I'm excited that you're here. So before we jump into all this, I know that you came from like I was looking at your background and all that from the NFL world and agency just give us a little bit of background of like, what was what was life like with business, before influencer marketing, and like, how have you gotten here today? Like yeah, story.
I'll give you the quick story. So I've been influenced Morgan for about 10 years now. I don't really know what business was like prior to because the first touch point I had was, I played football at UCLA, got the hat on. hardly played the game yet jersey, but one of my teammates was P Diddy son. Typical thing, created the events company in college, with Justin combs did his son who was you know, an influencer of sorts himself, in which literally, every single dollar of revenue that was generated was on from his posting about it, hey, come to this event selling tickets, product placements, but everything was due to him promoting it, right? So nothing out of the ordinary or crazy about it. But it was my first touch point with influencer marketing sparked my entry in the space sent me on my path. From there went to like you alluded to an NFL marketing agency. Think Aaron Rodgers StateFarm commercials, like, that's what we were doing, and what's what we were behind. So a lot of macro influencers, their transition to a growth agency comments or collective more. So on the paid media side of things, think Facebook ads, tick tock ads, working with a lot of micro influencers, content creators. And then three years ago, they seed funded us started kinship. And now we're where we're at today. But that's kind of like the 10 year journey getting to where we're at.
I love it. So not everybody knows the difference between the micro influencers, can you just give a little bit of backstory, because I don't want people I want people to understand, you know, what the differences are there.
I mean, everyone has their own definitions, like you're kind of touching on influencer marketing is very much so a black ball that people don't really know what to do with how we define influencers. And again, everyone's is different. Five 5k and less nano influencer 5k to 150k, micro influencer 150k to 500, mid tier 500 to a million macro, a million plus mega celebrity, whatever you want to call it. That's how we would break it out and tear it out, though. It's strictly based on follower size at this point, that's how a lot of the market rates are typically set. I don't really think it should be. But that's something else we can we can chat through as well.
Yeah. So it's just funny because what's actually happening on the inside of this business of influencer marketing, and then the perception of what people are thinking, and and again, I'm just regurgitating what people say, like, oh, I need a million followers. How do you make money online? Like, how do you do that? And I'm like, I mean, we do strategy for people that have under 5000 followers, but their engagement rate is above 30%, which is really amazing. And they're pulling in between 20 and 30,000. US dollars a month, and we see it and so we know it's real. We see it through YouTube. We see it through Now tick tock,
definitely. But
people can if you can allude to that a little bit, why people are so focused on like the numbers and the vanity numbers. And it's like, what I try to explain to people is like, if you have 100 people in your audience, and they're engaged, and you're being authentic, and they're buying what you're selling, and again, you're you're authentic. It's not about the masses, it's about the quality. So what are your thoughts?
Yeah, I mean, goes kind of in hand with what we preach as well. So a lot of the time, we're telling brands because we're more so on the brand side, right, representing them and executing strategy on their side of things. But what we're recommending typically is identifying reaching out to influencers between 0k and 150k. Followers. Reason being, you avoid agents, you avoid managers, you literally avoid people like me, athletes, first, a lot of those people are really just trying to, I mean, they have inflated price points for a lot of the people that they represent, that don't make too much sense for the costs and what the ROI will ultimately be. And you want direct relationships. So a lot of the time we're recommending a 0k 250k. In addition to that, on a per follower basis, like you already kind of touched on greater reach greater engagement, greater conversion rate, more niche audiences to align your brand with all the above. And then content. I mean, when you ask a macro influencer for uses writes their content to repurpose across your own channels, which is truly the biggest value, in our opinion, like them as content creators in comparison to a means of distribution, a macro influencer will charge you a massive rate for like usage rights to that content, where as a micro influencer much more reasonable, much more cost effective. Yeah, so for all those reasons, and more 0k 200k is really where the bread and butter influencers are at to work with.
So I know that there, when this, when this just all started, I feel like during the pandemic things like really started to blow up for people. And, and they don't really know what to do. And so, you know, they do go to agencies, because even now, like some of the stuff that we're approached with, if it doesn't come through the right channel, or an agency, like we're not even, we're not going to touch it, because it's a business is a full time freaking business. And if you're not serious about it, if you don't have the time to dedicate to it, it's not gonna work. Typically, it's, it just isn't. And so but this whole model of pay per post, like, can you explain a little bit about what that is? And like, is that still happening? Or it's not happening anymore? Like, where you make a video, and you post it and you get paid? Purpose, and some people may not even know really what that means. So if you can go deeper with that, too.
Yeah, so traditional model, right? You know, you pay Angela, you're an influencer, I really want to work with on behalf of this brand, we're going to come in pay you. You send me your media kit, what your rates are, for, you know, three posts across Instagram or on Tik Tok or on YouTube, and it's going to cost you you know, $1,000 $1,500 $2,000 you know, depending who you're working with can be friggin $100,000. Back at athletes, first NFL marketing agency, I was at Aaron Rodgers for one Twitter post was 50k. So like, that's the pay for post model in short. So we don't recommend really engaging in that, at least not in the way you initiate relationships. It's just very transactional, right? It doesn't lend itself to us, like, everyone's reaching out that way to influencers. So if you're a brand or if you're an influencer, quite honestly, but for brands specifically, we're typically telling people hey, you just need to send out your product and not like as a gifting PR package where you're saying, hey, we'll send you this so long as you post or we'll send you this and pay you so long as you post. We're telling brands consistently, hey, you need to identify quality content creators that align with your brand that can represent your product incredibly well that are a good fit, send them the product and literally say, Angela, I think you're a great brand fit, love the content consistent put out think you love our product, we want to send it to you no strings attached. What we mean by that is we have literally no expectation for you to post whatsoever, send us your address, we'll get this right out to you. And through that will be a filter right of who's actually a genuine advocate of the brand. Some will end up post right, awesome, great, you know, they actually love your product from there. From there, then you get them into like a pay for posts. What we typically recommend is like put them on affiliate program for organic and let them earn like put them on a very generous affiliate program as well. I'll say more than like the 15% standard model because otherwise they really don't have the opportunity to make much money generous affiliate commission at that point and then pay them for content, to be able to for them to create it It's typically a lot more cost effective than a studio shoot, and it typically performs a lot better. So on the influencer side of things I would understand where your value resides is through the content you're creating. That's what the brands really going to be able to use at scale across their website and paid social, or they're really going to make a majority ROI. Not much revenue is driven from organic social at the end of the day, the algorithms aren't set up to convert that well, you'll find like, some diamonds in the rough shirt and you hear of the case studies but a majority of the time the organic distribution isn't the revenue driver. The content being repurposed in a paid me is long winded answer. longwing. Apologies.
No, it's good. So backing up just a little bit. You so something that you need is a media kit. And can you talk a little bit about if someone's listening or watching like what needs to be in a media kit? Like real basic?
Well, what I would say is though, his it's funny, I'm having these conversations. My fiancee, I was like, You shouldn't be doing this. We're about to get married. And we're gonna start a family. Like, you're like living everyone, like the role you're in is like everyone's dream, right? Just start putting out content. But what I'll say is, if you're starting out your journey, the way to stand out, everyone has a media kit. So what I'll say is, I would refrain to send the media kit, like on the other side of things like what I just recommended to brands, no strings attached, send them the product, build the relationship, start there. If I'm an influencer, look, in this one, I'm telling my fiance to so you're getting live advice in real time here. But if I'm an influencer, I'm identifying brands that I align with, and literally cold reaching out to them, and what what can I send them, no strings attached. So just like flip the mindset, the frame of mind, you wouldn't say, Hey, here's my media kit, if you ever want to work with me, it's like, that's an interesting way to start this relationship. Here's my price points, like pay for my dinner. So what I would what I tell my fiance Madison to do, hey, you should reach out, Hey, I'm a genuine lover of your product, I have actually I have it, I use it, this is the way I use it, whatever make it short and sweet. Would love to, you know, provide you and your team with some content, free of cost. No, no revision and like you can have unlimited revisions, like figuring out what that no strings attached is. Maybe shout them out on your story, like build a relationship. And then from there, you know, if your content works, they're going to come back to your door. And then from there on out. That's where your media kit comes in, hey, I'd love to continue this relationship. But obviously know my labor takes time. And it's worth something. Here's my rates. So your media kit is just like, hey, this is what it costs you for, to create a video is what it costs you to create images, what it costs you to post it, so on and so forth. But I would start with the same idea of no strings attached just on the other side and building these relationships and brands. Because that's what this industry lacks those genuine relationships, because people just start with that transaction. And that's where things go south is the only marketing channel where it's, there's that human element, and that needs to be had.
When odd, like people know, you can see right through the bullshit. So it's funny, like, I'll go to our office, not that often anymore, but it's like, I'll show up and there's like, packages of shit. And half of it. I'm like, Okay, I don't drink coffee. They, I talk about it all the time. I don't use paper. I mean, I talk about it all the time. So we know the people that like do the research, like the probably the most recent thing that was really neat. And because I travel and floss so much I have a lot of I mean, right now I have an ear infection. It's terrible. But I have a lot of problems with my ears. And like just the different pressures and elevations. And so this company, and I teach technology, like I'm an app geek, I, they did their freaking research, and they had reached out and they're like, Hey, we have this new app, and it's this camera and this thing and you can like clean your earwax and you know, some of the like, so grab
that for my birthday. I know exactly you're talking about,
but it's freaking amazing. Okay, so I'm like, ooh, and I couldn't wait to like opening it up. I did a little unboxing thing. And then I did like a little unboxing like the Facebook, like the Rayman things, you know that. Anyway, so it's like, there's things that I get really excited about. And it's like, even if they hadn't asked or paid or anything like I would have just done it on my own because I want to share with people genuinely who have ear problems, but it's like they did their freakin research. And so it's like, I want to have a relationship with those types of companies because they did their research and they understand the brand. And then the companies that send like cute monogram planners, and like content paper planners and stuff, I'm like, this is for somebody and this is good, but I don't freakin talk. Like, I don't like this. No. And so it's like do your research. So Going back and talking about I think you have like this calculator thing of like, because we get asked all the time, how much do you charge? And how do you know what to charge? And what is industry standard? And my answer is probably not the right one. But what I say and what we do internally is I know how much it cost me to run my company daily. And I know how much I have to pay an editor, I know how much time my, my hourly is worth, I know what my day rate is. I know what I have to pay all the other people to do all these things. And so that's how we arrive at that price. And if you don't like it, sorry, you know, and then we'll have people come back and say, we'll industry standard. I'm like, I don't give a shit what industry standard is because I'm over here running a business. And we've been building an audience for years and years and years and years. And I really don't care what other people are doing, like I'm running a business. So take it or leave it. Probably not the right attitude. But when it comes to calculating costs, like what what's what's the magic formula there?
I mean, there isn't one as of right now in the market, quite honestly. But what people need to start. Again, there's just such a it's still such a wild, wild west. But what drives price points is, you know, what is the ROI from this like, because people more and more just are charging it based on what you just alluded to, like time, labor costs, what goes into this production, which is, I think, is the next progression of this, which is a lot further than everyone else. People just look at market rates and like then charge that, you know, are they listen to an agent that is literally incentivized to drive that price point up as much as possible, because that's how they make their money. And like I said, I came from that world. So I get it, we make 20% off the deal. Okay, we're only going to pitch deals worth so much money. But what needs to happen is okay, okay, if you're an influencer, and you're looking to get paid for something, what is your distribution actually worth? You know, in your audience, how many people are actually like the, like, can I actually convert and purchase this product from the organic side, and like I said, the organic side, to be honest, less than less revenue has really been driven from an organic audience. Your content, though, that's where you can price it out. Your the market rate of like quality asset is $500, when it comes to creative, like a quality creative piece of content $500. Now with influencers a lot of the time, it's based off following still, right. So like with a micro, you can get a piece of content on a video piece gone for like 150 bucks. And as you go up, like maybe actually become pretty ludicrous price might save you over 150k, like, your creative price point can be a lot. These are like market rates, though. But what it needs to come down to? What is this creative driving for the brand? And what is this organic post driving for the brand? And obviously, some of that is out of your control? What if it's a ship product, pardon my language, but what's the ship brand ship product doesn't get signed on drive anything that's not you. So there needs to be a floor. And then there's like a minimum price that you make. And then there needs to be incentivization is based on what the brand generates off of it. And I think that's 100% where the the more than burning, like where the market of influencer marketing is going.
There's a lot of right scammy shit happening to you. Right? So it's like, I have, have you heard of smooth my balls.com?
Site, my balls.com that was aggressive.
Oh my god, this company reached out. This is like probably my favorite story of like saying no, I mean, we say NO WAY more to say yes. But they like sent this whole DM, and I'm like, is this joke? And then I like go on it and I start looking and usually like, you know, we have a team member that like researches and does all this, but it definitely piqued my interest. I'm like, What is this? And so I click on it, their marketing is brilliant. It really is like, there, it really is amazing. But then I start reading the reviews and their stuff is shit apparently, and guys don't like it and um, even if even if, okay, they had amazing reviews. So I DM back and I'm like, Why do you think that they wanted to sponsor the podcast? I'm like, Why do you think that my podcast is a good fit? You know, I'm asking questions back. And someone DMS back and says, Well, we want to target women, you know, between the ages of 30 and 40. Because that's our target. And typically women are the ones making the buying decisions. It's not the men. And so I'm like, Okay, well that makes sense. And then they're like, can we send you you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah? And I'm like, No, I'm not this doesn't fit my brand. Because you're I'm like Are you aware that your reviews online are not that great and I'm not going to put something out right? Or am I going to use them Is it so it was just hilarious. And, but it's like you've got to be authentic in what's good marketing? And then what is the ship product? Because what you want to do is talk about a product, and then it get horrible reviews and then it comes back and it like completely backfire on you. I mean it, it really can route, do you think you can like ruin someone's reputation? I kind of think it can, I don't
know. For sure. 100% Your word is everything right. And so, I mean, the minute you recommend something that is a ship product, you're diluting your validity, you're diluting your credibility. And then I mean, the conversion rate, your audience is going to continue to go down at that point. Because if someone bought your product, and it was a ship product that you were promoting, they're never gonna buy it again. So they're, you're losing people at that point, then word spreads, I mean, especially within the, you know, environment that we live in, that was going to spread quick. And there goes your credibility all together. So 100%. And that's something to keep in mind too. On the brand side of things, when there are bad reviews, a go to strategy. Let's go get 10 YouTubers, and we'll bury this bad review. That's, that's a real that's a real strategy on the brand side. So what you're saying is very bright and very smart. You need to look up the brand, look at the reviews, because a part of influence market strategy for brands is exactly that. Very bad reviews. So keep that top one. The other
thing too, and yeah, we've learned to just ignore it. But daily, like there's there's an I don't know, I feel like some of this is bots, you know, it's AI, reaching out saying like, post over here and come over here. And let's collaborate over here. Like if one more person DMS and says, Let me send you my workout clothes or my like the workout clothes and jewelry constantly. And but a lot of it is it shit and it's scammy. And so we'll go to there's a couple of websites that our team uses to see like if they're a legit brand. And some of these things are they're knockoffs. And they're, again, going back to the word relationship, it is so important to like build those relationships. Because in the beginning, like when all this started few years ago, like I even got swindled a little bit where it's like, I really liked these pants, and these workout pants, and I'm like, Sure, send me some, and then they send it and it's like, the fabric was horrible. I am short. So I'd ordered a petite. It definitely wasn't a petite. You know, there's just all these things, and it was, I wasn't gonna post about it or put them I wasn't even aware that I could even fit into them. I'm like, I'm pretty sure I ordered a large and I'm like, is this like a large kids like, right? I you know, it's just, it's huge. It's like, you've got to advocate for yourself. But for people that are like getting those, do you have any recommendations? Like, should they comment back? Or should they just block them or delete them? Like, how do you know if it's freaking real? That's the question is like, is it a real brand? Should you spend time on it? Or like, is it fake? Or is it a scam? How do you know?
Well, I mean, going back to how I, how we recommend brands start the relationship is for like this exact purpose, right? We're reaching out in a way where hey, we just want to send this to you. No Strings Attached no expectation you to post whatsoever This is getting your hands so and then that can be the filter for the influencer. Like you don't need it, you can check out our website, you can check out our socials, we tell brands like because some of them are startups, right? It's just the fact of the matter. Like their website's not gonna be all the way there, their socials aren't gonna be all the way there. But we do tell them like, Hey, you want to have your socials populated that leads, you want to have a website up. So you look legit, because a lot of it is first impressions, right? And you don't want to look like that scammy that scammy brand. But we tried to eliminate that as much as possible through that, hey, we just want to send it to you no strings attached, build the relationship in the right way get product in their hands, and then let the product be the hero let the product speak for itself. And then the influencers in the crater that love the product, you'll know because we actually ultimately you'll know if they end up posting like you said with the your product, you can help yourself you want to and did so like you identified a genuine product adopter at that point in the brand. I want 100% But I'm taking that relationship to the next level right away. In addition to that, though, anybody that doesn't end up posting in or that opts in to receive the product, there's a certain level of interest there in the product, at least, you know, say I want it send it my way cool. We're sending everyone an NPS survey to fill out to hey, would you ever be interested? You know, what did you think about the product? So getting actual reviews of the product from them? Would you ever want to work in a professional way? Getting you know, would you ever want to partner up getting that understanding so so to answer your question is short like start a relationship and the right way it will filter out people that You know, generally love you and vice versa. It'll filter out the scammers, the scammy, all of that. And then yeah, build a relationship from that foundation. Because it eliminates kind of everything that the influencer marketing world that has a bad reputation around the brand Senate, I handled the influence resign.
So you said like one of the most important words earlier strategy. So if you can talk a little bit about that, because I think there's a lot of just dream people live in dreamland. And, like, my favorite example is how the media plays all this out, right. So it's like, I don't remember the guy's tick tock candle. But I'm sure most of you unless you live in Iraq, which I live in Iraq a lot. And I know who this guy is the cranberry juice Scott on the skateboard. And he did that one video. And they bought him a house and new teeth, and it changed his life and edited it. It's like, what people don't go back and read this dude has been posting consistently for years or something. But it's like, sometimes they just fall in your lap, you know. But when it comes to strategy, it's like, it really is important. So what do you what do you suggest to people from a strategy perspective, like, what do they need to think about and do?
Well, again, I'm more on the brand side. But this can relate to the influencer side as well. But I'll just give you what it is we're doing on behalf of brands each month. Each month, we are identifying, reaching out to 500 influencers at a minimum per brand. So identified Angela and her, all her friends, all that we're reaching out in the way that have already suggested want to send your product, no strings attached, just get it in your hands, no expectation media posts whatsoever, typically out of 500 100 opt in and receive products like 20% of them. And then we help get an unboxing experience dialed in just lends itself to a greater impression, you want to put that best foot forward, kind of like you already touched on to and that first impression is huge. You don't want to come off scammy like a bad product poor quality, you want to make that first impression great, send out those 100 products. Typically 30% of them actually end up posting have their own free will free of costs, no contractual obligation just because they genuinely love your brand your product, and they do so two to three times each. We follow up to get content usage rights. At that point, that's a way to get them paid. We onboard everyone into affiliate program at that point, they've all proven to be genuine product adopters, definitely recommend hiking up that percentage that you give them to, you know, stand apart, show another good impression incentivize them to do so even more. And then we just do that on a consistent basis and run that unpaid social. We recommend seeding influencers on Tik Tok right now, organic algorithm wise, a majority of them are set up in a way I'll just talk about this social media algorithms in general, a majority of them are set up to reach 10% of your audience. So if you have 100,000 followers, you're probably going to reach 10% 10,000 impressions two to 3% one gauge those are kind of like averages for that level. And that size. Tick tock though, is set up in a way where you'll far surpass that threshold of 10% and very easily could far surpass your entire audience. So when you have 30 influencers posting 60 to 90 times that those are all on Tik Tok. One of them is bound to be the grape juice guy that goes viral like it's just a numbers game and tick tock is most prone for virality right now. So to relate to the influencer side of things, I'm an influencer in this landscape. Like I said, 30 influencers 60 and 90 assets. This is 6090 posts. I'd be posting as much content if I'm an influencer on Tik Tok as possible, and then allow that to be kind of like the initial your content flywheel, or then you can build out your other audiences off of that. But there is no platform right now, like Tic Toc in the way that you're able to grow and get in front of people and build your brand, quite honestly. Yeah. That's why I'm really pushing my fiance to write their tic tock.
Listen, Okay, y'all, if you're listening, watching it again, like we've started teaching tic toc workshops. And a lot of people are like, you know, we also teach like Wash, rinse, repeat your content, you know, it can go over on Insta reels. And I'm an app Fein. So it's like we used to take save and, you know, have a whole folder on my iPhone with all these different apps. Yeah, we pay for him $5 A month, whatever. We probably spend 50 bucks a month on the apps, but it does the work for us know what's trending daily with the sounds. We know what words are trending with. I mean, there's all these apps, but it's a business. And so when people are like, Oh my god, do you just sit make videos all day? I'm like, No, we batch our content. I usually spend a day or two a month, your creative agency. Yeah, like doing it and then in putting it out, but they don't understand. They're like I I could never do this. I'm like it is a business. And so again, going back to the strategy, it's so important. But you guys are hearing it from a professional who does this. If you're not on tick tock like you're missing. It's just,
it's not gonna last, it's not gonna last either. Like, it's this is Instagram, this is Instagram 10 years ago, right? Or whatever it was. The Instagram that social media algorithm wasn't limited to reach 10% your audience 10 years ago, you could reach it was kind of like it was tick tock, tick tock algorithms not gonna, I say it's got a year left like this. So if you want to get in, get into it now. Because then it's gonna it's not gonna be here forever.
And I was listening to a podcast from Gary Vee, people are like, Well, why would I put all this content and time into Tik Tok? And then what if it goes away and blah, blah, blah? And it's like, he's like, so the fuck what? Like, you gain a bunch of audience members. And wherever you go, if they love you, they're gonna go where you go. So if you go over to YouTube, or is it wherever they're gonna freaking follow you. So it's like, you know, don't put all your eggs in one basket and diversify a little bit. But it's just, it is a whole business in itself. So I know that you have this marketing, like budget calculator that and we'll put the link but can you explain like what that is? So that when people go to the link, they'll know what they're clicking on?
Yeah, I mean, the influencer marketing budget calculators, again, it's more so for brands, but basically, it's just saying, hey, take 2% of your revenue, and then dedicate that to influence receding. So if you're a $10 million brand that's $200,000, dedicated to ceding product out to influencers. So if you have, the cost of delivery of your products is $20 $200,000 divided by 20 hours, you're sending out 10,000 products, so identify 10,000 quality influencers, to get that into the hands up and build genuine relationships and start the foundations in that way. So that calculator is very much so for brands side of things, and how much product is sent out to influencers, to get that relationship built in the right way and start things off on the right foot. But hopefully, some of the things that we chatted through today can help with setting budgets for the influencer side of things and what you should be charging.
So who is your perfect client? Like if someone wanted to connect with you and learn more about what you guys do? What exactly like who is your ideal target?
Yeah, do you see direct to consumer physical products. If you want to go in annual revenue, 5 million to 15 million in annual revenue, I'm just kind of giving the entire breakdown. But what I'll say is, it's for everybody, you know, we've done this for a brand that was just starting out going zero to 1,000,004 months to the m&ms of the world. So it's really for any stage of business, you want to be working with influencers, it's not going anywhere. It's only growing and becoming more and more important to have a part of the marketing mix of what brands are doing.
That's awesome. This is super helpful. We'll put all the links in the show notes. And if you guys want to connect with Taylor, and reach out and continue the conversation, because we get a lot of questions about this. You'll know how to get in touch with them. Thank you so much for your time today.
Thank you. Appreciate the time appreciate you having me if
you're Yeah, and if you're watching or listening, be sure to tune in next week for another episode of business unveiled. That's it for this
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