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Questions:
- What to do if you pitch a brand and they refer you to their affiliate program. How can you redirect the conversation to a collaboration and away from an affiliate program? (2:42)
- Are brands allowed to have you in a long term contract for 1 year, and request that you not work with other brands in the same industry? (7:53)
- What to do if a brand doesn’t think your demographic is a good fit, but you know it is. (15:58)
- How do you find engagement pods? And do you recommend them? (19:49)
Tune in to get the answers to these great questions!
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Want to get your question answered? Send it in via email to erica@thedailyinfluencers.com
Links Mentioned
Land The Brand$ Masterclass: https://www.landthebrands.com/masterclass
Complete Episode Transcript:
0:07
Hey there, welcome to The Daily influencers podcast My name is Erica Marie Daily- former, marketer and brand manager, turned your influencer marketing coach. On this podcast we help both influencers and brands, maximize their collaboration, grow on social media make more money and waste less time. Speaking of which, let’s jump right into today’s episode!
0:34
I am so excited for today’s podcast episode because we’re doing something a little bit different and we’re actually doing a question and answer, which I absolutely love because I get to answer your guys’s real life scenario questions, which I absolutely love doing because I get to put my strategy hat on and really dig into a real life situation that you actually need help with. And I think that these questions are going to be really beneficial to a lot of you guys
1:00
I’m sure you’ve either been in the situation before, or you might be in it in the future. So it’s great information to know. And if you guys like this episode and you want me to do more of them, DM me and let me know. And then while you’re at it, send me a question so that I have more questions for the next one. But in this podcast episode, I’m going to answer four questions. And we’re going to really dive into them. So first, I’m going to read you off what the questions are just so you know where we’re at. And then we will dive into each one individually. So question number one is what to do if you pitch a brand and they refer you to their affiliate program, how can you redirect the conversation to a collaboration in a way from an affiliate program? Number two, is are brands allowed to have you in a long term contract for one year? And are they allowed to request that you not work with any other brands in the same industry? Great question. Number three is what to do if a brand doesn’t think your demographic is a good fit, but you know, it is
2:00
Number four, how do you find engagement pods? And do I recommend them? These are all such good questions, you guys ask some of the best questions. And that’s why I picked these four because I think it’s going to help the most of you. So let’s jump right into it. Now when I actually read you the question, I’m actually going to read you our conversation because I have this habit. If you ask me a question, I feel like I need to answer it right away. So I asked all of you guys to ask me questions for the podcast. And then I ended up answering them directly to each and every one of you guys that asked it. So I’m going to go through the conversation because some of these questions needed follow up questions as well. So I think it’s going to be easier for all of us to understand it better with the most information. So Emily said, Hey, Erica, I’ve learned so much from your masterclass and cannot live without Asana. Now, by the way, if you guys haven’t taken that masterclass, you must I will leave a link to it in the description. But she says in terms of pitching I’m getting responses, which is great, but nine times out of 10. I am referred to an affiliate program is
3:00
Is there a professional way of redirecting the conversation back to a collaboration rather than an affiliate program? pS, I’m also loving your new podcast. Well, thank you, Emily. And I do think the more that you guys pitch, the more you’re probably going to run into a situation just like this. Because of course, with the increase of influencers using affiliate links, and using all these great affiliate programs, which I love to supplement your income brands are definitely going to try and push for that because it costs them nothing to have you as an affiliate, and they literally only have to pay you if you make a sale, which is a great thing, like I said, to supplement your income. But influencers work so hard to grow an audience create great content, that they really deserve more pay than just a commission on sales. In fact, my very first podcast episode goes over this very subject. So if you haven’t listened to it, go back, because I give you guys 12 actually, I think it’s 14 reasons why influencers are so valuable to brands besides just the city.
4:00
They bring in, which is why a collaboration that’s purely based on paying you based on sales. It’s just not valuable to you and your time because you’re worth so much more than that. And that’s why I say we do affiliate links and affiliate programs on the side to supplement our income. But the main thing we’re going for is collaborations that are paid. So what do you do in this scenario? Well, first things first, you want to answer the brand right away, and kindly state that you’re not looking for an affiliate partnership at this time. But you have some other great collaborations, ideas that you would love to run by them. And you can either include those ideas right in that email, or say, Hey, I’ll email you back in a few days with some of my ideas. And that way, you’re answering them right away if you’re not quite ready to send a response back, but just make sure that you’re answering them. And then something I want you guys to understand is the number one reason that a brand will say no to you, is because you did not show them enough value, or what’s in it for them. And so if a brand really sees your value and thinks that they’re
5:00
return on investment is wise. There’s literally no way they’re gonna say no. And that’s kind of what rings true in sales and all of my sales experience, if you’re not showing them enough value they’re not going to buy. So what I want you guys to do is go back, look at your pitch, kind of feel it out and say, hey, how can I show more value? How can I really show the brand what they’re going to get out of this. And if there’s a way for you to show the potential ROI that they’re going to receive from exactly what you’re pitching, that’s going to be huge, because there’s literally no way they can say no to that if their return on investment is bigger than their investment. So with this type of secondary pitch where you really have to come in with some value. It’s a little bit different. I want you guys to be very detailed in what you’re saying that you’re going to do for them, lay it out, spell it out as best as you can paint the vision for them, and then let them know what they could potentially get from doing that with you. And I think the more detailed you can be about what’s in it for them if they do these things with you, the better and again at the end of the day
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comes back to value. So a great thing that you can do in this case is provide a case study or examples of past collaborations and how great they were. And what that brands return on investment was, because if it’s a really good return on investment, and you can show them, hey, I’ve done this before, they’re gonna have a lot of faith that you could also do that for them. So the main thing is to just really show that value. Another thing that I would suggest is give them three different pitches, if you will, like three different packages, or presentations with different price points, because if it really is like a cost thing for them, you know, pitching them with your highest package might not be the best, because they might just automatically say no, but if you can say, Hey, here’s three different options at three different price points. And obviously, I want you to put as much value as you can in the bigger one and show them why that one is the best choice. But if budgets really the problem then they at least have something smaller that they can do with you and then you have the option.
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To show them how great you are. And when you prove it, they will want to work with you more and more and more in the future. And they’ll see that value in you because they’ve already worked with you. But I do want to say that some brands just won’t budge on this one. And that is okay. They’re just being cheap, as nothing to do with you just move on to the next. And if this really is a product or company that you love, you can continue to be an affiliate for them. And that’s great. They don’t even need to know you could do it through, you know, rewardstyle, whatever program you’re in. But if you don’t, hey, don’t and just move on to the next brand. You can always revisit this brand and a few months, maybe things change, maybe their budget changed, and they’re taking on new influencers for paid collaborations. But if you do pitch them again, make sure to pitch them something different and a little bit more exciting because you can’t just keep pitching the same thing. It’s just not going to work. They really liked it. They’d come back and find you. Okay, question number two is from Bree. And she said our brands allowed to have you in a long term contract for one year.
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And requests that you not work with any other brands in the same industry. So this is a great question. And this is something that I teach my influencers to actually look out for, which is these exclusivity clauses in contracts, because sometimes they can hide them. And just to give you guys an example of what that means, so if a company adds in an exclusivity clause, and you sign it, that’s literally you stating that you will only work exclusively with them. And it’s usually in a particular category. So let’s say if you’re a beauty influencer, and they are a makeup company, they’re gonna say, hey, you can’t work with any other makeup company for X amount of time. And sometimes they’ll specify who you can and can’t work with, like a specific competitor, but generally it’s a specific category. And so the most important thing to remember is that once this is signed, it is set in stone. So even if you accept a deal with them for $1,000, and then the next week, their competitor offers you a deal for $100,000 you cannot go work with
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That second company, unless you get out of your exclusivity deal, for some reason, and, you know, that’s like a whole court case, unless the company is really nice. And to give you guys a real life example of this, I had an influencer, who was a beauty YouTuber. That’s all she did was makeup tutorials. And she didn’t realize that she signed into an exclusivity clause with the company. Once she realized that literally everything she was doing, she couldn’t do anymore, because she did makeup reviews. I mean, her job was working with all kinds of different makeup companies. And so now that she was limited to just this one makeup company, she was going to be losing so much money and so much like creative ability, because that’s all she did. And so luckily, we were able to get her out of it, and the company was nice enough to let her get out of it. But if she would have taken it, she would have lost like thousands of dollars a month. So the one thing I really want you guys to understand is if you do take an exclusivity contract, you’re going to be being paid a lot more than normal because they’re also
10:00
taking away the ability for you to work with all those other companies. So you have to take that into account. So I went on a little tangent there. But to answer the first part of your question, yes, brands are allowed to ask you anything that they want. But it’s up to you whether you accept it and if you sign that contract, and that’s why I really want to make sure that all of you guys read your contracts thoroughly. And if you don’t understand something, maybe hire a lawyer or ask a few people’s opinion on what they think it means or what you should do. But definitely, if there’s an issue with the contract, you know, at the very least bring it up to the brand so that they can clarify for you before you sign it because I don’t want any of you guys getting locked into something that you can’t get out of. Okay, so once Bree asked that initial question, I asked her for more information because I didn’t know anything about the brand or what she’s getting paid or what they’re asking her to do. So Bree responded and said that the pay was 250 for two initial videos after that, the company
11:00
decide if they want to continue to use any content we Submit for Approval, and the pay is still 250 events or 200 per appearance. And then she said they do not pay for photo rights. And the brand manager said there is no room for negotiation. So it’s exclusivity or nothing. So a little more back information. The company that had proposed this to her was a hair product company. And if you guys saw Brees hair, she has the most beautiful curly hair, and she’s already worked with a number of hair companies. So we know that hair companies want to work with her. So the possibility of her working with other companies is really high. But if she takes this she can’t work with any other company, and so this is what I told her. I said first off with that beautiful hair of yours You should absolutely not be locked into only working with one haircare product for an entire year. Because the truth is women use all kinds of different brands for their hair and beauty. I know I do. I have like 10 different
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brands of products that I put on my hair. And so and that’s a normal thing for women. So to lock somebody into something that’s not even the normal for most women just doesn’t really make sense. And so I also said, it’s very odd that the company would even really be forcing the issue. And in a way, I feel like companies like that, that feel the need to do that are a little bit shady. And it’s just not the characteristics that I like. I’m all about community over competition, which means allowing influencers or anyone to promote the products that they want. And if people don’t want to choose my product that’s on them. You know, if you’re confident enough in your product, you wouldn’t need this exclusivity thing. Now, the only thing is if you were going to be like the face of the company, so let’s say they were going to use you on billboards, and you were going to be plastered all over their marketing, which would mean you make a lot of money, then I can understand why they don’t want you to work with a competitor because that would be really weird. If somebody that’s the face of one company is all of a sudden using the competitor, but if you’re just an influencer
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Talking about the products, there’s absolutely no reason that you should not be able to work with other companies. But in this case, where you were going to take an exclusivity deal, you should be making at least 10 times more than you would normally charge. And in this case, $250 for two videos that we don’t even know what they’re gonna do with those videos just doesn’t make sense. So then she wrote me back with some more information. And she said, they actually held a contest to select 250 brand ambassadors. And that number has since dropped because not everyone is signing the contract with that exclusivity deal, which I don’t blame them. And so she said, some of us are also worried that we might not receive another opportunity like this anytime soon. I’m learning how to pitch to brands, and this company was on the top of my list, but now I’m just disappointed that we cannot negotiate the contract and meet in the middle. So here’s the thing, from my point of view, they are not seeing the value in the influencers. They don’t care about the influencers. They’re just
14:00
Trying to get the most for the least amount of money. And so they’re asking her a big ask, which is don’t work with any other companies. But I really don’t see the upside in it for her. And especially if they aren’t even paying her for image or video rights, either. That’s just not fair or right, in my opinion. Now, I know she said that she felt like an opportunity like this might not come across again, and she’s worried about that. But here’s the thing, I think all influencers feel like that when they’re just getting started, which she is, and you get a brand deal or brand collaboration proposal, and you’re really excited. And you want to take it because it’s like the first one that came across, but I can guarantee you guys, some of the first ones are going to be the worst deal for you. So you really have to be choosy. And especially in this case, how much would it suck if she took this deal. And then in six months, a huge company reached out to her and wanted to work with her and actually wanted to value her and pay her a lot and she couldn’t take it because she’s locked in with this other company for an entire year. And it
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You break that by the way, they can sue you for a lot of money because you signed it in ink. So you know, it’s just really something that if you are going to do an exclusivity deal with a brand, it really has to be worth it. And I mean, the brand deal of your dreams. So that’s my take on that. And I want to reiterate to everybody, you have control of how many deals you can get by the amount that you are out there pitching. And if you don’t know how to pitch, I highly suggest you go take my master class called land the brands because they teach you guys how to pitch I teach you guys what not to do when you’re pitching, which a lot of people do, we actually go over a pitch together and I rewrite a bad pitch. And then I show you guys how influencers with even just a little bit of followers can actually make a lot of money. So it’s a great webinar. It’s about an hour and a half long. I’ll put the link to sign up in the description. But I highly suggest that if you don’t know how to pitch, if you’re not pitching, or you don’t really know where to start, go watch that master class. Moving on to question number three.
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An Alicia asked, and by the way, I’m going to read this verbatim. She said, most recently, I was pitching to hair companies because I make wigs, and I’m a makeup artist. Nevertheless, I noticed that every hair company that is very prominent right now is only catering to African Americans. And there’s a huge client basis that isn’t even being reached. I’ve talked to so many individuals who say, Well, I can’t wear a wig, because I’m not that ethnicity. Or they don’t see anyone who they can relate to on any of their social media platforms. Therefore, they tell themselves that they can’t wear them or make them. So we actually had a back and forth conversation about this. And this actually ended up being a really good training. And so what I said back to that was, oh my gosh, this is so true. I feel like everybody can and does wear wigs. And that’s your unique selling point. I mean, I know I wear extensions. I know so many women with hair loss, which is something that I suffer with that wear wigs that you know aren’t just fit in this one demographic
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And so I told her that some brands really get very stuck in their ways. But it never hurts to try again. And they may have changed their mind. So then when I told her was, you know, one thing you can do is make sure to include some evidence that your audience will love the collaboration. And so she said back, how do I prove that they would and then thank you so much for applying and validating that this is a good idea. That means a lot coming from you, which is so sweet. And so what I wrote back to her was a great way to show that your audience is actually interested. And this is something that the brand should actually do is one thing you could do is do a poll on your stories, and then share those results with the brand. So if she did a poll saying, hey, how would you like it if I collaborated with this brand? Or how would you like more information about wigs? And a lot of people said yes, and she could say, hey, look, 56 people said yes, like, let’s move forward, let’s do this. Or she could do a post that talks about wigs and then screenshot any comments or DMS that she gets from people that show it
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interest, because these would both show concrete proof that her audience is a good fit for that company. And when you can show a brand like actual evidence, it’s a no brainer for them. So then she said back, oh my gosh, I have plenty of those already. I have clients asking for wigs, and all kinds of dams and comments. And so it’s funny because if we maybe never had this conversation, she would have never realized that she’s sitting on a goldmine of all this evidence or maybe not even realize that that’s something that she could or should send to the brand. So if you’re in a scenario where you’re trying to prove your value to a brand, and you have some sort of evidence that it would be a great collaboration, like screenshots of anything, or polls, or whatever the case, use those to your advantage, you guys, and then she followed up with that with another question. That’s going to be a little bonus in here, which is, do I just dm these companies or should I email them? I had to add this one in here because if you guys learn just one thing for me about pitching it
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To never dm a brand, you always want to send them an email because it looks more professional. And your pitches should be longer than a DM. So I see it all the time influencers, emailing in a pitch that is literally just Hi, are you looking for influencers? When I see that that’s an automatic No, because that is just lazy, and it’s not going to get you anywhere. And the whole point of a pitch is to actually pitch an idea. So if you’re just laxa days early, you know, emailing or dming and saying hey, are you looking for influencers? I’d love to be an influencer for you. Go watch my masterclass because we go over this. And I tell you guys exactly why this is not a good thing. So I know I keep talking about that. But there’s so much good information in that masterclass. Okay, last but not least is question number four. And Joanne asked, How do I find engagement pods and do you recommend them? Thanks. So first and foremost, I actually do recommend engagement pods because they do boost the algorithm for you. So in case you guys didn’t read
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Realize the algorithm is like a computer that has no eyes. So it can’t look at your post and be like, wow, Erica looks so great today. Let’s show this to more people. No, the only way that they can tell that your post is a good post is by how many people are engaging with it. And the reason that matters is because Instagrams a platform where they want to have a good user experience. And if they were just showing people really crappy bad posts, then people aren’t gonna want to be on their platform. So the whole point is to show more people, more of the better posts. So what we want to do to get more people seeing our posts and more reach is getting more engagement within the first hour because that’s how we show the algorithm that they should show this post to more people. And then once you do that, it really creates this snowball effect. And so that’s why engagement pods are really helpful because they can help you get some extra engagement within that first hour. But I do want to have some, you know, side notes on this
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Do not go overboard. If all of your comments are just from engagement pods, that is not a good thing. This is just something to supplement your comments, you want to make sure you’re still getting engagement and comments from your real audience that’s, you know, just organic. And then another thing is don’t get too many of them. I see some influencers who have a really small following, and they have like, way more comments than they should and it just, it doesn’t make sense. And if a brand is smart, and they see that, they’re just gonna think that you’re faking it, and they’re not gonna want to work with you. So just a good rule of thumb. When I see an influencer with over 10% engagement rate, I start to get curious and I’ll dig and if I see that all their posts are just comments from the same people and they look like engagement pods, then I’m kind of gonna discount them because those aren’t organic engagement and that’s not what matters the most, but it is a good supplement. So just make sure that you are not going overboard and you’re not doing too many comments.
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And then the second half of her question was, how do I find engagement pods? And this is a great question. And honestly, the best way to be in an engagement pod is to actually start your own, and then find common bloggers or influencers to add to it. And so if you guys are a student of mine, I also suggest going in our private Facebook group and asking in there if anyone wants to join, because I have seen so much engagement in that group lately, you guys are all collaborating with each other, which I absolutely love seeing. So if you are in the group, and you want to start an engagement pod, go ahead and ask in there and see if anyone else in your niche or genre wants to join in with you. That’s a great place to start. But something else that I think is really a great place to find someone that’s maybe already doing an engagement pod is looking in different Facebook groups that you’re in. So again, I have a whole training on this in my courses. But just in brief, there are tons of Facebook groups for any genre that you can join. So as an example, there’s
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Tons of groups for influencers, and I’m in quite a few. And I see all the time people saying, Hey, I’m going to start an engagement group, you know, drop your handle. And if you’re a good fit, I’ll add you in. And so usually they’ll tell you like, Hey, I’m a fashion blogger. So if you’re a fashion blogger, like, that’s a great engagement group for you, you don’t really want to join engagement groups of people that are like completely different. But I mean, if you’re a fashion blogger, and then one person’s a lifestyle, blogger, but they do talk about clothes, that’s okay. But you can even go in those Facebook groups and ask to find other people to join an engagement group that you want to start. And so that’s just a great place because obviously, if you’re in a group for influencers, you guys all have the same goals. And so it’s going to be really easy to find other people that are wanting to do the same thing that you do and want to collaborate with you. And sometimes you just have to be the leader on that. So I definitely suggest starting your own. It’s not too much management, you just want to make sure people are keeping up and I would just say just for note a good number to
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Keep an engagement group to is like 20 to 30 people Max and limit how many posts they can send in, I usually say like one a day, otherwise, it just gets too overwhelming and people can’t keep up. And there’s always going to be that person that tries to take advantage. So I would say that’s a good limit, just so you guys aren’t all, you know, taking so much time to engage with each other’s groups. That was seriously so much fun. And if you guys know me, or if you’re one of my students, you know, my favorite thing to do is have these like side conversations where I help you in real life scenarios. And I’m opening this up to anyone that wants to ask me a question about anything that’s going on. And, you know, I really prefer it to be a real life scenario question like all these were, which were very specific, like, Hey, this is happening, how do I handle it? Because I get to use my strategy hat and I know it’s gonna help so many of you guys as well because I’m always gonna pick the ones that probably most people can relate to or will have to confront at some point. And so if you guys did love this, please shoot me a DM. Let me know
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Know, send in your questions and I’ll try to do more of these if you guys really love them.
25:06
Thank you so much for listening. If you liked what you heard it goes a long way if you could take 30 seconds and leave me a five star review and share this podcast with your friends. Alright you guys, I’ll see you on the next episode.
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xo, erica