#26 Influencer Marketing: What you need to know with Jessica Audsley

Aggie Meroni: 0:05

Welcome to the freelance ABS club podcast with me your host Aggie Meroni. Whether you're a seasoned freelance ads manager or just thinking about taking the leap into self employment, this podcast is for you. Every week, I'll be releasing a bite sized episode, I'll be sharing mistakes I've made and lessons I've learned from my own freelance business. I'll be showcasing some of the amazingly talented freelancers in the freelance ads club. And I also will be speaking to some incredible guests who will generously be sharing their knowledge with us to help us keep updated with industry trends. And I really hope that after listening to this podcast, you'll come away full of confidence on how to win great clients, how to charge correctly, and most importantly, retain those dream clients so that you build a successful and sustainable business. Welcome to Episode 16 of the freelance ads club Podcast. Today I am joined by Jessica audsley, who is the CEO of careful feet digital agency which is a full suite digital agency. Today the topic I wanted to chat with Jessica or Jess was influencer marketing as an agency has won awards around that specialism however we ended up talking about so many other things such as her rise. From freelance to see I often agency, obviously influencer marketing the rise of tick tock the future of the industry. As such an amazing episode, I hope you'll agree so many nuggets to take away especially as a freelancer trying to manage client expectations of what's involved in just finding an influencer to help them with their campaigns to what's actually involved once you find the influencers you want to work with and how to manage the whole process, and also how to charge for it as well. Once your your client insists on you taking charge of the whole process. So I hope you find it interesting, I hope you take a lot away from it. I definitely did cheat in and hear what Jess had to tell us. So I'm so excited about this episode, because we're gonna be diving deep into influencer marketing today. But before we get started, Jess, could you give us a bit of a background on who you are and how you you are today?

Unknown: 2:33

Of course. So I'm Jess. And I currently run an agency called we have agency. I'm the founder and CEO and a digital strategist. And I actually started out my career in film and television. So I started out in film working for Disney distribution company doing PR and communications for them. And then I moved to London and I worked for Discovery Networks for years and years doing PR for the Nordic and Benelux countries, which was amazing. And I continued my career within comms really broadly, different big companies, big brands, until my twin girls were 18 months. And I just decided that I had had enough. And I established my first business rock social, which then turned into a purchase. So I sold my business and ended up as a CEO for a larger business with 14 people in four continents completely remote full digital marketing agency, which was then also sold. So now I'm on my sort of third agency, my second founded business called we have agency and we are a remote agency offering full service digital marketing to clients in the US, the UK, and Sweden has an

Aggie Meroni: 3:54

incredible story because we first connected when you had your own business, so about a year ago or so. And then I saw your updates that you like you moved into this new role and like you were taking, you know, the leading position in this agency, I was like, Wow, that's amazing. So I had to get you want anyways talk about that. Because I know there'll be freelancers as well who are thinking about what's next. Most like a lot of freelancers are happy to just to just freelance I always say that is like, you know, it's not just freelancing, it's like, well, you know, do I get associates? Do I start an agency or in your, your situation your business was bought, and now you lead an agency. So it's just like another sort of option for people forward thinking about what to do

Unknown: 4:44

next? Absolutely. And I think I was in that position. So I can relate to that a lot. I mean, I was standing at the crossroads of do I want to scale what I'm doing now or do I want to stay at the level I'm at? And I just really felt that I have so much more to give and I do want to win What I missed the most, I guess, with freelancing was working with people and a team, because I get a lot of energy from other people. And I actually really enjoy leading people. I enjoy developing my leadership style, and I enjoy learning new things. And freelancing for me wasn't challenging enough, I think I was seeking for challenges that were outside of digital marketing, if that makes sense. So I wanted a team. And I also didn't want to give up any kind of the lifestyle choices that I've made, which is to live in the south of Sweden with a really high quality of life with my three children and go to this amazing school. So I wanted to be able to live where I live, but still, you know, you need this amazing agency. And yeah, it's been it's tough. Let's let's not kid ourselves. It's really tough. And it's challenging. But it's also amazing. And I'm so grateful for the opportunity.

Aggie Meroni: 5:48

I think everyone listening to this can relate that no matter what kind of business you have, whether you're freelance, you're leading a business, it's never easy.

Unknown: 6:01

Yeah, there's always challenges regardless of what you do. But I think the thing that I don't want to give up is the freedom. And this allows me to be free, but also work with other people and grow something which is really important to me, it's what I want to do.

Aggie Meroni: 6:16

Amazing. So I guess my question is, how does that tie in to influencer marketing, which is what we're going to focus on today.

Unknown: 6:24

And yeah, so we're gonna talk about influencer marketing, which is a really interesting area. So CFD is a full service agency, we do everything from websites, to Shopify sites, to SEO SEM, we do page social, we do organic social content creation, content marketing, we do the lot. And influencer marketing is something that works really, really well in kind of the segments where we're prevalent, such as fashion and beauty. But also, of course, the influence of marketing can you can look at other areas as well. It's not isolated to those but fairly common there. So it's something that we do and it's a really interesting area, I think.

Aggie Meroni: 7:04

So how did you first become involved or start using influencer marketing in your campaigns?

Unknown: 7:10

Yeah. So there's been clients that we have looked at, at influencer marketing as an option, because influencer marketing actually has a really good return on investment if you get it right. So the key here is to get it right, I was part of the team who launched a very famous Swedish fashion brand, which I cannot name, a sub brand under them onto Tik Tok, for instance. So using influence marketing in campaigns like that can be super effective. Also, also, of course, user generated content, but with influence and marketing, you have sort of more control over the process.

Aggie Meroni: 7:49

Yeah, I think this is just my observation. So I don't know if this if you agree with this with what you're seeing as well, there's kind of two camps that are breaking out, they've got the content creators that don't necessarily have that social media presence, but they're extremely gifted at creating those, like tick tock videos, which look really easy, and that you can like knock them together in two minutes. But actually, there's a lot of thought and storyboarding behind what shots are taken and the text overlay and things like that. And then you have the influencers, who are also content creators. So they're the ones that come with the audience and the influence. And I guess there's actually like a little sub category as well, which I've noticed one of the clients that I work with, where you have the influencers that can't create content. So they might have like an agency actually create the content for them to post on the profiles? Is that what you're noticing as well?

Unknown: 8:43

Yeah, I mean, I think there's, you know, there's there's specific influences, or, as I like to say these days creators, really, depending on if they create their content themselves, but on Tik Tok, for instance, everybody's a creator, but we have people who are like, just regular people that are key opinion, consumer influences. And then we have people who are sort of key opinion leaders that that are used, they're more sort of professional influencers. So they used to collaborations and will charge for it. And then we have the best of all, which is brand ambassadors, which is also a type of influencer marketing. And that's when you work with somebody long term over several different platforms. So there's loads of different ways to work with influencers, which also kind of increases the risk of getting it wrong, which is something that sometimes happen, so it has a great payoff, if you can do it, right. But it also has the risk of going wrong if you don't manage it, right.

Aggie Meroni: 9:40

Would you mind just explaining what the difference is between those three types of influencers, social ambassadors leader, and I can't remember what the first one was that you said? Yeah, so

Unknown: 9:49

So the first one I said was the key opinion consumers, which is really just like regular folk, you know, that have a niche in the content that they put out. So they might be The micro influencers. So we tried to split influences into the size. So we have our nano influencers that's under 10,000 followers, you have your micro influencers, which is up to 100 1000s. And you have your macro up to a million followers, and then your Mega, the Kim Kardashian of the world, the Ariana Grande days, which is over a million followers, and they can be different kinds of types. So the first type is sort of regular people that are key opinion consumers, then you got your kind of what we connect with influencers who say influencer marketing, people think of key opinion leaders is what I like to call them. So they have trustworthiness, you know, know, like, and trust is so, so important in the customer journey, and in the digital funnel, that we use key opinion leaders to influence. And that's usually paid because they are so used to collaborations. And then on the upside of that you have the brand ambassadors where you have somebody who's continuously connected to your brand, you work long term with them, and you have several different channels. So there's a whole different array of influences and how you can work with them.

Aggie Meroni: 11:14

Yeah, I guess one of the reasons I really wanted to get you on to talk to us is because you do have experience of paid social, you've managed campaigns for clients yourself before. So you have this unique insight on how it works from a paid social perspective. And kind of the biggest question I've seen from from ADS managers is my client wants to use influencers in their ads, where the hell do I find them? But how do we get? How do we, you know, do we need to subscribe to expensive platforms? Or do we have to, like, you know, search for hours on all these platforms to find the right people? What What would your take be on that?

Unknown: 11:52

I mean, you know, yes, you do. I mean, the two ways to go is really to do the whole process and manage the whole process yourself. And that is time consuming. So if you're a freelancer asking me that question, I'm going to say to them, you know, make sure that you charge properly, because this is time consuming. So you want to find the influencer, you want to sort out kind of the scope. And then you want to do the legal bid as well with the contract you and then you want to be there when when it kind of continous created approvals process, you want to manage it, but not too tightly, because if they're constricted creatively, then the result might not be as good as it could have been otherwise. So it's a long process. And then of course, evaluation is super important to follow up and look at, look at how this went. So this whole process is what you need to do from from A to Zed, essentially, whether you do that as a freelancer and charge for it. You know, that's one thing, or there's loads of big agencies and businesses, I'm not gonna name any names, because I'm not promoting anybody. But there's a lot of influencer companies that you can find that can help you manage this process. And that's obviously necessary for brands that are working with a number of different influences. And that's what we see really, that the trend has gone from like working, putting all your money in a bag and giving that bag to one sort of mega influencer to working with loads of nano on micro influencers, where you kind of get the same amount of audience, you're just splitting it over a number of influencers. And when you do that number of smaller influencers. And when you do that, there is more to manage, you know, if you're using 10 influencers is that a one that's going to be 10 contracts, there's going to be 10 briefs, there's going to be a lot more. So that's one thing to consider. But if you're just looking for somebody to create really good creative content for ads that you're running, then I would look on tick tock because tick tock is really the space right now where people are creating the most amazing content. Everybody's a creator, Ed Sheeran once said that regardless of what you're interested in, there's always something for everybody on Tik Tok. And I was speaking at an event in Stockholm yesterday and an ad agency that turned 90 And we had a big celebration. And afterwards an older gentleman came up to me and he said, You know what, I'm 75 But I love Tik Tok and I love bird watching and there's so much good content on there. And I thought that was so amazing because that is exactly the opposite of what we think of when we think of tick tock we might think of you know, obviously, this is this is a podcast for pros. So you will know differently, but the general public kind of think of Tik Tok as as musically you know, loads of dancing and things like that. And there's such incredible content on there. So I would look for content creators on Tik Tok because then you can actually see what they can can do and then you can start conversations with them.

Aggie Meroni: 14:50

Yeah, I think you've touched on something there as well about we may know this, that we know that everyone's there, but it's not just the tweens or you know, 20 era Old slot, literally everyone watched his videos. And it is so specific, you know, there's like very specific tick tock communities or follow certain things. And I can imagine I don't have much personal experience of managing influencers, that's where the gold is, if you can tap into those really niche communities, with the figureheads in those little communities, that's where the money is. So I like one question I had was, from a freelance agents, we perspective even when your client comes to you and says, We need influencers, there'll be amazing for our business, for our ads, everything like that. How do you manage that expectation, it's like, Whoa, let's just calm down,

Unknown: 15:40

let's get a plan.

Aggie Meroni: 15:41

It's not that we just pick someone or we pick the Kim Kardashian off the world, like this is actually what we need to do this effectively.

Unknown: 15:50

It's quite complex, it's not really a one stop solution. So sure, I mean, in terms of marketing, particularly in E commerce can be really, really, really fruitful. But you really have to manage the process very carefully. You have to prep everything so that you have all your ducks in a row. But it's really it's not brain surgery, let's face it's not brain surgery is really about contacting those, doing the research, first of all, and making sure that you find the influencers that have the right audience in your niche or segment that also has an engaged audience. So you might ask them for their stats, if they're used used to sending those out, you might ask for their rates, if they used to sending out a rate card, and so on and so forth. So there really needs to be as everything that we do in digital marketing, it needs to start with, what's the target group? What are we trying to achieve? And how are we going to get there, you know, and it'll be loads of little pieces. So the mistakes that I've seen that people make is that they don't really manage this process carefully enough, there's not contracts, there's like verbal agreements about things or they constrict the influence. So when it comes to creating content, so the content becomes not as high quality as it could have been, if their creativity had been sort of left alone. And they're, they're able to kind of create something. So that's really one of the most common mistakes is that you don't manage the process enough, or that you actually over manage in the sense of the creativity and don't allow the creator or the influencer to create content that they see fit. Because remember, they know their audience best. As an agency or a freelancer, you can't really come in and say, you know, this is what, what, what we think, be more open and ask them what do you think, get them excited about being involved as well? Because yes, there's money here. But it's also they're going to say no, if it's not, hopefully they're going to say no, if it's not right for their, their audiences with trust there, then they cannot break. So it's, it's a it's a complicated, complex process. And you have to manage it quite tightly, but not too tightly, I realised I'm contradicting myself, but when it comes to, you know, paperwork and agreements, and all of that stuff that should be tightly managed, but not the creativity, I think oftentimes, it's too tightly managed, and it just looks contrived when the content is produced.

Aggie Meroni: 18:18

I totally agree. Do you find that it's difficult to manage the like volume of content that you're asking for from a content creator? And I guess connected to that, like how they ask for compensation. So whether they do it for free for products, or whether they charge certain amounts or rate cards, that kind of thing? Yeah,

Unknown: 18:41

I think we're moving away. I mean, influencer, think about it, like Instagram is 10 years old. So influencer marketing really is old in the sense that we've always had people around us that have influenced us, like, you know, in the 40s, and 50s. It was the Hollywood stars, you know, the actors and actresses, what they wore dad did and said, that influenced us and the halo magazines and the world are full of people that are, you know, influencing us in real life. But as soon as social media came, that changed everything. And now that's just another platform where this is happening, really. But the the way that influencing Works has been around for a very long time. And I think that when influencer marketing started coming, it was like, well just send the influencers, some free products, and they will kind of use them and that'll be great. And now it's a much more 10 years later, it's a much more managed process. And really, if you're an influencer, you're spending a lot of time creating content and managing and community managing your, your communities. You're doing a lot of work, you know, and their work should be respected. Their audience should be respected enough to pay pay for the services, I think so these kinds of exchanges of services no longer is really applicable. I would I would advise Every influencer to start charging if they're not already, because there's a lot of money in this, and the brands can afford it. And if they can't afford it, maybe they shouldn't be doing influencer marketing.

Aggie Meroni: 20:13

So I totally agree with you that businesses need to budget to pay influencers, the businesses that I've worked with one of them does pay some very well, others have just assumed I will just send them something and I was like, takes quite a lot of time for them to produce that stuff for you. So I don't think they're going to be interested just in like a free cream or something like that. But something I have noticed, happens with influencers is when they give access to their data on their account, so you can share that data from their pixel. And then there's a different type of agreement where they'll get a percentage of sales or something like that, after showing content. Is that something that you've done before as well with influences?

Unknown: 20:58

Yeah, that that does happen? And, you know, that's, that makes it even more complex, you know? Because then you're there's a trust there, and we're expecting kind of a transparency. I mean, it's absolutely possible to do, but then it becomes, you know, then you have to have a really kind of managed process and really be project managing this quite closely. So I know that influences do that. Absolutely. That that's a possibility. But yeah, I think you're right, the free face cream doesn't really cut it anymore. And whether that's you're paying a fixed fee, or you're paying some sort of ladder, provisional structure, but either way, it needs to be managed quite closely. And that's the thing with influencer marketing that it has to be controlled when it's not, you might not get what you were bargaining for as a brand, if that makes sense.

Aggie Meroni: 21:54

Yeah, absolutely. I think as well, from an influencers perspective, the amount of time they spend actually creating the content for you. And I guess it's the opportunity cost, if they spend too much time not working for enough for you, they might miss out on other opportunities, because someone else had offered them more or something. So that's something they have to I guess, be quite strong about, because I'm sure there's so many brands that haven't caught up with the fact that they need to be paid for their time. I'm sure it's

Unknown: 22:19

Oh, yeah, I think so. I think a lot of a lot of brands still think that, you know, why don't we just send them some free stuff. And that'll be that, but it's a more complex world. Now. I think tick tock has changed it as well. Because it's so obviously, so video. It's a video format, isn't it short, short format, video content, which is very addictive, and you're reaching also, a tick tock is an interesting platform for influencer marketing, or should I say, Great Creator marketing, because you have the capability of going viral with your clips in a much better way than Instagram. So with Instagram, we kind of know what we have. But with tick tock, you can actually really reach new audiences in a way that I don't think Instagram allows us to do anymore. And of course, you can always work with Spark ads as well. So you can have on tick tock so you can have an influencer, sorry, creator, create content for you, and then go in and spark that content to give it a wider reach. And I think that's a really good strategy on tick tock, to work with a specific creator, have them create content for you. And then go in with with budget to spark and boost that particular post for additional significant additional reach.

Aggie Meroni: 23:43

Yeah, I remember when the spark ads first came out. So it's like a revolution, everyone was like, Oh, my goodness, this is gonna happen. And it has changed how people are compensated the reach of brands, especially because you've got that element of being able to test what works First, don't you? So if you see that some content does phenomenally well, you can just pull it in from someone else's account and use it as an ad, which Instagram did sort of launch something similar after spark ads? Funnily enough, they got inspiration from someone else.

Unknown: 24:15

I'm literally like, Oh, it must be so easy to be the CEO of Instagram, because all you do is go on Snapchat. Let's do stories. Oh, tick tock. Let's do a real you know, it's, it's quite obvious how many really, but But yeah, I mean, to me, I'm, I'm just a tick tock addict, basically, I just think it's a fantastic platform, and I can't believe that more brands aren't utilising it.

Aggie Meroni: 24:40

For me, I actually turned down pretty much 99% of the brands that approached me to run the Tick Tock calves and that is purely because they're so bad at content creation, and they refuse to invest in a content creator to help them and it's really difficult as a freelancer or any ads manager. I'm sure agencies have this challenge as well as educate the brand that you get content it's not just that you put money behind something rubbish and I honestly think as I'll tick tock is a brutal so when you look at the the comments and the ads, they'll tell you like, This is rubbish like, why is this ad on tick tock, like get it off, you know, the

Unknown: 25:17

absolute worst thing that you can do on Tik Tok is not go native with your content, it sticks out like a sore thumb. And you know, people just don't accept it. Because it's not what the platform is about. It's like you have to if you want to be on tick tock, you have to play by the Tick Tock rules. So it's all about how tick tock works natively, what it sounds like what it looks like. And if you're not doing that, then you might as well not do it at all. I mean, I've ran some ads that have been for a specific younger demographic that have been not exactly native, but But they'd been good, really high quality content. And that has worked. But I would say that that would be rather and that's been like, not conversion driven. It's been been more about information and getting the message out there. And in sort of in the public sector for a younger generation, you know, and that's worked really, really successfully. But I think if commercial brands want to establish themselves on tick, that they really need to play by the Tick Tock rules. And I think that's what they're not getting when they're like, what's wrong with our content. And both you and I know that you can't polish a turd, it's still a turd, you know, even though you put lipstick on it is not going to change the content is the king on tick tock, and you have to make sure that you have the right kind of content, otherwise, don't bother.

Aggie Meroni: 26:38

Yeah, and I think content is king more than ever, just in general. Now since I was 14, and I have seen some brands actually using the Tick Tock content as ads on Instagram, because it's just so engaging, it's very choppy, it's like, you know, the messages are punchy, and it's like, visually very engaging, but he had it make more tiktoks make less ads since that. Yeah, absolutely. Make tic TOCs. Yeah, that's it. But I think, Brad, well, most of the businesses I work with are still very much the founders involved in the business. And I just say to them, Unless you are personally making those tiktoks We're not gonna invest in someone to do it for you. You need to get better at it. Otherwise, there's no point in being on Tik Tok. Yeah, there is. No, there is one brand I know. And she makes really simple tiktoks. She's a card company who she she makes cards had six hops go viral, and she sent him to sales hundreds. And they literally just her opening the card so people can see it. But they're really rude cards. So they obviously do really well on tick tock, and her business has grown because of those. So yeah.

Unknown: 27:41

I mean, that's exactly what it's about. I think that's such a great example. Also, let's not overcomplicate things, you know, it is possible to create amazing content, if you've got a good product, then you can create really good content quite simply, easily and you know, do really well on tick tock. It's about the preconceptions that we have. You know, brands always come to both agencies and freelancers with this kind of ideas of what they want to achieve. And it's like that we spend a lot of our time educating people to help them understand that. It's, it's not what it was like a few years ago, it's different playing field now. And tick tock is completely different. But it's, it's also the other side of it. The flip side of it is that if you've got a good product like your client does, then you can create a lot of great content and it can go viral. Yeah.

Aggie Meroni: 28:33

I think that's a whole different conversation. Like, yeah, absolutely. Products. Oh, the amount of times that you get approached by people, you're like, oh, there's literally nothing I can do to help

Unknown: 28:43

you know, exactly. I agree. Yeah. But yeah, I

Aggie Meroni: 28:47

think that's not just a freelance issue. I think that's an issue that agents

Unknown: 28:51

industry. Yeah, there's an industry issue, I think, yeah. And I don't think

Aggie Meroni: 28:56

they just think, magicians, you know the ones.

Unknown: 28:59

Exactly, exactly, exactly. And I don't think we're ever gonna get rid of that, you know, I had a client of this will give you this will give you a kick. I had a client recently, I wrote an organic social media strategy for them, you know, from scratch, you know, new brand new target market, the whole thing I did, you know, it was 35 pages. I did the personas, the key messaging, the tonality, you know, the brand positioning, I did the whole lot to them, and they came back and they were like, This is not a strategy. And I was like, Okay, do you wanna expand on that? They were like, No, we just feel it's full of tactics, and it's not really a strategy. And I was like, Okay, well, you know, who's the expert. Little bit like that they ended up not paying me actually for it for half of the work because they didn't agree that it was a strategy. So that was an interesting one. And it's like, people just, you know, don't really they think they know best and it's It's it's sometimes as a freelancer, as an agency, I'm sure the listeners can relate as well is that you have to educate people on were entrenched in it, we're in it every day were developing, you know, our skills with the industry as it's changing and shifting and moving on. And we know this stuff. I know your your community is full of amazing, talented people. And sometimes we have to educate our potential clients and people that come to us and explain to them that their expectations might be too high.

Aggie Meroni: 30:32

Yeah, I mean, I don't know if it's because we're in a digital space, that's still like voodoo for so many people, they don't really understand it. So they just think, oh, we'll just give you like a few 1000. And then I'll get a million back. It's like, no, like, yeah, websites, rubbish, and like, your products bad and how you communicate that as well as a skill, because obviously, they're very light, it's very close to them, to tell them that something's not perfect, can be quite hard to hear sometimes concept for them

Unknown: 31:00

very difficult. And I think that there's still the perception out there. For many clients, and you know, people out there brands were thinking that, okay, well, we'll just put Facebook ads, you know, behind it, and will solve the problem. We were working with a client in fashion tech, and they had just gotten investment. So they were, you know, they had the money, the money, the big money. And they were literally just spending tonnes and tonnes 10s of 1000s of pounds in the awareness stage. So they were just running ads, for awareness, but still kind of asking for conversions, which they didn't get and, and once you get in there, and you explain the funnel to them, that we have to work with our target group, we have to define it, and then we have to work with it. And then we have to bring them down through the funnel to conversion. So you know, take that 50k and split it across the funnel, rather than taking the 50k and putting it just into into awareness. And of course, that was very, very, very successful. But I think that that's sometimes a misconception that a lot of brands still have that will just put more money behind it. And that will be the problem that will be the band aid that kind of makes this happen. And it's it's not true at all. And you have to be, you know, on the inside, you understand, yeah, you have to be really, really strategic and understand how to move the target audience along in the funnel to get them to the conversion, and that that they need to be warmed up as well, digital, the digital journey is so much longer now the customer journey than it used to be I mean, you know, back in the day, you know, a couple of ads in the paper, and then boom, you know, you've got conversion after that. But these days, so many touch points along the way. And just like you say as well that I think that brands also underestimate that the post click experience, that they don't really understand that we can drive traffic to your website. But if your website doesn't deliver when you've got your key information under the fold, instead of above the fold, and it's scrollable. And it's not presenting the right way or whatever might be wrong with the after click experience, we're not going to get conversions. And I think that that's something that I keep, keep seeing all the time as well. It's another one of those business misconception that if we just throw more money at it and drive people to ship by then they will and it's it's simply not true. It's more complex than that.

Aggie Meroni: 33:26

Yeah, I remember like one example of that was when I was helping promote baby toiletries at an agency. And they were doing amazingly well. And then one day, the results just dropped off a cliff. And we're like, what's happened? Did they sell out? Or you know, it's just really unusual. We looked on their website, and the founder had put a massive banner on the top of the wet off the page, say, Oh, do to oppose to uncertainty, we're not sure when you'll get your product. So obviously, everyone just left the website as soon as they hit the page or like take it down. Like no, no, because we had so many angry emails last time when we couldn't deliver on time. I was like, take it down. You're not gonna make any money if you keep it there. But yeah, it just shows that one little thing can totally destroy your ad campaigns. So if something's not working, even though you can see people hitting the website, then you know, you need to review what's happening once you get there.

Unknown: 34:18

Absolutely. And I think that there is still I noticed it all the time that people have a conception and it's like, let's just throw more money at it. And then that will solve it. And it's it's simply not true. And, you know, I mean, also on the other side, I mean, a lot of frustration in the industry as well. It's like I've hired agencies, I've hired freelancers, and everybody says they know how to do it, and they can do it, but they're not delivering the results that I want. And I see that as well. And it isn't industry from like a CEOs perspective that is difficult to recruit and it's difficult to find really good people who know what they're doing. So a lot of agencies have solved that by bringing people in hungry around level and training them in house, I'm very lucky because I can recruit almost across the globe, I don't work with people sort of beyond California in the US, because that time difference just is a killer. But we have somebody who's coming in from Botswana, who lives in Thailand, that's coming in as well. So it's all possible, you know, and the people I work with right now they're in London, Paris, the US, I've got somebody in Dubai and in the Ukraine, and as soon Thailand as well. So, you know, I'm very fortunate in that situation that I can build this amazing team. But I find a lot of frustration among brands and business owners that they're not getting the results that they want as well.

Aggie Meroni: 35:47

One thing I think it's quite interesting in this industry, because I'm a newcomer, really, I've only been in there for like three years in a bit like just specifically in digital marketing, is just how many people have done other things before they came into this industry. So the breadth of experience that is in here, but different industries, and it's so dynamic, that is what I love, you don't really have like that, I think it's probably changing a bit more now, because it's becoming more established as a niche in marketing. Well, it's not even a niche anymore. But you know, it didn't exist when I was at uni. Now, people go to university to study paid social, or SEO and all those things. So it's kind of this big melting pot of all these amazing people. And I think that's what makes it amazing. And people aren't so well, you didn't study this, and this and this, and this, you didn't have this career progression. But it is hard, I found to find people that have been doing it for over like two or three years that there's that really experienced size that people have that kind of the history of how things can go like economic cycles, how that impacts everything, and all the changes. But on the other side of that, and it's probably because of my three years experience, I know that I'm better at what I do than someone that's been doing it for 10 years as well. So it's like a, it's down to people as well, isn't it rather than what's on the on the CV? Yeah,

Unknown: 37:10

I mean, at the end of the day, I think Now sure, you can go to university, and you can study these things. So I'm teaching at the moment, I'm teaching a six weeks course six week long course in digital marketing, to a group, future e commerce managers, so they do a two year course. And six weeks out of that is digital marketing. And when I spoke to them yesterday, they're like, the absolute majority, like half of the room want to work with digital marketing, in the sort of E commerce space, but they want to focus on digital marketing. And it's only six weeks out of those two years, which is kind of crazy. And I think that that is a problem. Because if you want to do paid ads, then you can you can study till you're blue in the face, but then really, you've got to do it in real life. Because that is the only way to learn. So like properly. I mean, you can learn theory, I can teach them theory, but I can't, I can't really teach them, you know, I can teach them how optimization is done. But I have to have real life examples and have them kind of do it. And I think that that's, you know that that's the part of the issue is that it doesn't matter. If you study what you've studied, I don't really care about that. I really all I care about is like your willingness to learn your understanding of digital marketing at a base level, and then we can take it from there. You know, so there's a lot there's a lack of really good people on the market now, which is it is what it is because in a sense, like you say it's new, it is new. Yeah, new territory.

Aggie Meroni: 38:40

Yeah, I have actually, I did like a previous podcast episode about this, about how there's like just not enough people to help support all the ecommerce brands. Obviously, ecommerce is my niche. And there's freelancers in the in the slack that do service space, like lead generation, but there's just agents here and it seems to be constantly for hiring on their LinkedIn profiles. They just can't recruit quickly enough to support all the people that they need to support these clients. But I guess on the topic of the future, what you see in the future, when it comes to influencer marketing, what do you think's next? Like what are the big trends that you're seeing?

Unknown: 39:17

I think tick tock is going to grow exponentially. They've they've already they're six years old, and they've already hit a billion users that growing so strongly in like my age group and above I mean, even the baby boomers are going on tick tock now so I think don't discount tick tock because it's short form. video content is so addictive and so easy to convey ideas through the medium of video that I think that tick tock is going to continue taking market shares and a lot of companies I see have not discovered tick tock yet they're not doing it and maybe that's because the road to market is, is long, bigger brands take a longer time to get To those decisions, should we be on this platform or not? So I think tick tock is definitely going to keep growing and changing the influencer or creator, market for brands. I think it's a huge untapped platform. And I think it's gonna keep growing. And what's in the future for for influencer marketing? I mean, you know, we talk a lot about AI as well, don't we in the industry? And is it possible that in the future, we'll see sort of AI? influences? I think so. I mean, honestly, there's already a few on Instagram, I think there's not one cool little Michaela or something like that, who is like an AI influencers? So, you know, it might be that we see those kinds of things in the future as well. So yeah, I think I think influence or creative marketing will just keep, keep growing. There's risks with it, of course, but I think that it's becoming more and more an established way of working, I think is going to be like, really just what people do, you know, because he keeps growing, more data driven, more automized processes, probably. And, of course, a focus on on performance, because that's the payoff, isn't it? And I think that, definitely, we're going to see a lot more kind of brand ambassadors that you're working with long term, rather than the sort of one off campaigns.

Aggie Meroni: 41:37

Yeah. Yeah. Authenticity and Integrity, as well as so important, isn't it in influencer marketing, if you don't genuinely love what you're promoting people can smell it a mile long? Yeah,

Unknown: 41:48

absolutely. And I always talk to the students, I teach a lot about that, but it's actually called social media. It's like, we're, we're, we're social creatures, as humans, so a lot about social media, or is about, you know, basic human psychology and behaviour. And I think this is like, really, really interesting area to because we see all the good things that we see on social media, the building of communities, support, you know, structural, societal change, you know, all of those things, and then we see the cesspool on the other side with trolls and, and bullying and, you know, all that other political stuff. That's not great, either. So you know, it's, it's an, it's a very interesting and rewarding industry to be with. I love my job. And I honestly wake up every morning feeling grateful, and I don't want to do anything else.

Aggie Meroni: 42:41

But is that is a blessing, isn't it when you wake up?

Unknown: 42:45

Yeah, absolutely.

Aggie Meroni: 42:47

So I'm just gonna wrap up now. So I'm really conscious of your time. So if anyone wants to reach out to you, maybe they've got a client that's interested in having influencer campaigns managed for them? Or if they want to speak to you maybe on a consultancy basis, where can they come and find you?

Unknown: 43:04

Best way is to find me on LinkedIn, I hang out on LinkedIn all the time. So Jessica, obviously, on LinkedIn, we have agency, you can also find me on Instagram. We don't have dot agency is the handle, send me a DM or even better a voice note and love voice notes. The agency is so new. So we don't actually have a website up yet, which is kind of funny. But we're almost solely booked with clients, which is amazing. So do reach out, give us a follow. And I look forward to hearing from you.

Aggie Meroni: 43:38

That's amazing. I've learned so much today speaking to you. So thank you so much for your time. I'm sure everyone that listens to this will take something away. So thank you again, Jess, and I'm sure we will be in touch soon.

Unknown: 43:51

Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

Aggie Meroni: 43:54

Thank you. Bye. Bye. Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of the freelance ads club podcast. If you're a freelance ads manager and you're looking to join a community, then apply to join our free slack channel. The freelance ads club, you find the link in the show notes. If you're an agency or a brand looking for support with your campaigns and your projects, you can also apply to work with our community in the show notes. If you've got any questions, it's in touch and I'll see you on the next episode.