Growing a 7-Figure DTC Brand Through Micro-Influencers⎜Inbeat Agency⎜EP 141

Ryan Cramer: What's up, everyone? Welcome to my corner of the internet. I'm your host, Ryan Cramer, and this is Crossover Commerce. Presented by PingPong Payments, the leading global payments provider helping sellers keep more of their hard- earned money. Hey. What's up, everyone? Welcome to Crossover Commerce. My name Ryan Cramer. And this is Crossover Commerce. Thanks for joining. And you already got a little look at our guest today, but that's because we were playing around beforehand on this awesome, amazing inaudible. This is episode 141 of Crossover Commerce. This is my corner of the internet, where I bring you the best and brightest in the Amazon, in e- commerce industry, whether that be helping consumers get their products started and off the ground, or it might be advertising, marketing, social influencing, or social marketing. We've talked about that a lot recently because it's a passion subject in my mind. But for lots of people who are growing their brands, whether it be off Amazon first, or on Amazon, growing and diversifying their brand internationally, I really am fascinated about how different... the different nuances in different ways that one can do such a thing. So, that being said, before we get into the nitty gritty, if this is the first time being on the podcast, just want to give a shout- out to a person who sponsored PingPong Payments. PingPong is an international cross- border payment solution that has helped over 1 million customers worldwide in doing$ 150 million in cross- border payments to date. That means if you do a quick math... not being a math person, but if you were to add up everything quickly to date in the six years that we've been in business, they have actually have done over$ 90 billion, that's billion with a B, in cross- border payments. Helping people pay out their VAs, their manufacturers, their sourcing agents, whomever that might be, in different currencies, and also repatriating money. If you are an international brand, PingPong is the solution for you. So, if you want to look for a solution that's going to help you save money, and leave... not leave it on the table, go ahead and click of the link in the comments, or show notes if you're listening to this. And sign up for a free account today to start saving money with PingPong. That being said, this show is all about trying to grow your business, and trying to take that next step forward. Whether it be, like I said, in logistics, sourcing, product building. But today's topic, I'm really excited about. We're talking about micro- influencers. Now, what's a micro- influencer? A micro- influencer can be anywhere from 4, 000 followers or so on a certain platform to 20, 00 or so. It has a good, unique following. That being said, why does that matter? Why are more people looking to those kinds of, " Influencers," or voices, if you will, on social media, rather than going with more scalable platforms, or profiles. Whether it be celebrity, or more of a well- known, established entity. There's pros and cons in both. And that's why I really wanted to jump in today with our guest. His name is David Morneau. He actually is a managing partner at Inbeat Agency, which helps brands leverage thousands of collaborations with micro- influencers. And he knows people trust user- generated content, performs better than studio- quality ads. Helping brands now, you might know these brands that I've helped grow their influence online. New Balance, the Got Milk campaign, Nordstrom, 7- Eleven Eason, great brands, but have also grown smaller brand into six and seven figure direct to consumer brands. So, that being said, welcome, David, to Crossover Commerce. David, how are you doing today?

David Morneau: I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on the show.

Ryan Cramer: Yeah. No problem. So, you're joining us from where? Canada?

David Morneau: So-

Ryan Cramer: I'm going to-

David Morneau: ...yeah, Canada.

Ryan Cramer: ... put a question in there.Yes, because I try not to cheat, David. On this show, when people tell me where they're from because I like to go off with their accent because we're an international show. It's kind of fun to play the Russian... or the Roulette of, " Where in the world are you located?" But you're in Canada.

David Morneau: Yeah.

Ryan Cramer: What part?

David Morneau: More specifically, Quebec, the French- speaking part of Canada.

Ryan Cramer: Okay.

David Morneau: So, native language is French. Learned English when I lived in the United States as a kid. But, yeah, good guess.

Ryan Cramer: Okay. So, you're from Canada, you were born and raised Canada, right?

David Morneau: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Ryan Cramer: Okay. Okay. So, you're in, I'm assuming, Quebec, because that would be around that part. So, if international.... I think selling direct to consumer, or selling online, that hasn't always been your background, has it? Or has marketing always been a part of it? What got you into the, " Micro- influencer," the agency space, if you will, in this capacity?

David Morneau: Oh crosstalk

Ryan Cramer: crosstalk for a second. Do you need me to repeat? We both crosstalk

David Morneau: Oh, no. I got that. I got that. So, essentially, it goes back. We got out. I did a law degree in the past life. I studied law, finished law, actually got into this kind of project. I was like, " I want to do online stuff. I want to do business. I don't like law that much." Started a web design agency, we discovered SCO from there. Then a client came to us and asked us, " Hey. We actually want to explore this micro- influencer thing where we just want to get tons of ambassadors to promote our product online." And I think it looks like link building, right? Where there's tons of outreach, there's negotiation, et cetera. The process for link building is very similar to negotiating a micro- influencer. So, we got into that through that kind of client asking us as a one- off project. And discovered that there was an enormous demand for this, and that we could specialize heavily into this, and build a business out of it. So, four years, five years later now, I think, we're fully micro- influencer marketing, we're not doing any more SCO for our clients.

Ryan Cramer: Well, you were talking about almost performance marketing. You were talking about link building, and almost driving traffic to a brand, or a destination, right? To hopefully either convert via sale, or to drive loyalty, or to drive awareness, right? So, at the end of the day, that was your Genesis. I love using the word, Genesis, like how it got started. And now, you've actually tapped into this unique marketing segment of influencer- marketing, which, again, everyone has an opinion on influencer- marketing. What's an influencer? How do you actually measure influence in a space where there's so much constant change going on? Influence in converging of sales, or is it just visibility, or is it engagement? What are we talking about in terms of influencer- marketing? Can you kind of crosstalk

David Morneau: Yeah, sure.

Ryan Cramer: ...what that looks like?

David Morneau: Essentially, we work with micro- influencers strictly. You said 4, 000 to 20, 00 earlier on Instagram. That's a loose definition. It varies heavily. There's different definitions. In a lot of cases, micro- influencer, the biggest difference is that you're not going to be dealing with an agent or an agency. You're directly dealing with the micro- influencer. So, we don't represent micro- influencers. We represent the client working with micro- influencers. Now, having said that, there's no agent. You're dealing directly with them. So, when it becomes interesting is that you can set different goals to your micro- influencer marketing efforts. You can decide, " Okay. We want to drive sales and awareness." That's one of the goals we see a lot. Then after that, there's the goal of creating content. So, what kind of content do we want to create to run our Facebook ads, and TikTok ads, and whatnot. And the third goal is really market research. So, which products should we release next? What does our packaging look like? So, we see the micro- influencer at the center of these three goals. And that's essentially the place it fits. What's interesting is really that you can scale this, and work with 50, 100 micro- influencers, 1, 000 micro- influencers, and you can get a lot of different content assets. You can test a lot of things, and you can get a lot of market insights. Sorry. I went all over the place to answer that question, but-

Ryan Cramer: No.

David Morneau: ...yeah, that's-

Ryan Cramer: No. So, this is what's fascinating. Even nowadays, you're starting to measure different kinds of growth. Everyone starts... If they have the business and the brand, even as recent as 10 years ago, you would have to look at different things of like where does your time go? Where are the idols? I worked in the newspaper industry. We went off of the impressions. So, your touting impressions, how many eyeballs are going to be... or how many times is your ad going to be shown inaudible a certain metric? And people were just okay with impressions, on Google, on a website, how many times your banner got shown. But now, you're talking about following. And that's a little different than... it's kind of shifted away from this nuance of how many times your ad's going to be shown in the traditional sense of marketing and advertising. Now, it's how big is a potential market that you can reach? Or how small, or how engaged you can be? Which is super fascinating and cerebral to me. When you say influencer, a lot of people have tapped in this space, you think of celebrity, someone how has multimillion followers, they're following them because they're a popular celebrity in sport, in business, or in a movie, television, whatever the celebrity that might be. Who are you working with in that regards? Is it more just day-to- day people that just have a point of view? What's the sweet spot for you and your agency?

David Morneau: Good question. inaudible These are day- to- day people, the micro- influencers, they're building a following on Instagram, or TikTok, or YouTube, for whatever reason. They're looking to accomplish something out of it. But a lot of them will have a day job, or working somewhere else because with 4, 000 to 20, 000 followers on Instagram, you don't earn a living just from being an influencer on Instagram, right?

Ryan Cramer: Right.

David Morneau: So, we're dealing with people that are not necessarily business savvy yet. That's really who we're dealing with. The process is a lot more person- to- person. Its contracts aren't enormous. The relationship is pretty simple. The asks are straightforward. The cycle is short. But, yeah. That's essentially who we deal with versus celebrities, where you'll be talking with an agent. You'll have to scope the deal, there's going to be tons of different deal sections in the agreement. Do we have copyrights on the content? How much ad budget can we put behind the content if we were to reuse that content and so forth? Whereas with a micro-influencer, you don't get all of that.

Ryan Cramer: So, how do you measure actually engagement with somebody? I maybe have a 1, 000 followers on Instagram or something of that nature. Not a lie, but people have opted into it. I think I put good content for the podcast, or for whatever. My first question would be, are you working with just strictly professional... there's a professional side of influencer versus a personal site, right? Where I'm posting pictures of my kids all the time.

David Morneau: Yeah, yeah.

Ryan Cramer: Stuff along those lines. But then on the professional side, you might see them post like, " I love this product. It saved my life. It helped me with my kids," so, and so forth. Tag company XYZ, and lots of people can engage. They go, they follow. Do you work with people who have that mixture of both or wants professional or even personal? Does that make sense?

David Morneau: Yeah, we'll work with both. So-

Ryan Cramer: Okay.

David Morneau: ...let's say you can imagine a personal profile where... Let's take a mother who just post a picture of their kids, of their home decor, and whatnot, just more personal themed page versus let's say a gardening page, someone that's... all their content's around gardening. We'll work with both, really, depending on who the client is, what they're looking to accomplish, what type of content they're looking for, and what kind of insights they're looking to get. As long as you have engagement and people following you, that's really what we look at. Interestingly enough though, we realized that influencers that have a more specific niche will have a higher conversion rate in terms of sales, higher engagement rate, just... the quality of the engagement is higher, at least. And it's just because they're specialized, and have more trust in that specific sub- segment. So, yeah.

Ryan Cramer: How do you get those metrics, basically? Is there a technology that you have available, or when you're engaging with them on the first time, is there a series of questions that you have to fill out? Like, how many likes on average are you getting? Or, what kind of content do you like to post? How does that relationship build with micro-influencers?

David Morneau: Yeah, good question.

Ryan Cramer: crosstalk

David Morneau: So, we'll look at all the quantifiable metrics that we have outside of the more specific ones. But essentially, we'll look at the likes, the comments. Comments is a big one. Comments shows higher engagement. We'll look at the follower account, of course. And then after that, on a more... and attribution, we can look at traffic driven to the website, promo code usage, engagement cetera, if we're looking to attract sales. So, these are the metrics we have access to, the metrics we will be measuring.

Ryan Cramer: Okay. For brands coming to you, what's the most important metric that you have to serve them? Is it impressions? Is it followers? What's, in your mind, the most important impression that they're looking for? And then in your mind, is it something different?

David Morneau: Yeah. That's such a good question. Some people come to us and they're like, " We just want massive awareness. We've got this campaign, we need to get as many eyeballs on it." And that's the goal of the campaign. Everything else doesn't matter. Some people will tell us it's traffic, some people will tell us it's sales. Whatever your metric is, the strategy will change. A client that comes to us with a sales- driven approach, we're going to tell them upfront that this is a channel that you've got to build. So, let me walk through this, unpackage it so we can explore this. First step for us is really identify, " Okay, what are the unique selling points that you want to put forward with that product?" After that, any cool values that you stand for, that we can show the influencers to just build that goodwill. " Are you sustainable? Are you giving back to whatever, Save the Earth, or a cause like that?" Just try to build up that goodwill. After that, we'll identify, " Okay. Well, who's your audience we're looking to reach and what influencers are they following on Instagram?" This has to align. And then after that, we'll just reach out these influencers, get them to create content. We'll find content examples to guide them. Just go Facebook ads library, look at your competitors, look at what they're doing, compile some content ideas, and then just put a mood board to give your influencers so that they can build their content from there. And then after that, we'll track sales. This is a numbers game, so we're expecting 20% of the influencers we work with to really outperform the other 80% So, we'll keep those 20%, double down on them, try to identify any trends among them so that we can rinse and repeat. And then we end up with a small network of... at that point, are they ambassadors, influencers? It's a loose discussion, but we're just going to have a small network that we can re- activate on an ongoing basis for instance. You've launched a new product, you've got your 50 creators that you can just ship your product, and then they'll create publications and so forth. So, that's how we view the sales component of it. And then ... yeah.

Ryan Cramer: As a micro- influencer, this is my perception. I feel like they post a lot of great organic content, which I feel like is the best way to absorb content. We're a pretty... I won't say dumb nation or dumb society. We're a very short attention span society. Thank you, listener, for listening to an hour- long conversation. inaudible out there. This is probably the longest format that anyone will sit down and actually passively, or actively listen to, and opt- in. It's podcasting, right? You have to kind of think through it and kind of be somewhat aware of what's going on. Social media's a little bit different, where there's a lot of swiping, there's a lot of quick bust through. It's anywhere from 3 seconds, where you have to get their attention, to 15 seconds. There's really not a lot of time in order for you to have an impact on that. So, are we coaching these people through how to get that back quickly, to feel more organic, to feel palatable instead of like, " Oh, it's an ad. Swipe away." Or-

David Morneau: Yeah.

Ryan Cramer: ... like, "I don't want to listen, or spend my time looking for inaudible

David Morneau: It's a good question. We guide them to the best of our competence. A lot of the time, they understand our audience better than we do. So, it's the art of how much do we tell them and how much do we let them decide? And it's a tough balance because crosstalk

Ryan Cramer: Let them fly, yeah.

David Morneau: Yeah.

Ryan Cramer: Don't hold them back.

David Morneau: Yeah. And if you do that, you're going to end up blown away by multiple creators. But some of them will give you content that's kind of wanky, and you're like, "Whoa, no. That doesn't cut it." So, it's really like, " Where the balance? Are we tried a mood board instead of briefing?" Where we give examples of content that we love, and then they can take from there. And then more importantly, content that we don't like, so they can learn from that, too, so that we're not having them shoot in a direction that we don't want to work in.

Ryan Cramer: Okay. So, what is the most successful content that it's creating? Because we're talking about content generation, we're talking about either product placement, or talk about a sale. What's the most important in engaging content that people are creating nowadays crosstalk very successful, very high engaging. What's that first tip for people who are trying to build either a following, or to work with brands?

David Morneau: If your point's got a really cool USP, unique selling proposition, you do something amazing, put that forward right away, it's a good one. You can decide which ones you want to put forward. If your brand stands for something, helps some kind of group that there's a strong belonging to, definitely put that forward. The mission is going to drive a lot of engagements. So, it really depends. If you're looking at, " Reduce carbon footprint by doing XYZ with your brand, and put that forward," people buy into that. It's a good kind of motivator for people to buy. And yes, it's going to depend on what your messaging is. And then after that, is it video content? Is it image content? Is carousel content? Test them out, test them out, and think about what going to be able to reuse in your paid ads, as well as probably one of the biggest thing I'd say, testimonials can be fantastic if you're looking to repurpose them in your paid media afterwards. And just think about that endgame of, " Okay, we might want to run ads on this, so what type of content do we want?" And, yeah.

Ryan Cramer: Okay. With that being said, you're probably engaging... maybe correct me if I'm wrong. You're engaging with people maybe who've never done this before. Is that a fair assessment? Is there a percentage breakdown of, " This is the first time I'm working with... maybe on behalf of a different brand. These people are not well- known, they don't do this for a living, as you alluded to earlier in the episode. What are the basics that you're coaching them through? Essentially, is this content that they create, do they own it? Or is it the brands'? Or is there an agreement that you have to have written down? Is it audible? What are the, I guess, the technicalities of working with maybe a micro- influencer to protect the brand? But then also, if I'm an influencer, protecting crosstalk

David Morneau: So, we do licensing agreements, content licensing. And then if we use the influencer's content on out social media, we will tag them. That's all stated in the agreement. And then after that, we ask for them to allow us to use the content for a period of anywhere from 6 to 12 months in our paid media. So, that's really the agreement structure then. We kind of scope out, " Okay. Well, what's the payout? And then what do we expect in return?" So, is it one post, one story, and one link in the bio for 24 hours? That's really what we'll scope out in that agreement, just make sure that everything is laid out.

Ryan Cramer: Okay. We actually had a question come in from one of our listeners LinkedIn, Lisa, who's a friend of the show, actually. She had asked, are there ever noncompeting agreements signed between brands and micro- influencers?

David Morneau: Yes, there are. And bigger brands are really fond of these noncompetes. I kind of them useless in a sense that you're just going to end paying a lot more for a specific collaboration because you want a noncompete. You can do it if you wish, but it's going to have to be limited in time, so it doesn't really have the effect that people are looking for. But I don't like noncompetes all that much. I think they limit the influencer's ability afterwards to work with other brands. And it's just not a way that we use on our side.

Ryan Cramer: Maybe put it in a positive spin. Is there a way that you've actually built into someone who's so engaging, and so passionate a brand, how they become... you have mentioned even an ambassador.

David Morneau: Yeah, yeah.

Ryan Cramer: Or they only will work with a brand because of the nuances crosstalk

David Morneau: Good point.

Ryan Cramer: crosstalk Yeah.

David Morneau: Good point. Yeah, definitely. And if you're collaborating with an ambassador every two months, and you're giving them money and so forth. In that case then first of all, you could definitely write out a noncompete in that case, where you're collaborating with an influencer... let's say, a 60- day cycle, then you could bake that in. But there's additionally going to be that feeling of like, " Okay. Well, I'm loyal to this brand. We work together. There's a relationship." So, yeah. In that sense, it does make sense. I was looking at it from an influencer perspective where one- off collaborations. But, yeah. In a ambassador perspective, this completely makes sense.

Ryan Cramer: Okay. So, when I'm a brand... and this I start another question we had coming from Francois, who's also a friend of our show. He asked the question inaudible for you, Francois, down there in... I'm assuming you're still in Georgia, wherever you might be listening from. He wanted to know what do you need to prep before even considering micro- influencers? So, when I read that question, I'm hearing that from a brand side. If I'm growing, I have a good following, I want to start maybe launching new products, or I want to do a campaign, and I need to prep with micro- influencers. And I think that to launch this new product, I can work with people who are... if I'm in health and wellness, reach out to these health and wellness micro- influencers, and say, " Hey, what do I need to prep build that engagement happens?"

David Morneau: Yeah. That's a good question. So, in terms of prep material, definitely just map out what you're expecting from these influencers. And then that's a question that can be hard if you never done it. But essentially, standard, just ask for one post and one story. And just find examples on content that you really enjoy. That's the most important thing that you need to prep before going forward with any influencers. And then after that, there's all the document where you're going to tell the influencer, " Okay, here's a creative brief. Here's what we want you to do. You can find that online pretty easily, just make sure to tag our profile, make sure to only wear our piece of clothing without wearing a competitor's piece of clothing and so forth." The dos and donts of the collaboration, if it's a fashion brand in this case. And then after that, it's really just reaching out. There's not much to prepare upfront besides that, knowing where you're going, what you expect of the influencers, and the dos and donts. And after that, you just reach out, negotiate with micro- influencers, get the best collaborations possible, and move from there.

Ryan Cramer: Is there an amount that you want to work with? Again, I feel like organic content or consumable content is what's going to resonate with most people on any given context. Is there too many micro-influencers can work with at any... given one point? The following is not going to reach everyone in the world if you work with 10, 000 micro- influencers in theory. But if you work with a 100, is that too many at one time, or what's the monetary investment that you're working with influencers in that capacity? Is it just money, or is it just... I say, swag, or product. What are the things that you're negotiating with in terms of, " Hey, you do this, I will give you XYZ."

David Morneau: That's a really good point. And from the looks of it, a product seeding or gifting is a good way to go at it. A lot of influencers will work in exchange for product, especially if your product has goodwill, is cool, and has a high value. If you've got a$ 10 product value, then this becomes a bit harder. And then how many influencers do you want to work with? That's a good question. I'd say a 100 is completely reasonable. All you have to take into consideration is more influencers you work with, the more communications you're going to have to manage. And not all influencers are going to be posting on time. You're going to have to chase, you're going to have to manage it. It becomes kind of like a relationship you have to manage to make sure that they send you your content for approval, if you need approval, that their posts are inaudible on social media, that they've tagged you properly, that they got their content approved before they post it. And then you're going to have to track all of that. The answer is really how many can you manage without breaking down? That's really the question. And you could work with a 1, 000 micro- influencers without much problems. If you got the systems in place and the team in place as well.

Ryan Cramer: Tell me about a campaign that you got most excited about recently. A brand that's maybe not as well- known, they reach out to you. Walk me through that process of maybe your favorite success story, if you will, so that our listeners can say, " Oh, that makes sense. I can totally envision myself in those shoes."

David Morneau: Yeah. A couple of brands that we really enjoyed working with in the past couple of months. There's one that's... it's called the Blue House Salmon. It's a salmon company. They sell salmon in stores. And it was an interesting one to unpack. Shipping salmon has tons of logistic complexities, and making sure that the influencers create good content and so forth. But at this point, we're onboarding 25- ish new influencers every month. We're getting TikTokers as well to create content for their content calendar. They're just releasing a TikTok page now, and we're just outreaching TikTok creators that are making cooking videos and saying, " Hey. We'd like you to create content. No need to post it on your social media. We just want to create the content so that we can use it on ours. And, yeah, we will tag you, of course." And it's been an interesting one to be on. And then the number of ambassadors that are creating great content is growing and growing. A lot of creators are creating content that's okay. But that's fine because we're looking for the top performers. We identify them, we tag them as VVIPs on our side. And then we're building that roster. So, it's really interesting to just see that roster growing. And the kind of fly wheel effect of having good creators on deck, that are ready to respond to a call- out email from our side, if you may.

Ryan Cramer: Right, David. You said a word that triggered me. And this is what's going to happen now. You said, TikTok. Now-

David Morneau: Yeah.

Ryan Cramer: ...we're going to dive into TikTok.

David Morneau: Yeah, sure. Let's go.

Ryan Cramer: Now, I feel older. I always inaudible and say, " I'm never old." I'm so in tune with Facebook, Instagram, all these different platforms. TikTok, I actually understand. I feel like I really do. But it triggers me because it has such this crazy way of a popularity, and it's video- based content. But I've been doing some research. And we talked with some agency owners last week. And the cool thing about this... and I never thought about it this way, is that all the content that's coming from TikTok is organic. It only comes from one fire hose. You log into TikTok, and there's not too many options that you can get to, last I checked. You can't go to a reels in TikTok. It's all coming, it's all in one place. I can't go anywhere else but that one section. I open it up and it's there, curated for me. Instagram's a little bit different. You have reels, you have stories, you have posts, you have other reels can follow, like suggested topics. There's all these little options that a person could get ADD, and just shoot off, and go down a rabbit hole. But that's not the path that you want them to funnel down. You may never see a post if I go on Instagram, and I'm only posting posts, but only looking at stories. I feel like stories are kind of this brand nuance like it reels for a little bit, and then it's off. It's kind of like the Snapchat model. Is that why TikTok is so much more engaging, or-

David Morneau: Addicting?

Ryan Cramer: What is it? Yeah. crosstalk that word. I never tried to use the word, addicting, but it's time consuming, and it's-

David Morneau: Oh, yeah. It is. It is crosstalk

Ryan Cramer: ...people opt into that over going to YouTube and searching for something more so now, over Facebook or Instagram.

David Morneau: No. But you make a good point there, where TikTok is just one endless stream. I mean, there's a feed in Instagram as well, but TikTok, you check one video, and all of the sudden, you've scrolling for 30 minutes. And you're like, " What just happened?" And what's interesting about TikTok is their distribution is going to be outside of your regular network as well. On Instagram, your feed is mostly built on people that you follow. But TikTok has a more global feed for you, where you've got tons of people you don't follow. So, it's always this fresh stream of content. So, I think that's where TikTok wins in that sense. But for brands, it's a hard platform to crack. And the reason is that doing a product incorporation in a TikTok video, if you do it too sales- y, it's just going to kill the reach, and your video's not going to get any reach. So, you have to be extremely creative, or have something amazing about your product that you can put forward. And it requires a lot more strategic thinking, and it's not the right fit for any brand. But, yeah. TikTok is growing, it's a strong channel, and it's definitely worth exploring.

Ryan Cramer: Right. We dived into it a little bit. Past audio versions are out now. We talked with an agency seller inaudible actually working with brands who are trying to send traffic, working actually with someone who can pay ads, and create ads, and send them to a destination. Whether it be a Shopify store, Amazon crosstalk

David Morneau: Yeah.

Ryan Cramer: ...page. Something like that, where it's slowly becoming available for more and more people. So, with that being said, do you think they'll still focus on the inaudible and that will be, like you said, it's what? 30 second video maximum, where it's short and sweet, it's trying to get you laugh and engage for that period of time. But you don't want to feel sales- y. Do you think that people who are influencers on TikTok know that that's their hook, and they don't want to overdo it. Otherwise, they'll just lose followship, or not be as trendy, or go viral anymore?

David Morneau: Yeah, that's exactly right. And what's cool about TikTok creators is that they understand attention. TikTok creators are extremely good about attention. They're spot- on with the way they structure videos. And it's amazing to see the knowledge TikTok creators have on that front. Creators, they'll want to put all that much sales- y videos that are not going to get any views. And if they do, they're going to want to remove them because it's just effects their average view counts. So, you have to be careful about those things. But yeah. That's definitely something to take into consideration. If you can craft something with your product that's not front facing, but that's really just... the product is not... it's not a clear call to action, then that's ideal. You've seen ton of these in...

Ryan Cramer: Right. So, yeah. Call of action would be... it's almost like you do not want to inaudible call of action somewhat, to be still organic, to be... maybe tag them. I think that would be a safe bet. Everyone's tagging different brands, content, whatnot. I'm still trying to learn about what trends, and what's driving sales, because it can be some nuanced stuff. The best example I have in my repertoire is when we have an Amazon seller, he shared with me right before Prime Day, or Black Friday, one of those major huge selling holidays. Someone found his product. It was unique, it was a gel, and it would harden with UV light. And it was very different, unique, cool product. Tagged them. And instantly, the next day, it was 10,000 sales. Just crosstalk

David Morneau: Yeah.

Ryan Cramer: ...traffic spikes. You would have to search for it. They were searching what it's called. And instantly, you just have people organically searching for product XYZ, going on Amazon, and trying to find it, and they found it. And he was one of the top sellers in it. And that's where a lot of the sales came from. It's so nuanced like that. How are you measuring success of TikTok versus Instagram? I feel like the data in inaudible aren't as advanced maybe crosstalk

David Morneau: No, they are. They are. Right. crosstalk

Ryan Cramer: Yes. I was going to say, how do you measure success on TikTok now?

David Morneau: In a play like that, it's something cool that's highly visual, cool, that's awesome. And if you got that in your product, and you've got a winning formula for TikTok. Go all out and try to get as many creators to create these videos as you can. If you don't have that, you have to go in a more traditional approach where you work with a TikToker, you measure sales, and just promo code usage, or traffic. And then UTM, the traffic and so forth. But what you can do also is complement your influencer posts with paid media. So, you can boost, essentially, the influencer's post to a specific audience who's in the TikTok ads manager. Kind of like Instagram and Facebook, half the paid partnership feature where you can put budget behind an influencer's post. TikTok has the same feature. So, that's an extremely powerful mechanism that allows you create an ad, and distribute it through the influencer. So, that's one way that you can sales, and like, " Okay. Well, let's drive ads to drive sales through our website, and then let's use TikTok as our creators as... let's use influencers, sorry, as our creators that are creating the ads so that we actually create native content to the platform."

Ryan Cramer: Right. What's the best way to find these people who are... I feel like you can become a micro- influencer quicker on TikTok-

David Morneau: Yeah.

Ryan Cramer: ...now-

David Morneau: A 100% Yeah.

Ryan Cramer: ...because the content is still growing on... if you look on YouTube or even on Instagram or Facebook, there's so much out there. And there's so much content. But on TikTok, like you said, it's only from once source. It's still curating, and building inaudible library of content that doesn't exist anywhere else but in its own platform. And then you can obviously share it to Instagram and whatnot. Would you rather find a micro- influencer on TikTok now in this day and age, or would you rather find one on Instagram really?

David Morneau: Really depends on the client and the creator. It's not always a straight line like that. TikTokers have an Instagram, and Instagramers have a TikTok. So, it's where do you find the creator? If we're looking for TikTok content, we're going to look on TikTok. If we're looking for Instagram content, we're going to on Instagram. Yeah.

Ryan Cramer: I guess it's blurred, so it's really hard to determine where is the most success going to happen, too. But-

David Morneau: Test it, yeah.

Ryan Cramer: ...yeah. So, I guess testing that. When a brand comes to you, what's the best questions a new customer can ask to an agency maybe like yours, that has not worked in this environment before? How would you coach them, or what would you wish they would ask you when becoming a-

David Morneau: Yeah.

Ryan Cramer: ...potentially becoming your client?

David Morneau: Love that question. You don't know how much I love that question. Makes our live easier. One of the things is really just send us all of your email templates that you sent out in the past. Give us access to your Facebook metrics as much as you can. What are your most top performing audiences? What's your to performing content? Give us that insight so that we can actually reverse engineer our influencer strategy from there because you've already got data. And it's like if we have access to that data, makes it so much easier for us to guide you through the right process, and identify influencers that are followed by this target audience that we're looking to reach and so forth. Additionally, it's going to help us complement your paid media with the content that's created from these influencers. That's really, really, I think... The more information we can have from a business, the better we're off. Just because we have to learn it all ourselves. If not, then that's at the cost of slowing things down.

Ryan Cramer: Right. And you guys are not customer service for this brand, do you actually have to-

David Morneau: Exactly.

Ryan Cramer: ...make sure you know everything beforehand. Otherwise, it's going to be... if an influencer asks-

David Morneau: Yeah.

Ryan Cramer: ... you aquestion-

David Morneau: Yeah.

Ryan Cramer: ...and don't know, that doesn't look on, I'm assuming, you. But it doesn't make anyone warm and fuzzy when all the contents are maybe not laid out there. There's probably lots of different nuances of... there's so easy ways that a brand can work with you in that regards. And it's probably more of a testing environment instead of more of a, " We have a budget, let's use this budget as much as we can," like a traditional agency. Is that how you're getting engagement with clients nowadays?

David Morneau: Yeah.

Ryan Cramer: crosstalk let's test it." And then as it becomes successful, then you start to grow in that regard?

David Morneau: Exactly, yeah. We'll scope out a plan of matching the client's need. So, what does that look like to reach their needs? What do we expect in terms of in using past data from our other clients? Because we got that advantage. We've worked with influencers a bunch. And then what's the timeline on this? What's the budget the client should be expecting be putting in there? That's how we'll work it out, and just draw up the process from there. And we've got tons of questions along the way. Like how do you ship product to these influencers? Can you do special packaging? Can you do slip- ins and give them something special in their mail when they receive their package? Can we make them feel special? What can we do? And then those are all things that the more of that we have, the easier our job becomes. So, if you can send a hand- written note to every influencer, then we know that you've got a better angle because now, we can make them feel special. And it's just all these small things.

Ryan Cramer: Well, David, if you need a test mark, I'm right here for you, man. Like I said, I've always told everyone, I guess, on our show, "You know what? If you need to run a idea by me, I'm here for you. I'm a sounding board." This is what's so cool about this industry, is that the creativity of certain brands, and how they developed an audience, but then also, a followship. And then also, how they stand out with other peers is super fascinating to me and unique. There was a crowd source project that one of my colleagues was starting, and I just got in the mail today. And I wanted to take an unboxing video, and just all these things because I want to give him honest feedback to grow his brand. But then also, I found myself saying, " Actually, this is really cool." It was supplements called Cognero. And they're launching, they're trying to... not coffee, it's a coffee replacement with lots of herbs in, organics and whatnot, and give you the same benefits of coffee. Tastes like coffee. But also, what does it look like? How does it feel? Does it feel high scale? Does it do all these things? And I thought that was so cool and unique. And I found myself walking through all these different things in my mind to help them get feedback. But it's as simple as asking friends, and family, and colleagues, " What do you think about this?" Give them test products. And if they don't like it, you can give good and honest feedback instead of releasing it to the public, hoping everyone likes it, and then you hear the same thing from 10,000 in like, " Oh, this product didn't make feel good, or it's not as advertised or anything like that." So, is there a brand or product that you will not work with? Let's ask that question. Is there something you would just say absolutely no to?

David Morneau: Yeah. We do have a couple of niches that we just don't touch. Firearms is one of them. We don't touch weight loss products. It's just an industry-

Ryan Cramer: Very difficult to-

David Morneau: ...that we find-

Ryan Cramer: ...yeah. With TOS, it's very difficult to-

David Morneau: Yeah.

Ryan Cramer: crosstalk

David Morneau: Exactly, exactly. Yeah. We had some shady brands approach us, like cure for cancer kind of stuff. And it's like, "No, we don't touch that right now." But there's weird affiliate websites that were like, " Hey inaudible It's like, " No, we don't touch this."

Ryan Cramer: I want to be working with micro- influencers, I would be finding heads of countries, if you will. If that was the case, the actual case.

David Morneau: Yeah.

Ryan Cramer: There's one place you go to. Go to hospitals. Go to medical crosstalk

David Morneau: Yeah, yeah.

Ryan Cramer: This is not a social media trend that we're trying to build here. That is definitely shady. Very bad.

David Morneau: A lot of people try to pedal things on the internet. We've had a bunch of crypto scams. They were inaudible scams that came our way in our pipeline. It's like, " We don't touch that either."

Ryan Cramer: Okay. So crosstalk

David Morneau: We're not close to working with that ... Yeah, yeah. We're not close to working with the cryptocurrency. We just want to look at it as a team and say, " Okay. Well, this isn't a scam, and there's legit team behind it, and it's not just pump and dump." And, yeah.

Ryan Cramer: Do brands have to win you first? I would feel, if I'm an agency owner, if I'm in your shoes, I'm going to put my agency hat on. I would want a brand to win me over first and say, " I get behind this. I'll put my name crosstalk

David Morneau: Yeah.

Ryan Cramer: ...company and stick behind it because it's making me feel good. It's not crosstalk

David Morneau: Yeah.

Ryan Cramer: You said vanity metric. That's the pros and cons of this industry, right? Is you don't want something that's going to make you feel like you're a sellout. Does that make sense? Or crosstalk

David Morneau: That completely makes sense.

Ryan Cramer: ...doing good in the world.

David Morneau: Yeah. I mean, on our side, the way that we look at it, there are some brands that come to us, and we're like, " Well, this isn't going to work." And we just look at it, we know it. The brand doesn't have and values, like strong core values, or there's a lot of things that don't add up. Their design isn't that good. And it's just like, " We're going to such a hard time putting this in the hands of good micro- influencers." This is the thing about micro- influencer marketing that we have to understand, is it's a bilateral relationship. That if you have a strong brand for the influencer, it only makes sense to promote you because it boosts their authority as a micro- influencer. They want to tell their friends, " Hey, we worked with this brand that's XYZ, and saved the planet, and is inclusive." Whatever your messaging is, but you have to get behind those values because it makes them much more prouder actually promoting your brand. So, that's really something we have to take into consideration. If a brand has strong equity, it's so easy for us to do our job. It's just so easy for us. Yeah. That's it.

Ryan Cramer: Yeah. And I think that's why working with... That step, we're talking about when is that step relevant to a new brand coming out? It's when you're ready, right? It's never too early or too late for them to feel like they're reaching a different demographic in a different way working with micro- influencers. But you have to feel ready, yourself. Have your mantra, your business model, you are focused, and your product's good. You have to work on you first. It's almost like dating, right? It's like, you must work on you first before you can put yourself out in the world, and be vulnerable to other people. So, that being said, like I said, we talked vanity metrics. Do you get a lot of ideas from people who are like, " I just want likes," or that doesn't really drive results besides growth, and-

David Morneau: Yeah.

Ryan Cramer: ...that doesn't win in business. You're not buying our product, you're just getting a click, like an arbitrary double tap that is an easy, unemotional attachment to a certain post, whether it's cool, funny, unique, different idea. Do you have to really set the expectations for the client and the customer for them not to just focus on those kind of metrics?

David Morneau: Yeah, yeah. Definitely, definitely. That's the challenge. And setting the expectations. If we're looking to grown your follower account necessarily, we're going to have to do strategies that will make you grow your follower account, okay?

Ryan Cramer: Of course.

David Morneau: But you can't say, " I want to grow my follower account," while driving sales. It becomes extremely hard because in one case, you're doing a giveaway. But then in that giveaway, you're giving a promo code for the user that's participating in the giveaway to go buy the product. It doesn't add up. Kind of like you have to-

Ryan Cramer: Two different strategies, yeah. Exactly.

David Morneau: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But a lot of people will say, " I want everything." Or, " I want sales and awareness, I want market research, I want good content, and I want follower growth." And it's like, " Well, okay. Let's set that straight, and let's look at what we can do."

Ryan Cramer: There's a 10- step plan to get all those aims crosstalk

David Morneau: Yeah, yeah. It works, but we just have to package it properly, then it does work, yeah.

Ryan Cramer: So, in this industry, there's so much ebb and flow. There's lots of different moving parts or has to be constantly on inaudible where it turns out what are users using, right? Because you see different generations using certain platforms. For-

David Morneau: Yeah.

Ryan Cramer: ...example, I would say 50 plus more on Facebook. You will see little bit less on Instagram. Younger on Instagram, or so. And then you see why younger people are on Snapchat, Instagram, but also, TikTok mainly. Each generation kind of has its thing it gravitates towards. So, if you had to put your thinking cap on, or your predictive cap on, what's the next wave of where do you think audiences will want to give their attention to? Because there are so many different things that are yelling us constantly. Is it going to be audio only? Is it going to be in podcast format like this? And that just really drives content usability stand out, is there going to be another platform that comes along and really subverts everything else? I'm trying to think what that would be for that next wave of platform. Social media, for instance.

David Morneau: I think video is still a mega trend that's just going to keep building. We're going to go more and more towards video. Video makes a lot of sense. It's becoming easier and easier to create great videos. In terms of platforms, I have no clue. My-

Ryan Cramer: I mean-

David Morneau: My bet is, yeah, it's hard to predict these things crosstalk

Ryan Cramer: If you could predict it, you would build it, right?

David Morneau: Yeah, exactly. And then in terms of communication with newer generations, even with the micro- influencers, we've implemented SMS management systems, or we actually communicate with the influencers through SMS after they've signed up, and given us their phone number. Reason is that younger generation is much more reactive to SMS than they are to email. So, it's-

Ryan Cramer: Really?

David Morneau: ...a big path we're looking to explore as well, in terms of like, " Okay, how can we CTA till an SMS auto responder to give a discount?" Instead of just going and like, " Use my discount code." It would be like, " Text this number to get 20% off your order." And then it becomes another way to capture sign ups.

Ryan Cramer: That's fascinating because I get inaudible and talked about this on Friday with just the marketing, in general, on Amazon, with our friend over at SellerTools, Troy Johnston. And he said he can verify a client or an individual because your phone number has almost been with you for as long as almost the social security number in that context.

David Morneau: Yeah.

Ryan Cramer: It's quite interesting, the Genesis that you get from that, and it lasts with you. No one wants to change their phone number because then you-

David Morneau: No.

Ryan Cramer: ... have to telleveryone about it, and everything like that. But that being said, you had mentioned that more young people trust SMS, but that it comes in as a automated message. Doesn't look trustworthy, at least to myself crosstalk

David Morneau: Yeah, so you have-

Ryan Cramer: ... alink, yeah.

David Morneau: Yeah.

Ryan Cramer: So-

David Morneau: You have to send it in a way that it's actually conversational. You don't want it to look spammy. Yeah, I think it's more a fact that they actually check their SMS more than their email. Email is hard. We get people that just ghost, and then it's like, " Okay, where are they?" And we SMS them, and we get instant responses. So, it's more in that sense that I feel like we have it for the influencer management component. And now, we're like, " Hey, we should explore it for the kind of user to onboarding flow." Just try, " Hey, get your coupon code by texting this number instead."

Ryan Cramer: Right. And when you have that sort of messaging, you know it's getting to them. That's why I think a lot more people are... they're voting... as the olden days, long ago, you hit vote, text a number XYZ to vote, or anything like that. But what they're doing is capturing information. They know, in theory, zip codes, area codes, where these people are actually viewing from. And by definition, you're starting to build the demographic of where these people might be located. You know, I'm assuming, on the back end of SMS crosstalk

David Morneau: I haven't even thought that far. But that's crosstalk

Ryan Cramer: Yeah, you know-

David Morneau: ...that's a fantastic crosstalk

David Morneau: Yeah, yeah.

Ryan Cramer: Yeah.

Ryan Cramer: Free advice here inaudible Crossover Commerce crosstalk As always, is what I'm giving-

David Morneau: Love it, love it.

Ryan Cramer: ...unsolicited advice. But you know the Genesis... I say the word, Genesis. You know the nuance of if you have the ability to know where they're texting from, I'm assuming you can get that data from either the cell tower where most of that information's coming from. You can actually hyper target individuals in that area because of either success rate, response rate, and whatnot. And just is it a locational thing? Is it a different message that you can say, " Hey, Indiana. You only get 10% off." That's where I'm at. I'm in Indianapolis, Indiana. So, target that specific because SMS, you're going to respond more than you are in Florida, or something like that. But I wonder... yeah, how do you create that trust maybe on your mind on the SMS? Is it that, " Hey, friend. This is Ryan from over at-

David Morneau: Yeah, brand name. Yeah crosstalk

Ryan Cramer: ...Crossover Commerce. We love that you're on our subscriber list. Here's 10% off when you use promo code XYZ. And it's as simple as that. Either click on this link, or go to our website, and use it in the next 20 days, and you'll get 10% off."

David Morneau: Yeah.

Ryan Cramer: That easy?

David Morneau: That easy. That's how I go at it. And I test things. And then see, " Okay, what resonates? What kind of wording? How long should a text be?" And so forth. But that's really how I'd do it. I think there's a lot of potential in there, for sure.

Ryan Cramer: Cool. Well, before I let you go, David. Your agency that you guys have, there's so much kind of going on with the technology you're building. But also, the agency side. What is the rest of this year look like for you and your team to focus on? And then if they're interested, and you're listening to this, listener's like, " I need to talk to David. I need so much help with my micro- influencer strategy." Where do I go to engage with you?

David Morneau: So, yeah. Vision for the agency right now is really like... we're building up our influencer- to- ambassador solution from... we're building that out to a point where we want to include community in there, get the influencers to collaborate together, manage them for our clients. And we're also betting on the content approach to it. So, we have a lot of paid media clients that are just like, " Hey, we really don't care about the influencers. We really just want their content." And that's coming back, and back, and back. To a point where it's like, " Okay. We should have a dedicated solution for that." Which we have. And now, we're going to be putting that behind a platform. So, the advantage we have is we've worked with what? 25,000 plus micro- influencers to this point. So, we know who's a good creator, and who isn't. So, that's our huge advantage because we know who's reliable, and who isn't. We have all this data. So, we're just building out our small army of creator. And TikTok ad creator, Facebook ads creator. And we're just going to be doing that kind of content solution for that. So, I think the future of the agency for us is really just like... I mean, as an agency, recurring revenue is the best. We do this inaudible campaigns when a bigger brand comes to us and like, " Hey, we've got this budget that we want to drop on a campaign." It's cool, but we want to work recurringly with our client more and more. So, that's why we're betting on that. To reach me over at LinkedIn, I think... yeah, my LinkedIn is right there in my shot there. Or directly on our website agency, inbeat. agency, there's a link to inaudible you can book a call right there with me at the book a calls button. And gladly, we'll chat, and answer any questions-

Ryan Cramer: Of course.

Ryan Cramer: All

Ryan Cramer: the links to the website is... it's going to be in our comments section. If you're listening to this, it's going to be in our show notes as well. For those of you who are listening to us on our podcast, again, on Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcast, surely anywhere where you can listen to your podcast. We're on Amazon Music, for God's sake. We're in all crosstalk social media platforms. You just search Crossover Commerce. You're actually going to find us. So, with that being said, David, thank you so much today. I'm super fascinated by just marketing, in general. And I don't want to inaudible the person who thinks that I inaudible but these thoughts inaudible But I think we're on the same page of, you have to test it a lot, you have to think of creative ways in order to really build a brand, but make it so that it's consumable. Just kind of stay with trends and whatnot. But I guess my final question for you is what's the one brand that you wish would call you right after this podcast, and say, " David, it's time. We need to work together."

David Morneau: Yeah. Yeah. By far, it would be Spikeball. I just love working... I don't know if-

Ryan Cramer: Really?

David Morneau: ...you know what Spikeball is yet. I just love this game-

Ryan Cramer: I do know.

David Morneau: ...yeah, I just play it. I was asked the same question on another podcast. And I didn't know what to answer. But now, I rethought it, so I'm happy that you're giving me a second chance. But, yeah. Spikeball-

Ryan Cramer: crosstalk Spikeball fan, huh? All right.

David Morneau: I love it, yeah. And I think it's-

Ryan Cramer: So-

David Morneau: ...so marketable.

Ryan Cramer: So, with people don't know what this is, this would be almost like the trampoline version of hitting a ball in the middle, and running, and chasing it. Almost like a cross between volleyball and four corners. If you're crosstalk

David Morneau: Yeah. Yeah, that's a really good description. I usually give up explaining what it is, and I just show a video. But that's volleyball and four corners-

Ryan Cramer: Spikeball, if you're listening to this, we got two people here who explain your brand to people. Feel free to reach out. With that being said, David, thank you so much for jumping on Crossover Commerce today. Best of luck. You said you're inaudible starting a podcast soon, which is really exciting. You didn't mention that, but crosstalk

David Morneau: Yeah.

Ryan Cramer: What you're excited about. But best of luck in that. I'm really excited to hear what that's going to be... Do you know what the point of view or what that's going to look like?

David Morneau: No. No clue yet. Really no clue on that. Probably-

Ryan Cramer: Just on the list, right?

David Morneau: Yeah, exactly. Got a couple ideas. I want to interview great director to consumer and e- commerce entrepreneurs, and just talk to them, and geek out about stuff. That's pretty much the essence of it.

Ryan Cramer: That is the beauty of being a podcaster. Let me tell you. For everyone who knows... I call them friends of the show now. And listener knows this, that I have a front row seat to understand, and listen, and learn from the greatest minds in this space. And I don't take that lightly. I actually want to sit down, make sure that I'm an ambassador of what they're talking about. But then also wanting to make sure that everyone's getting their questions answered in that time because time is super precious. If we can understand and grow every single day, I think that helps everyone in your circle. Whether it's peer- wise, or professional- wise, or just personal- wise, you always want to continue to grow your circles. Whether it's learning new tips and tricks in your business, how to optimize, and grow forward, and just become a better human being all around. So, that's kind of what is exciting to be a podcaster. Best of luck on that. I'll have the crosstalk

David Morneau: Thank you, Ryan.

Ryan Cramer: ...but thanks for hopping on Crossover Commerce. I appreciate it.

David Morneau: It was a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Ryan Cramer: Awesome. Thanks, David.

David Morneau: Bye.

Ryan Cramer: Again, everyone, thank you for listening to episode 141 of Crossover Commerce. This is my corner of the internet. Like I said, we talk about everything in experts in the Amazon and e- commerce field. Again, we talked about micro- influencing today, which is very important for lots of sellers and brands selling both and Amazon and direct to consumer. So, that being said, just lots of great notes I was taking along with David from his agency and whatnot. You can check those out, again, in the comments section or the show notes, if you're listening to this podcast. Again, I'm Ryan Cramer. This week is packed. We have five live episodes. So, you want to subscribe to our social channels this week specifically, but also, forever, when we come out with great content on YouTube, or on Facebook, or on LinkedIn. I will go live on those channels. And then you can also subscribe to our channels in audio format. Not a big video person? You can listen to this on audio format. Go ahead and search Crossover Commerce on your favorite podcast channels. That being said, this is one of five this week. So, I'll be back at it tomorrow inaudible We'll be talking about how to leverage automation personalization strategies without having Amazon- like budget with Dan McGaw. Again, that's along format. But we're going to be talking about how to optimize and automate some of your experiences in your business moving forward. So, go ahead and check us out tomorrow. We'll be coming back here live on Crossover Commerce. Until then, take care, everyone. And we'll catch you next episode.