, how many people are using their link. For some, it’s gonna depend on the price point, the sales cycle, their industry, but you’ll start to see instead, how many leads can they generate for us or did they generate it for us? How did this impact pipeline? How many demos got booked? How many trial signups? Things like that. So not direct revenue, but still boosting their pipeline in a significant way. And then you have brands that are just more focused on brand awareness. So impressions in general per post and per the campaign, general reach, like follower growth, engagement, things like that. And what I always recommend is having a primary KPI and then a secondary. So if your primary is lead generation, maybe your secondary is just tracking brand impressions or brand awareness. It’s okay to have two, just make sure that you’re stack ranking them. So you’re not tracking or measuring for both equally. Cause like I said, it’s, it going to impact types of creators that you work with if you’re focused on brand awareness, Maybe you’re gonna end up working with some larger creators, but less of them to fit your budget. If it’s, you know, lead generation, maybe it’s some smaller creators with niche audiences, but you’re working with more of them, things like that. So important to align on that first. 

[00:38:20] Dave Yovanno

Yeah, tying this to the narrative that we’ve been discussing so far, 100 years of doing things a certain way, knowing how they deployed the majority of their global ad spend, it’s like reach and frequency sort of measurement, right? When you talk about working with creators, influencers in this way, those same measurements and buying mechanisms don’t really apply. And I think that’s the other challenge that brands are having. The resistance, again, it’s understandable. And, you know, I think what you’ve laid out there, you know, are ways in which brands are starting to kind of work through that. But obviously, it needs to evolve, you know, how they’re measuring. 

[00:38:59] Brianna Doe

Yeah, it needs to evolve. And I also think the way that we view the customer journey needs to evolve. I mean, it depends on your products and industry, like I mentioned, but the chances of somebody seeing one sponsor post, and then converting or buying your product or signing up for your service. It’s not always realistic. Most of the time, it’s not right. And so understanding and actually accepting, unfortunately, that the customer journey isn’t linear, but how can we just integrate like influence marketing into everything else that we’re doing and then put systems in place to track performance, but direct attribution, it can be tough, especially when you start bringing in creators. 

[00:39:36] Dave Yovanno

Considering the position that you’ve held on different sides of the equation here, if you will, I just gotta ask how you feel about the disconnect and how marketers and creators communicate, right? Where can both sides essentially do better, especially when it comes to pitching and collaborating. 

[00:39:52] Brianna Doe

I think both sides or both parties focus too much on their own goals and their own pain points. So I’ll start with creators. So, I have a friend actually right now who’s trying to negotiate some deals. And she’s like, well, I’ve, you know, I had X amount of reach, or I always get this number of impressions and my posts always go viral. And I asked her the other day, do you happen to know how much they were able to attribute to like generated leads or, you now, direct revenue, things like that or conversions. She had no idea. And I think that happens a lot with creators. And I was like, well, what you need to remember is that if they’re not optimizing for a viral campaign or for brand awareness and impressions, that’s not gonna be as valuable to them. So do you actually have a deep understanding of their business outcomes and their goals for this campaign? And if they don’t, that’s what I recommend starting with. For creators, it’s important to think of the market or the brand as your customer. Like what are their actual pain points? What are they trying to solve for? And then how can your content or how can your partnership with them help them reach those goals? If you can understand, if you can put that hat on and understand what they’re trying to accomplish, you’re gonna be in a much better position when you’re negotiating because you’re going to understand how to speak to what it is that you do and how it will benefit them. For marketers, I think, I’m laughing because there’s a lot I could say, but I think the main thing is not devaluing the work the creators. have done, we talked about this a little bit earlier, like not devaluing the work they’ve done to build their audience to this point, this audience that you really want to leverage and speak to, and not undervaluing the amount of time and effort it takes to create good, authentic, engaging content. It looks easy because they’ve been doing it for a long time and because they make it look easy, but it is hard work. I see so many negotiations and conversations where the creator leaves feeling frustrated or… They’re not taken seriously. And you don’t want a creator to leave a conversation feeling that way, whether you work with them or not. Because unfortunately, with social proof, the conversation doesn’t end once they do the post or once the conversation ends, right? They can still talk about the brand, making sure that creators leave with a positive feeling about your brand, whether you worked with them are not, and also understanding you can negotiate to stay within your budget, but you need to negotiate in a way that actually still respects the work that the creator does. 

[00:42:24] Dave Yovanno

I’m definitely aligned with you, I think, in the vibe that I picked up when you turned the conversation to marketers and brands and what they need to do to communicate better. Because to me, the expectation is higher for that group. Creators, a lot of these guys are just sole proprietors. They’re individuals. They’re not professional business people by and large, right? They’re out there publishing content that they’re passionate about. And so I personally expect more from marketers to show more empathy. You know, I loved your first point which was stop focusing so much on yourself and, you know, you know, try and learn and understand the other side of the table a little bit better and my point is I I personally expect more from marketers on that end than I do creators just because they they are the professionals who’ve been doing this for a very very long time when I talk to both brands and creators What’s interesting to me is that creators refer to themselves as creators and you and I have interchangeably use this word throughout. When you talk to brands, they typically refer to them as influencers. Think about what that means. Just that subtle description to me is big, right? The way marketers think of creators is, your job is to promote my products. That’s not how they see themselves, right? They are creators. They’re publishing content of many different forms, a fraction of which is about products and in particular, their products, right. Their whole content stream is not about products. They’re not professional salespeople just out there pitching one product after another. They’re pitching their life and other topics. And then they weave in certain products that they care about as a way to kind of earn essentially from the content that they’re producing. And so I think. marketers just need to understand that better to be honest, right? They truly are creators and trying to align themselves with creators who align with their brand and hopefully get them to advocate for it and give some direction, but don’t try and control the whole thing. But I think that one small point is actually a really big point that most marketers and brands don’t fully realize maybe. Would you agree with that? 

[00:44:34] Brianna Doe

I would completely agree. And that’s a really good call out with the influencer versus creator conversation because we have been using it interchangeably, but most brands don’t. And like if I, even as somebody who partners with brands, I am very uncomfortable with being called an influencer. I’m a creator who sometimes partners with companies and it’s, I, you’re right. I do put more of the onus on the marketers when it comes to defining success and then communicating that to influencers, like setting them up for success. bring it back to one of the points you made at the very beginning. So it can be a longer term partnership. So that it’s mutually beneficial and that it is a win for both parties. It is on the professional in this situation to communicate that and make sure that both sides of the equation are taken care of and valued. And I think that’s one shift that I’m seeing in the creator economy that I really appreciate. I think there was this point, and it was very short, in my opinion, but there was this point when creators were kind of not taken as seriously if they did partner with brands and if they did promote products. But it’s a lot of work. And it’s okay to want to get compensated for that work, even if it’s not, you know, all the time. And so as marketers, we need to create the space for them to basically fund the work that they do without feeling that they have to sell their soul to get a partnership, and then also make sure that they’re set up for success. Right? 

[00:45:58] Dave Yovanno

Okay, you threw out this term, I almost took the bait then, but I kind of saved it towards the end to kind of bring out the AI sort of topic. And I think what we’re seeing is a classic case, honestly, let me know if you agree, of innovators dilemma right now. We’re seeing platforms like Google being forced to disrupt their own core model just to keep up, even if it cannibalizes their core business. So for example, I’m sure you’ve seen it, like Google’s got to surface those AI answers. At the very top, if you think about that, you do a Google search result, there’s a paragraph description, that’s ChatGPT-like essentially, and that was the most valuable real estate on the internet for decades, the sponsored listings, top three placements. That’s now replaced with just a paragraph of information, so that’s kind of killed sponsored listings, it’s kind of pushed SEM, paid search further down the page. It’s basically minimized SEOs. There’s just a lot of disruption, I think, happening within just the search channel. Then on the other end, you’ve got users that are just skipping Google altogether and instead searching directly on platforms like TikTok. With all this disruption to traditional discovery and ad channels, how do you think brands should be thinking about deploying budget and scaling creator-driven channels? 

[00:47:20] Brianna Doe

It is funny a couple years ago or maybe a year ago when people were starting to talk about this idea of social SEO, I didn’t believe it, I was like, who’s going on TikTok to search for things. Now I’m embarrassed to say I basically only use TikTok to search for things. So we are seeing this shift to your point into social SEO. You’ve mentioned this a few times and I just I think it’s spot on like brands have done advertising a certain way for 100 years. You just you do 50 percent your budget for SEM, 50 percent for paid social, whatever the case may be, that’s it. Maybe you have something left over for influencers now, because that’s the new thing. But things are changing very quickly, like, and it’s, you can still allocate that budget, you know, to paid search and paid social. But the ROI is just steadily declining. And with this over saturation over saturation of content that we keep referring to, you’re just fighting more and more bidding more and money against other competitors that are doing the same thing. If you go to Google right now and just type in a question, you will start to see posts from social platforms pop up near the top. So that is becoming very real and very useful. And I think brands need to take notice of that. And what does that mean for the way that they’re showing up on social in general, organic, but then also from an influencer perspective. Right now, it might seem like the creator economy and influence marketing is just a very saturated space, but there is still a lot of evolution happening there. And there’s still a lotta space to start and grow and win. And so I think, you know, we talk about longer-term influencer partnerships. It’s not just about, okay, how many posts do we want them to do over the next six months? But how can we incorporate this into our SEO strategy? Right? And if we are taking 15 percent of our paid search budget and allocating it to influencers, are there certain keywords that we are trying to optimize for or things that we’re trying to refine so that we can still see the results, at least some version of the results that we use too? I will say for the brands that are just sticking to the status quo and aren’t really even testing or experimenting, it’s a losing battle. 

[00:49:31] Dave Yovanno

Yeah, I think when you look at Google, Google was predicated on PageRank, right? The algorithm that indexed a page, and those pages were created by publishers. I think the big change now, and tell me if you agree, is that creators are the new publisher. Creators are the affiliate, and the reality is they are publishing in very different ways that maybe, that PageRank doesn’t quite, I mean, you just mentioned that, seems like maybe they’ve found a way to kind of weave those social posts into their search results. So maybe Google is updating the algorithm and accounting for that, but they’re not gonna be able to do that fully essentially. But if kind of all that essentially is true, one question I have for you around the gen AI topic is, do you believe that gen AI can replace what creators are doing today? And this kind of ties me back to, you know, the human and animal instincts that we have, like, just to put it out there, like, I question whether or not people can really trust, you know AI generated, you know reviews or descriptions, or you’re just gonna kind of, like, do you have to hear it from a human? How do you see it in terms of how gen AI plays out on this topic? 

[00:50:47] Brianna Doe

It’s just a yes or no question, I could see that working. But to your point, I at this point, at least this could always change. I might eat my words in five years. But I think that we are still craving that social proof, like we want to learn from our community, we want to learn what to do what not to do from our community, not from AI. And I alluded to this earlier, but people are wary, not just of influencers, not disclosing their partnerships, but of artificial intelligence. And even while we’re seeing it being utilized in really cool ways, I think that level of mistrust is also growing. And I’ve noticed even when I try and use AI, I still double check the results. Like, I don’t really trust the answers, you know? And so I think there’s room to embrace gen AI and see how you can make it work for your brand, but it’s not going to replace just person to person connection and person to personal endorsements. I don’t see society allowing it to fully replace like the trust and credibility that we build just with other humans. 

[00:51:49] Dave Yovanno

There’s a concert effect here. There’s surround sound. I see how these things coexist, at least in my mind, where just recently, my daughter was in the market for a new car. This actually ties back to one of our very early points that we were discussing around just all the noise and all the choice that’s out there. I personally see gen AI being helpful in sorting through some of the noise. And then once you curate that list down to a smaller subset, then turning towards people that you trust to really kind of make that decision. So my daughter was in the market for a new car, very confusing all the trim levels and whatnot. So using something like ChatGPT to kind of sort through, okay, these are the two that I’m interested in, and then going to a review, a test drive, somebody pointing these things out and talking about their real experience with one of the two really helped make the decision. So I personally can see how these things coexist. I find it hard for humans to rely solely on kind of a computer generated answer, if you will, in terms of making choices about certain things. And I agree with you too, this is all evolving. We’re still nascent, I think, in terms of this journey, but it’s gonna be really fascinating to see how it evolves. 

[00:53:03] Brianna Doe

It will. And I agree with you too. I see it as supplemental. It will be interesting to see how it evolves, I think, especially with, you know, the rise of AI influencers and stuff. I think it’s, it’s an area to keep our eyes on. But I wouldn’t worry about it yet as a brand. 

[00:53:19] Dave Yovanno

All right, excellent, we’re nearing the end here. I wanted to kind of try and wrap by just asking, what trends that you’re paying attention to? Is there anything top of mind right now in the world of creator marketing that you think you should spotlight for us? 

[00:53:31] Brianna Doe

Well, yeah, I will say actually AI is a big one, especially with AI influencers and just this focus on like integrating AI into our marketing programs. So that in general is just an area that I think is worth noting. And also, we talked about this earlier, but events like these in-person connections where they’re integrating creators into it, I think, is really fascinating and it’s a growing space. We’ve seen it in B2C for a long time, right? we see like the pop-ups, the influencer trips. the events, things like that, but we’re also seeing it in B2B in a new way. And so I think those are two areas that I find really interesting. One I find more exciting than the other, but it’s definitely interesting. 

[00:54:08] Dave Yovanno

Excellent, excellent, and that is a wrap. Brianna, I want to thank you so much for joining us on the Partnership Economy podcast. And to our listeners, thank you for tuning in. We’ll see you next time. I really enjoyed my conversation with Brianna. Especially her thoughts on why and how brands should prioritize trust and credibility in their partnerships. She made an excellent point about balancing brand control with creator autonomy. The most effective creator partnerships aren’t just about hitting brand marketing goals, but also ensuring that creators feel valued and that consumers feel a sense of belonging. And when it comes to measuring success, she highlighted the importance of setting clear KPIs, whether it’s brand awareness, lead generation, or direct revenue, so that brands and creators are aligned from the start. Another one of the biggest takeaways for me was the shift from traditional influencer marketing to a more community-driven approach, leveraging real customers, micro-events, and long-term partnerships. Finally, I loved her perspective on the future of marketing. With a decline of traditional SEO and advertising, there’s no doubt that brands that embrace creator-led content will be the ones that stand out. It’s clear that there’s still so much room to innovate in this space, and it’s exciting to see how partnerships between brands and creators will continue to evolve. A big thank you to Brianna for sharing her expertise with us today, and to all our listeners, thank you for tuning in. We’ll see you next time on The Partnership Economy podcast.