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DTC POD
#315 - The 100M+ Impression Strategy with Influencer Seeding feat. Josh Durham of Aligned Growth
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Blaine Bolus
Speaker
Josh Durham
Speaker
Ramon Berrios
00:00 Went bankrupt, transitioned to brand marketing, enjoyed. 06:57 Sponsoring creators, measuring performance, driving sales via influencers.
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“Today we are joined by Josh Durham, who is the founder of Align Growth, which is an agency that helps DTC brands scale through influencer partnerships and performance UGC.”
“Because any of these creators can be used for three different verticals within a company, which is for sourcing creative, for bringing awareness of the brand, or for bringing sales and revenue growth.”
“a lot of companies will do it even before or while you're doing the purchase, how did you hear about us, et cetera? But you're just adding more friction into the funnel. They might just select one of the multiple choice just to get it over with.”
“So over the last, when we're negotiating a deal with a creator, we're looking at the last ten videos. We're not just going off...Because I don't think that there's any true metric to use other than CPM and looking at the total views of that content over time to actually come up with an agreeable number.”
“And so how we think about that is instead of mass seeding out product, then I would take a small budget and go work with the biggest players in that space. That's how I would approach that.”
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What is up DTC pod? Today we are joined by Josh Durham, who is the founder of Align Growth, which is an agency that helps DTC brands scale through influencer partnerships and performance UGC. So Josh, I'll let you kick us off. Why don't you tell us a little bit about your background and how you got involved in the space and what led you into starting align growth?
Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Super stoked to be here. Thanks again for the invite. Yeah, I basically was an in house marketer for most of my career. I started in DSc in 2015 with a weighted blanket company. I scaled that out of my parents garage and scaled it up to 6 million a year. 60 employees.
And then that tanked overnight. I went bankrupt and then I hopped into in house role as head of growth at a company called Groove Life. And yeah, there I basically managed seven figures a month in ad spend. And so I've just always been a performance marketing guy. And I launched aligned growth in January of 2021 just doing performance marketing, paid social email marketing, but really was getting bored of it. And then all of a sudden I became my greatest fear, which is a brand marketer. And someone DM me like, hey, do you ever offer influencer marketing? And I was kind of like, I've done influencer before as part of the marketing mix at these in house brand, but never kind of just focus on it. But I took it on and I just really enjoyed it and it was just way more fun, just like way more creative.
And we just had all these crazy results for clients. And so ever since then, influencer marketing, creator businesses, like all that fun stuff, I just feel like is way more of a fun playbox, sorry, sandbox to play in than performance marketing. And it know adds to the rest of the business. So yeah, I've been doing it ever since. Sweet.
And one thing I'd love for you to break down, Josh, maybe for the audience is maybe the difference between all those different things. Like you mentioned, you've got performance, you've got creator, you've got influencer. And they're all related, but they're slightly different. So how do you think about all those different motions for a company and just characterize them for us, if you would?
Yeah, for sure. So I would say that's a great question because there's so many buzzwords around influencer. There's influencer, there's creator, there's affiliate, there's ambassador, there's like all these different buzwords that we can kind of chop it up. And so I like to use the word influencer. I feel like it's the most all encompassing of what we do at someone on organic social who has a sizable following primarily on Instagram and every, I would say every influencer is a creator. Not every creator is an influencer. So I think just in the last few years with UGC, we've seen all these micro creators who are making UGC content just for the sake of paid. So, but we really specialize in influencer versus UGC content creation.
So we are working with creators who have a following that are posting it organically on their page. And then brands can then leverage that however they see fit on their own organic social, on site, on paid social. And they're also getting the benefit of a top of funnel brand awareness play that ultimately is just beating the rest of the funnel.
Yeah. Because any of these creators can be used for three different verticals within a company, which is for sourcing creative, for bringing awareness of the brand, or for bringing sales and revenue growth. And so it seems like you really lean into the performance side of things. And I think most brands probably do awareness and don't do it as performance. But that's also because of a lack of understanding of how do you measure and use influencer as a channel of performance. I'm curious, which of those are you guys focus on? And it's like your bread and butter.
Yeah, for sure. So how we measure influencer is we really measure it as an attention channel. And so I think that people are measuring, try to measure influencer like it's 2015, where you just sponsor an influencer, you pay them $1,000 and then you see 5000 come back as a direct response. It's like they're trading influencers like paid social, where influencers should be treated much more like TV. And so where influencer is really there to drive. Top of funnel awareness, top of funnel traffic at cheap CPM. So we have clients that we will drive 100 million organic impressions a year at $8 cpms for the year. Just because, number one, we're sending out tons of free product.
We're also sponsoring creators posts and negotiating rates on a CPM basis. And then we see that performance translating eventually into sales through post purchase surveys and seeing seven figures plus of post purchase surveys coming in. But I think that as myself, as a performance guy moving into brand, you know that I want every single influencer to be driving sales via discount code or an affiliate link. But I often think that there's so much going on, especially if you're an eight figure, nine figure brand, there's so many marketing activities that those links are getting lost. The discount code is getting scooped up by retailmenot and it's off to the races from there. So those are kind of like the KPIs that we use to measure and how our most successful clients think about influencer as a channel.
That's super interesting about the post purchase survey as like attribution, because a lot of companies will do it even before or while you're doing the purchase, how did you hear about us, et cetera? But you're just adding more friction into the funnel. They might just select one of the multiple choice just to get it over with. So how does that work? How does that work for post purchase? Like what are they getting? And why would they share that info with you?
Yeah, for sure. It's actually pretty interesting, I think. Number one, a lot of our clients use no kno, like post purchase surveys, and they're selecting that as an actual channel in post purchase. And then they're referring to a specific influencer. But one of the things I was actually just talking to a brand like three weeks ago, he basically attributes the exact number is 42% of his revenue to influencers right now. But his affiliate links only attribute 20% of his total revenue to influencer. And there's this major drop off because of what I just mentioned. You see an influencers post on Instagram or TikTok, then you go to Google and then you type it in, you click on the brand search, Google gets the purchase.
They didn't track it with a link or a code or a view through a conversion. Nothing got tracked. And so he's lucky in the fact that he's a medical device sales and medical device sales. And basically it's a pre purchase survey, kind of like what you were mentioning is that when they're signing up for this prescription, they answer, where did you hear about us? And it's influencer. And it's like, which influencer? And that's how they're actually tracking back affiliate revenues per influencer. I don't know.
And do you manually reward those?
Yes, he manually rewards them month and reconciles sales versus what the affiliate links, which is good because then he could double down on those efforts because he knows that they're working. But I think that's like a missing piece. It's almost like this middle of funnel where people are dropping off on landing pages and going into email flows and then converting versus click a link to purchase.
Yeah. And I love the manually, the rewarding because at the end of the day, you want to incentivize the influencer as much as possible, then they might want to voluntarily just shout you out and continue working with you. Before we get into further on expanding relationships with influencers, I'm curious, you mentioned CPMs, and so that's sort of like the golden rule for you to decide which creators to activate. But I'm curious, how do you define the quality of those impressions? How do you sort of vet for the quality of those impressions? Because a creator might have really low CPMs. Then you look at them on the TikTok creator marketplace, and more than half their audience is in Philippines, et cetera. So I wonder what your vetting process for those impressions is.
Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, ultimately we are looking at the consistency of those views. So over the last, when we're negotiating a deal with a creator, we're looking at the last ten videos. We're not just going off. Like, if you look at TikTok, you'll see one video that has like 10 million plays or 100 million plays and they have all these likes, but all the rest of their videos have 1000 plays. And so there is some nuance, but we're doing it at such a high level, at such a high volume of creator partnerships that oftentimes in terms of where their following is coming from, we're not always going to every single creator and double checking where their audience, as long as they are in the specific country that our brands are in, that's how we look at it. But it's really about the consistency of volume because I don't think that there's any true metric to use other than CPM and looking at the total views of that content over time to actually come up with an agreeable number. Otherwise, a lot of brands have just been burned.
Like in the last few years of I paid $5,000 for an Instagram reel and nothing happened. I paid $2,000 for a story and they had a million followers, but nothing happened. And so I think at the end of the day, we have to think of ourselves as performance marketers. We're not magicians, we're marketers. And so we need a testing budget and we need to see what the results are over time. So starting with the global budget as $5,000 a month, $10,000 a month to start sponsoring creator content and seeing what the results were over time, kind of looking at the comments, seeing who are the type of people that are commenting, making sure those aren't people, just bots or people in the Philippines, but getting a better understanding of who they are.
You mentioned that you look at the last ten and then say one might have popped with 10 million views. I'm curious what your thoughts are on. Well, if we look at the last 20, every one out of four hit a million plus views, whatever initial performance was. Okay, let's just pay for four for this creator. Or do you just sort of say, like, do one off engagements with each creator? Does the math make sense there?
Yeah, that's a good question. Sorry, I'm going to pause for 1 second. I'm going to close my door because my dog jumped in here a second ago.
Oh, good. No worries.
Sorry about that. I have a Doberman and it was like, I thought the door was closed and he just came in here and I was like, I thought he was about to bark out the window. I was like, oh, definitely.
Good.
So annoying. All right, so your question was about deliverables. Like, quantity of deliverables. So I think that number one, how we like to approach most creator relationships is always through free product first. And so our clients, typically 80% of each brand's partnerships is through product gifting. It's such an efficient method to generate awareness. The cogs are going to be so cheap compared to the influencer typical rate that we're able to get tons of content and awareness for a deep discount. So number two is in terms of approaching those larger partnerships.
Yes. We, number one, can bake that into a retainer. So we might do like a three month contract with a creator. So instead of a one off post, there's like a three to four month engagement where they're posting several times a month. And it's that whole kind of methodology of someone needs to see content six to seven times on average before they purchase. Like that kind of whole methodology, it's actually true. I feel like people just say that and you're kind of like, okay, this guy is so fake. But I actually just had a client who they started out with a really well known famous surfer last year.
And honestly, in the first two or three months, they were only driving like $800 a month, maybe for an eight figure brand, which is just nothing. And then over time, as they continued to use the product and kept showing up consistently, they're starting to drive 60, $70,000 worth of sales every single month. So I think that it makes a lot of sense to start on free product first, but then having a retainer style engagement is always available. But each deal is different. And I think that there's different things that you can pull, like creative rights and usage rights over a certain period of time of six months or a year. That kind of help you get the contract to a cheaper rate.
Yeah, to make that work, you need volume, right? Like, you need volume in terms of responses of creators. And so there's so much heavy lifting to get a machine like that going, especially when it comes to sourcing, right? Like most people, if sourcing is up to them, they think of their competitors, they go, look which influencers are promoting their competitors and they run out of sources or where to source from immediately. And then they go and pay a ton of money for an influencer database. But not everyone in the database is going to want to work with them for free products. So how does your agency ensure that there's going to be enough volume for the brand?
Oh, man, that's a great question. I think number one is who the brand is, right? What we found is, number one, there are plenty of female creators who are in a women's apparel niche. There's, like, infinite volume for that. There's so many influencers out there that we can just keep working with them. But if you're in the men's apparel space, that volume is going to be way less. There's just not as many. We've worked in that space before, and it's so challenging to get the right volume just because if you think about influencers as Tam, there's just not as many. There just aren't.
And so I think you have to reset expectations per brand. We've actually worked in the outdoors space in kind of like, survival prepper type niches as well, and that was just another niche that's very few and far between. There's probably only maybe 300 total, really quality influencers in that space. And so how we think about that is instead of mass seeding out product, then I would take a small budget and go work with the biggest players in that space. That's how I would approach that. And so you just have to think about that. What's the total tam of your current market and those influencers? And then instead of sending out product, how can you introduce payment terms that make sense for them? Because at the end of the day, most influencers want consistent income over a one off hit of a post, and that way they can maintain integrity. They're working with the same brand over time.
Then they start building affinity with their audience because they've been prolonging the same one over a year versus shilling out know products and random brands every other month. And so, yeah, to answer your, like, every brand is different. And so I would kind of go more small ball and using a small budget to go with more intimate relationships.
Josh, if you're at the level, maybe you're a little bit know, approaching an agency to handle this whole play and imagine you're running your own brand and you want to tap into influencer. What would your strategy be if you were launching your own brand and you were like, I've got a little bit of budget, maybe I don't quite have the five or ten grand a month. How many creators are you working with? How much product are you seeding? I know some of it, like you said, depends on the market that you're in. But how would you structure it yourself if you were a brand?
Yeah, for sure. So how I like to think about it is, well, number one, if you're not at seven figures yet, I would just invest into paid social and email marketing and search and shopping before I even touch influencer. That's how I think of building a brand first, because a lot of times these influencer posts, it's going to be a one off hit where it's not going to be super consistent unless you're whitelisting through their page. So if you're not at seven figures yet, just stay focused on paid social and email and get to one to three mil. And so at that, I would say like 1 million a year to 5 million a year. If we're talking about kind of buckets for this, is I would really focus on just product gifting. I would just work on, number one, I would have a social media manager who is managing your TikTok, managing your Instagram, and managing your influencer partnerships. And so what I would have them do is I would get an out of the box tool.
There's a lot of great tools we use aspire and we also use a great tool called story Clash. And so I would use an out of the box tool like that and I would have them basically hit a KPI of 100 to 200 influencers sourced per week. And I would really just work on how can I efficiently generate as much content and awareness as possible just for free product weekly. And I would really focus on the lead measure of for how many influencers I reach out to, how many are opting into the campaign and want to work with us because you really need to. Maybe it's a landing page, maybe it's the type of creators that you're reaching out to, but you need to really find product market fit when it comes to influencers and just focus on getting products shipped. Like, I would just focus on getting ten shipments per week. So 40 a month going out and then you're probably going to get 30 posts a week. That's like one a day.
Sorry, 30 a month and that's like one a day. And then you're then going to be able to take all that content, put it onto your own organic social, and then also use that for paid social, use it for on site conversions, for optimizing the landing page. And so that's just how I would be going, is instead of taking three k to pay creators, I would take three k of cost of goods sold and just focus on efficiently generating new content awareness out of the market.
Yeah. Because if you're in the early stages and you're a solo founder, it's just way too much work. So it makes total sense. Why do the paid channels, like somebody might listen and think, get motivated one day, start reaching out to some influencers and start getting responses. But just the process of constantly sourcing, constantly reaching out. You need the volume so you have the leverage and the negotiation and the patience to understand. You don't have to say yes to everything, you probably have to say no to most responses you get with rates and all that. Whereas if you don't have the.
What's that?
I said it's going to be a grind, just like. And understand that you're going to get so much back and forth that you're going to be demotivated. So you might as well delegate this to someone on your team to figure it out.
Yeah. So your entire premise basically is, let's say get 5000 top of funnel like influencers to reach out to 30% or so are going to reply and then 20% or so are going to be down to do it for gifting and then you just do that over and over at mass scale, right?
Yeah. So I would say start with 100 to 200 creators a week sourced and then your opt in rates should vary between ten to 40% depending on the type of creator, what kind of product you have. And then I would just focus on optimizing that opt in rate so that tons of product is going out and you're getting those posts back and then following up. Right. They're going to get. Another great thing that we've done is we'll follow up via SMS, we'll follow up via email. And I think, yeah, to your point, Ramon, it's just about delegating this to someone who is just a part of their don't. If you're a solo founder, you don't want to be relying on motivation.
This is just something that just needs to happen automatically each week. And so we're helping build that system and we've done this for brands. We'll coach their teams in house and we'll just train them and plug the system in so that they can just get what they need. Most brands, they don't have enough content to test and paid social and across organic and so all of a sudden they're getting 40 new pieces of content that they didn't have before and just makes their media buyers happy. Makes your organic social teams happy, and then they're off to the races.
We are really excited to announce that DTCPoD is officially part of the HubSpot podcast network. The HubSpot Podcast Network is the audio destination for business professionals, and we're really excited about being part of the network because we're going to be able to keep growing the show, bringing you guys amazing guests, and obviously helping you guys learn from the best founders, marketers, and builders of the most successful consumer brands. So anyway, keep listening to DTC pod and more shows like us on the HubSpot podcast network at PodcastNetwork.
What is your take on the platforms? Because I feel like it's kind of a booster and a helper, but most people think, okay, I want to do influencers, let's get on a platform. And not to say that the platforms don't work at all, but I just think there's so much to this process in terms of operationally. So I'm curious. You mentioned some platforms. So it's interesting to me that not only do you do it in house, but you also leverage the platform. So what's your overall take on existing platforms?
Yeah, that's a great question. I don't know. I think that it's so helpful to have a great tech stack. I'm kind of biased. I promise I don't have any affiliate links to send you guys. I promise.
No, we want to hear them.
Yeah, I've been through so many, I usually pay like $50,000 a year just in software costs. And so I've tested everything. And in my book, our favorite tools, our top two tools right now are aspire and story clash. And I want to talk about. So I'll talk about the first one. I'll talk about story clash first because it's the best sourcing tool that we found. And the reason that it's the best sourcing tool that we've ever found is because they don't have a good relationship with meta. And so any influencer software tool.
That's so true. We have an amazing relationship with meta. We have an amazing relationship with TikTok. The tool is usually way worse because.
They depend on their API, and that's the problem. It's like their benefit and their curse.
Yes. And so instead of the API, they're typically scraping the data, and the data is way better. Know Meta, TikTok. They're all going towards this first party creator data to know where their following is from, how fast their following story clash. They're based in Austria and they're part of the EU data privacy kind of stuff. So number one, their data is super clean, but they don't have the relationship with meta, which makes their sourcing tool way better. So I can go in, I can look at, I can actually search brands in there and I can see every influencer that they've worked with in the past year and I can export that as a list. So that's just like such a great advantage when a new brand is onboarding and I can go look at who their competitors are working with and then maybe even just look at their current existing influencers and make a look like off of that audience.
But I'll say that that is the best sourcing tool where aspire has been the best and in my book, like the most affordable management tool. So number one, building out campaigns decentralized, where influencers are coming in to apply. So we always set up an evergreen campaign of just, this is a central application for influencers or affiliates to apply, but then creating larger moments throughout the quarter where we're building out campaigns around new product drops, promotions, maybe they're doing something at retail that we're going to have 30 to 40 influencers actually go in store or paying them to go make content about their experience going into target or Walmart. And so aspire just has a ton of awesome capabilities there that make it super easy to make new campaigns to ship product through your Shopify store. Or are, I guess in terms of like, do you need to use a tool? No, you don't. I think you can get by on some spreadsheets and doing it through DMs, but if you want to really scale it out, then I think having a solid tech stack is super.
Yeah, so. So, Josh, I want to move over to talking about type of results when this is done right. And so the biggest cost for a brand owner is the opportunity cost of this, wasting the potential of this in a year, trying it in house, et cetera. So when done right with a system like yours where you just plug it in, you start the machine, you're running it, what can a brand expect? I assume you probably work with brands that are high seven figures, eight figures, et cetera. What type of results have you generated for them?
Yeah, for sure. So like I mentioned last year we had a large brand that we generated over 100 million organic impressions at $8 cpm. And so just like really cheap eyeballs on product that then is leading to sales. And then that's also including 2000 influencer, like tagged influencer posts just from my team's ability. And so 80% of that is just through free product and the other 20% of that is through paid partnerships. But I think if you're, let's say, a $6 million a year ecom brand, that's just getting into influencer. I think in three months you can sign 100 creators and expect to start seeing 510 15 posts per week coming in consistently. I think that's a great benchmark is do I have consistently ten posts a week coming in from the last seven days.
That's a great start. And then focusing on generating awareness, what type of content is hitting the algorithm and doing well from a viral standpoint, and then really directing those creators on this is the type of content we would like you to emulate. So that we're getting into the algorithm and that it's performing from an awareness standpoint. It's not just content numbers, it's also awareness. And so what we'll do for our clients is really just building out creative briefs. And they're not scripts. We're really just giving them content that we've seen do well from a paid perspective on paid social or organic social, that then that creator can then emulate, not copy, but just emulate maybe the structure of that content. And we'll give them examples in that brief of this is what we like to see.
And so eventually we want to see a million organic impressions in a given month at an $8 cpm. Can we beat your Facebook CPMs? They're at $30. And can we get that down to ten to $15? And then also, how is that content performing from a paid social perspective? Getting your feedback from your media buyer? So, yeah, those are kind of like, some of the results is like five to ten posts a week, getting up to 100 creator sign total, getting up to a million organic impressions a month, and then just continuing to feed that funnel.
Josh, one thing that you just mentioned that I kind of want to go a little deeper on was the importance of creator briefs.
Right.
What are you sending to the creator? So, a, they have all the relevant information. Like you're saying there's content they can emulate. What type of swipe file from the brand do you see work best? Where the creator has what they need to create content and be authentic to the brand without being super overwhelmed and being like, oh my God, this is way too much for me to deal with.
Yeah, 100%. So I'll just say at a high level, we're not giving them a script, we're giving them guardrails. Right. Especially if you have a sensitive product that, especially in the medical device kind of realm or something like that, you want to make it super quickly and clearly say, do not say this. Here's are the things that you don't want to say. And then get to the point. Because essentially, if there's an influencer doing this for free product, they are not going to be spending an hour reading through your creative brief and going through your five different intro hooks that you would like them to film and the seven different product benefits. We want like three big call outs that ideally we like you to hit.
And here are some examples of content that have done well. So at the end of the day, we want to let the creator create and let them do their thing versus coaching them to read off a script. So I don't know, just know that they are going to read it for maybe two minutes. Like, their attention span is just as short as ours is. And so don't ask over the moon in those briefs.
You're not going to nail it every time, right? Like, even if you send guardrails and examples, then you'll get the ones that literally just copy the example. And there goes that campaign and lost products, et cetera. You really have to think at mass scale in order to be able to have a successful campaign. I'm curious, do you guys measure, when you talk about there's two sides here, there's the operations, and then there's a strategy as well. How does your agency engage? Do you guys layer it where it's like, well, if you just want the machine and the operations, or do you think it all needs to be cohesive and it's a whole thing in order for it to be successful?
Yeah, that's a good question.
Like the measurement and refining asides from just running the whole thing.
Yeah, for sure. So I think it's super important to have, number one, your tech stack dialed top level. We basically have three phases that we break down of what we call the influencer roadmap. So the first phase is what we call the design phase, and we're really going to design the foundations of your influencer program. So number one, who are the type of influencers that we want to go after? There's probably three to four to five different types of markets and different types of influencers that we can actually go after and that we can a B test week over week to see who has a higher opt in rate versus the next guy. So we'll kind of like stay in that niche. So maybe if you have a female led brand, maybe you're going into fitness, maybe you're going into cooking, maybe it's a stay at home mom, maybe there's all these different types of demographics that we can think about and a B test and then we're going to go build it out in a centralized hub like an aspire like a grin as a centralized tech sack. And then we're going to have a creative brief and then the scale piece really comes through team.
So what we have on our team is we have a dedicated account manager for strategy and then we also have a dedicated influencer specialist who's going to do all the sourcing and outreach. And on top of that we just have a VA to support on email replies. So we have responses ready to go for when people are responding to our emails. And so we're sending out 200 influencer emails per week per brand. So it's just a really high volume per brand. And then we're measuring those opt in rates and we're onboarding and shipping product. And then the last thing is just optimizing the program. So grabbing that content and doing the reporting.
So we want consistent reporting week over week of how many creators we sourced, how much product was sent, how many people applied, how much content was posted organic reach. Here's all that content that the media team can use. So it's just like there's just so many layers and then you can get into paid budgets and then that's a whole nother ballgame where you're negotiating with an influencer's agent, you're redlining contracts, you're going back and forth via email. They're super difficult. They want $10,000 for your reel. It's all super exhausting, but also fun because at the end of the day they come back with this when that one piece of content hits. We had one piece of content last, actually in February that had 10 million views. That's when I get excited, is like all this hard work was really worth it.
And so there's so many layers to this. But at the end of the day, when that content comes back and it's firing off, that's when it really gets fun.
Yeah, totally. I know when it comes to, you mentioned you have the VA on the replies. And when it comes to negotiations, which is what goes down on the email, I wonder if brands that are looking to work with you, et cetera, they're like, oh, free product. We don't want our brand to be damaged and thinking we're trying to take advantage of creators, et cetera. I've seen you on Twitter get shade for people saying you're giving creators sampling, et cetera. So I'm curious what your take is on that. For brands that are thinking that they need to pay up to not damage their brand reputation in quotation.
Yeah, I don't know. I think that it's pretty commonplace now for free product. I just think that it's just part of the game. And the reason you need to do a lot of a high volume of outreach is because of all the influencers who think they need to be paid for that content. And I'm not saying that they shouldn't be, but I feel like before payment comes dating, which is sending free product, I think that also the product needs to be good. If people aren't willing to do it for free, maybe it's because the product. Right? Like, I don't think that more people want another moisturizer in the mail.
Dude wipes toilet paper.
Yeah, exactly. But, like, my friend Dakota, he just sent me a pizza oven in the mail, and I was like, this thing is amazing. Like the wood fire pizza oven. And I was so stoked about it, and I started filming content in my backyard. I was know hoping that he would like it so that he can use it on ilads or whatever he wants to use it for. And he texted me and he's like, dude, this is the most high quality content I've seen in a while because he just has a hard time with customers actually making good content. And so I just think the product needs to be great. So if I want to send you guys your favorite men's apparel, you're going to be like, heck, yes, please send me that sick hoodie.
Or please send me that new pair of shoes. People get excited about that still. I get excited about that. I get stuff sent to me all the time. I've gotten cold plunges. I've gotten supplements. I've got all this free stuff just from being on d to c twitter that I get so stoked about free product. I think it's the same for influencers still.
I just think that you need to have a roadmap to getting them paid. So that was like, the first step is maybe a one off post, but then you have these other campaigns throughout the quarter where it might be a pay per post, where maybe it's a longer term engagement on running whitelisting ads, putting them on retainer to post every month. So I think that you just need to make that clear for the influencer.
Josh, one of the last questions I had for you is kind of like the overlap between, like you're saying, the influencer content, if you can get the rights to it and publishing it, and UGC, I think UGC traditionally has always done really well because you can test it really quickly. It's cheap to generate comparatively. But one thing that we've noticed in some of the creative that we're running is sometimes when we took a piece of creative that was done by a real influencer who's a really solid creator and lets it rip, it's just like eating all the budget compared to the UGC we're putting out. So is that something that you see as well? Where before maybe there wasn't as much content, now you really have to hit one out of the park to put performance budget behind it?
Yeah, that's a good question. I don't know. I feel like part of it too is we've had videos that will just be part of a mashup that keeps getting repurposed for that next holiday sale. At this point, that one video has done like seven figures, but it's like a part of a mashup. It's like not even a singular video. And so I don't know, I feel like I can't sit here and tell you what the answer is of what's going to work and what's not going to work. I'm not an ad whisperer like David Herman is, but I think that just having that content that you can then edit and making sure that you get the creative rights up front is the most important piece, because if you have to get them afterwards, the rate's going to be way more expensive. And so just establishing that upfront that you have that six month length and creator breaks is going to go a long way.
Well, Josh, I know we've peppered you here with questions. My last question is around the editing. How much is editing the content play a part in the whole process?
Yeah, so we have our in house editors that were able to turn around that raw footage into more direct response style content. But a lot of brands have their own in house teams, so I think it's like a big part of it. I think having captions, like most people are watching Instagram with their audio off. So just like putting in captions, putting in some music to make it feel a little bit more upbeat. But sometimes just throwing in the raw footage can help too, making it feel like it's not an ad so that people stay on and then they realize it's an ad, I think is kind of the name of the game because I don't know, I don't know about you guys, but nowadays I just feel like most ugc creators just feel so fake that you just know it's an ad right away and you just go on to the next thing. So I feel like this is so cliche, but making it feel as native and as authentic as possible is going to help you win in the algorithm at the end of the day. But again, sorry for the cliche sayings, but it's true.
No. And that is why you don't give a script, because that's when it just looks like a commercial that was pre planned. So Josh, thank you for coming on the pod today. For anyone who's listening that might want to learn more about aligned growth and keep up with all your stuff, where can they find you?
Yeah, if you just number one, follow me on Twitter at Josh jdurham on Twitter. That's where I'm most active. And then you can come to our website@alignedgrowthmanagement.com, and you can check out some case studies and feel free to book a call with me and we can chat about strategy. Whether or not you work with us. I'm always down to just have a conversation, but yeah, those are the two best places to find me. Sweet.
Thanks for coming on the show, Josh.
Yeah, thanks Josh.
Thanks for tuning in and we hope you enjoyed this episode of DTC Pod. If you enjoyed the show, we'd love your support. A rating and review would go a long way as we continue to host the best builders in DTC and beyond. Follow and subscribe to the show and make sure to check out our show notes where you can find our socials and weekly newsletter. Visit us on dtcpod.com to join our founder community and access resources from every episode. We'll see you on the next pod.
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1️⃣ One Sentence Summary
Josh Durham discusses strategies for efficient influencer marketing growth.
💼 LinkedIN - 6 Reasons Post
Influencer marketing is ESSENTIAL for DTC Brands! On the DTC POD, Josh Durham, founder of Align Growth, reveals six compelling reasons why Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) brands should leverage influencer marketing for exponential growth:
It's not about going viral, but consistent growth.
Durham advises that the goal with influencers should be consistent viewership over time, not just one-off viral hits. This approach builds brand presence and customer trust more effectively.
Strategic delegation increases your outreach.
By delegating influencer outreach, as Durham highlights, brands can efficiently contact 100-200 influencers per week. This process can significantly increase brand visibility and potential partnerships.
Free product gifting is the gateway.
Starting with product gifting allows brands to test partnerships with influencers with minimal risk. Durham explains that this strategy can lead to more substantial collaborations and even retainer-based relationships.
Specialized tools streamline the process.
Durham recommends using platforms like Aspire and Story Clash, which specialize in influencer sourcing and have strong relationships with major social platforms, making the influencer marketing process more efficient and effective.
Volume and niche targeting are crucial.
In influencer marketing, especially for niche markets, volume may be limited. Durham suggests building intimate relationships with a small group of influential creators rather than focusing on mass outreach.
Proper tracking leads to informed decisions.
Relying on tools like post-purchase surveys instead of solely affiliate links allows brands to better attribute revenue to influencers and justify the investment in influencer marketing, as Durham's clients have experienced.
TAKEAWAY:
Focus on consistent influencer engagement over viral dreams.
Delegate for broader influencer outreach.
Start with product gifting to open doors.
Utilize specialized tools for better influencer connections.
Embrace volume in outreach and niche specifics.
Track effectively to measure influencer impact accurately.
Remember, it's about aligning growth and creating an impactful brand presence with the help of savvy influencer collaborations.
Interview Breakdown
In this episode, Josh Durham, founder of Align Growth, shares his expertise on amplifying direct-to-consumer brands through strategic influencer partnerships and performance UGC. Josh provides a deep dive into the best practices for nurturing influencer relationships and leveraging content to fuel top-of-funnel growth.
Today, we'll discuss:
The critical stages of influencer partnership development for brands at different revenue levels
The indispensability of tools like Aspire and Story Clash for efficient influencer sourcing and campaign management
Strategies for fostering consistent and productive relationships with creators to maximize content impact
The pivotal role of testing budgets and demographic research in connecting with genuine and relevant influencers
Insights into Align Growth's approach to measuring the effectiveness of influencer marketing in driving brand awareness and revenue.
💬 Keywords
influencer marketing,
paid social,
email marketing,
product gifting,
influencer partnerships,
influencer sourcing,
influencer outreach,
social media platforms,
TikTok marketing,
content generation,
creator partnerships,
performance metrics,
CPM,
audience demographics,
affiliate marketing,
UGC creation,
top-of-funnel awareness,
post-purchase surveys,
brand reputation,
creative rights,
performance UGC,
influencer content,
organic impressions,
brand awareness,
influencer programs,
influencer engagement,
influencer strategy,
growth marketing,
DTC brands,
marketing tools.
🔑 7 Key Themes
Prioritizing paid social and email marketing.
Delegating influencer sourcing and outreach.
Negotiating deals focused on consistency.
Testing budgets for audience relevance.
Building relationships in niche markets.
Align Growth's influencer marketing strategy.
Repurposing influencer content effectively.
📚 Timestamped overview
00:00 After bankruptcy, moved to head of growth at Groove Life, managed ad spend, shifted to influencer marketing, found it more enjoyable and creative.
06:57 Company sponsors creators, measures performance, aims for sales, but faces challenges with discount codes and affiliate links.
10:56 Brands assess creator consistency, volume, and audience location to negotiate deals and avoid potential risks.
12:06 Invested in influencer content with poor results; advocates for performance marketing approach and testing budget.
17:15 Reset brand expectations, work with few quality influencers, offer consistent income over one-off payments, prioritize integrity.
19:12 Focus on investing in paid social, email marketing, and search and shopping before using influencer marketing, especially if not at seven figures yet. Once at 1-3 million annually, focus on product gifting and influencer partnerships.
22:42 Source 100-200 creators weekly, focus on 10-40% opt-in rates, delegate follow-up, and avoid reliance on motivation.
27:11 Aspire is a top sourcing and management tool for influencer campaigns.
29:54 Guiding creators with successful content structure for awareness and performance.
33:53 Importance of tech stack, influencer program design phases, influencer types and demographics. Scale through team efforts.
38:21 Excited about pizza oven gift, creates content, receives positive feedback.
41:38 In-house editors create direct response content. Use captions, music, and raw footage for authenticity.
43:06 Connect on Twitter and visit website for strategy discussion.
📚 Timestamped overview
00:00 Went bankrupt, transitioned to brand marketing, enjoyed.
06:57 Sponsoring creators, measuring performance, driving sales via influencers.
10:56 Consistency of views crucial for creator partnerships.
12:06 Testing budget needed for influencer marketing results.
17:15 Reset expectations per brand, work with influencers.
19:12 Focus on paid social, email, search, shopping.
22:42 Source 100-200 creators weekly, optimize opt-in rates.
27:11 Best sourcing and management tool for influencers.
29:54 Guide creators to emulate successful content for clients.
33:53 Importance of tech stack in influencer marketing.
38:21 Excited about new pizza oven, creating content.
41:38 In-house editors create authentic, engaging content.
43:06 Connect on Twitter and visit website. Book call.
❇️ Key topics and bullets
Primary Topic: Influencer Marketing Strategy for Brand Growth
Focusing on Paid Social, Email Marketing, and Search
Prioritizing initial investments for brands under seven figures
Embracing Product Gifting and Content Creation for Established Brands
Strategy for brands earning between 1 to 5 million annually
The Role of Influencer Sourcing and Outreach
Importance of consistent outreach to 100-200 influencers weekly
Utilization of tools like Aspire and Story Clash
Primary Topic: Efficient Influencer Partnerships and Content Generation
Delegation of Tasks for Solo Founders
Assigning influencer outreach and content generation to team members
Negotiating with Creators for Consistent Views
Focusing on consistent engagement rather than chasing viral content
Volume of Creator Partnerships and Performance Metrics
Balancing volume and metrics like CPM for effective partnerships
Primary Topic: Testing and Audience Demographics
Necessity for a Budget Allocated to Testing
Understanding demographics to ensure relevant audiences
Influencer Deals and Usage Rights
Negotiating terms for creative usage to reduce rates
Importance of Volume in Niche Markets
Building strong relationships with a smaller influencer pool
Primary Topic: Launching Influencer Campaigns and Align Growth’s Expertise
Strategy Dependent on Brand Influence Level
Customizing approach based on budget and market needs
Josh Durham’s Professional Background and Agency Foundation
Transition from in-house marketer to founder of Align Growth
Specialization in Influencer Content vs. User-Generated Content
Measuring influencer marketing's impact on brand awareness and sales
Primary Topic: Attribution and Effectiveness of Influencer Marketing
Limitations and Challenges in Tracking Influencer Impact
The discrepancy between revenue attribution and affiliate links
Direct Rewards and Pre-Purchase Surveys
Methods to track sales and analyze influencer effectiveness
Primary Topic: Influencer Relationship and Content Management
The Value of High-Quality Products in Cooperation
The impact of offering free products prior to payment negotiations
User-Generated Content and Influencer Overlap
Challenges and benefits of repurposing influencer content
Aspire as a Key Tool for Campaign Management and Sourcing
Building campaigns and tracking influencer participation with Aspire
Primary Topic: Campaign Success and Content Strategies
Achieving Significant Organic Impressions and Low CPM
Leveraging content for brand awareness and reaching a broad audience
Providing Creative Freedom with Guardrails
Delivering creator briefs that guide but do not restrict content
Centralized Platform for Influencer Programs
Utilizing Aspire as a hub for influencer program development and assessment
Primary Topic: Scaling Influencer Marketing and Creating Impact
The Three-Phase "Influencer Roadmap"
Outlining the process from design to scaling with a specialized team
Decentralized Approach to Building Influencer Campaigns
Encouraging influencer-driven application processes and brand moments
🎬 Reel script
Hey, it's Blaine Bolus here from DTC POD, and we just wrapped up a fantastic episode with the master of influencer partnerships, Josh Durham of Align Growth. Josh shared his priceless insights on scaling DTC brands. Starting with his early days pioneering growth at Groove Life, Josh now spearheads influencer strategy, ensuring every partnership drives your brand's awareness sky high. He bets on quality content over viral hits and calls for a dedicated team to reach out to a plethora of influencers weekly. Josh swears by Aspire for creator sourcing, aiming for impressive organic impressions and engagement. For all the entrepreneurs out there, this is the playbook you need for effective influencer collaboration. Check out 'Josh Durham - Aligned Growth' on DTC POD for the full strategy rundown. Trust me, it's a game-changer for your business.
✏️ Custom Newsletter
Subject: 🚀 Dive into the Secrets of Aligned Growth with Josh Durham on DTC POD!
Hey there!
Hope you’ve been rockin’ it with your brand and looking for that next big strategy to level up your game!
🎧 NEW PODCAST ALERT! 🎉
We just dropped a must-listen episode on DTC POD that’s all about scaling your brand through smart influencer partnerships! Dive in as Blaine Bolus and Ramon Berrios chat with Josh Durham, the whiz behind Aligned Growth, and peel back the layers on influencer marketing that actually moves the needle.
Here’s a sneak peek at the deets you’ll snag:
Prioritization Magic: Find out why you should master paid social, email marketing, and search before jumping onto the influencer bandwagon if you're not yet raking in those seven figures.
Influencer Outreach Playbook: Get the insider track on why shooting for 100-200 influencer reaches per week could be your golden ticket and how tools like Aspire and Story Clash can up your game.
The Delegation Lowdown: Discover the power of handing over the reins of influencer sourcing and content creation when you're a solo founding superhero.
The Creator Connection: Learn why Josh champions consistent views from creators over one-hit viral wonders and how to dictate the right numbers for your partnerships.
Navigating Niches: Josh spills the beans on how to establish key relationships when your market feels like a tight-knit community.
And here’s a juicy tidbit: Josh and his team have cooked up over 100 million organic impressions and know a thing or two about stretching a penny on those CPMs – talk about bang for your buck!
As we wrap this up, don’t forget—
You’re amazing at what you do, but a little influencer marketing prowess could be that secret spice you’ve been missing! 🌟
Keen to learn more? Zip on over to the DTC POD and let Josh Durham lead the way to align your brand with success! And, hey, why not share the wealth? Spread the word and tell your friends about this episode—they’ll thank you later!
👉 Hit Play Now: [Insert Podcast Link]
Keep crushing it out there,
[Your Name]
P.S. Pop by Aligned Growth Management’s website for a deeper dive into Josh’s strategies. You won’t regret it!
Let’s keep this party rolling—connect with us on Twitter, share your thoughts on the episode, and join our community of savvy brand builders!
#DTCPod #AlignedGrowth #InfluencerMarketing
Click unsubscribe here if you’re not into awesome tips for growing your brand (but we hope you are!).
🐦 Business Lesson Tweet Thread
1/ A treasure trove hides in plain sight for DTC brands looking to scale. It's not just about investing cash into marketing but steering the ship towards true alignment with your audience.
2/ The secret? Start simple. Use paid social, email, and search to build your foundation. Influencer marketing can wait until you hit that seven-figure mark.
3/ Hitting 1-5 million a year? Now's the time. But wield the influence wisely—product gifting, for efficiency in content and awareness.
4/ Take the load off your shoulders. Outsource influencer scouting and engagement. Aim for 100-200 outreach touches per week. Systemize to maximize opt-in rates.
5/ Tap into the power of tech. Aspire and Story Clash aren't just tools, they're your ticket to smoother rides on platforms like TikTok and Meta.
6/ Consistency beats viral flukes. Secure deals with creators that bring steady views. Look beyond the dazzle of one-hit wonders.
7/ Numbers talk. Dive into CPM and total views. Don't just aim for big numbers—seek the right numbers that agree with your brand's heartbeat.
8/ Free product gifting sets the stage, laying the groundwork for possibly deeper, retainer-based creator relationships.
9/ Play smart with contracts. Creative and usage rights can trim costs. Remember, it's a dance of give and take.
10/ When choices are limited by niche markets, forge deep, consistent connections with a few key influencers.
11/ In-house influencer campaigns? Tailor your strategy to your budget, market, and influence sphere.
12/ And here's a win — a client once credited 42% of revenue to influencers. Tracking can be a pain, but manual rewards and pre-purchase surveys can hack the system.
13/ Measure twice, cut once. Quality impressions are more than numbers—they're about audience relevance. Who is actually watching?
14/ Curate reports like they're works of art. Keep track of creators sourced, products sent out, and that oh-so-vital, organic reach.
15/ Understand the chess game of influencer cooperation. Free products aren't just freebies—they're strategic moves towards beneficial relationships.
16/ The blend of influencer content and UGC? It's a delicate dance, ensuring performance without diluting authenticity.
17/ Rights matter. Get them upfront. Then turn good content into gold by editing for impact and platform suitability.
18/ Big moments surge with new products. It's about creating and capturing the wave, not just riding it.
19/ Keep your campaigns fierce with freedom. Creator briefs should be guardrails, not scripts. Inspire, don't confine.
20/ Three's the magic number for your influencer roadmap. Design, build a hub, then launch your dedicated team to the stars.
21/ And for those wanting to delve deeper into this world, Aligned Growth Management opens its virtual doors. Come see how we merge influence and attention to fuel that top-of-the-funnel fire.
End/ In the world of DTC, aligned growth isn't just a nice phrase—it's a mission, a journey, and a winning strategy. This is where engagement drives sales, where impressions turn into lasting brand relationships, and where every influencer touch can be your next growth lever.
🎓 Lessons Learned
Sure, here are concise titles and descriptions for the lessons covered as per the key facts from the episode featuring Josh Durham:
Strategic Investment Order
Focus on paid social, email, and search before exploring influencer marketing for sub-million revenue brands.Gift Before Paying
For 1-5 million yearly revenue, prioritize product gifting, content creation, and awareness through influencer partnerships efficiently.Outreach Optimization
Delegate influencer outreach to reach 100-200 weekly, using tools like Aspire and Story Clash for improved rates.Delegation Necessity
Essential for solo founders to delegate influencer sourcing and content creation to effectively manage campaigns.Consistency Over Virality
Negotiate with creators for consistent views to ensure steady brand engagement over time, instead of one-off viral hits.Testing Budget Importance
Establish a testing budget, focus on audience demographics to ensure relevance and avoid non-engaging bots.Comprehensive Deal Structuring
Start with product gifting and consider retainer-based engagements for multiple posts, negotiating creative and usage rights for better rates.Niche Relationship Building
In limited niche markets, focus on building deep relationships with fewer influencers for consistent brand partnerships.Effective Reporting
Maintain consistent reporting on creator sourcing metrics, product distribution, applications, and organic reach to refine strategy.Content Repurposing Success
Achieve high engagement by repurposing influencer content across platforms, securing creative rights, and editing for platform suitability.
💎 Maxims
From the insights shared by Josh Durham on the DTC POD episode "Josh Durham - Aligned Growth," here's a repertoire of maxims fashioned to govern successful direct-to-consumer (DTC) brand strategies:
Start Small, Scale Smartly: Prioritize paid social, email marketing, and search before moving to influencer marketing pre-seven-figure revenue.
Gift Products, Garner Content: Utilize product gifting with influencers to generate content and brand awareness for brands earning 1 to 5 million annually.
Delegate for Breadth and Reach: Assign the task of influencer sourcing and outreach to ensure a broad engagement, aiming at 100-200 influencers weekly.
Optimize with Cutting-edge Tools: Employ tools like Aspire and Story Clash for improved influencer sourcing, specifically on platforms such as TikTok and Meta.
Negotiate with Nuance: Concentrate on consistent viewer numbers over singular viral content when striking deals with creators.
Measure What Matters: Keep a sharp eye on performance metrics like CPM and total views to determine the success and terms of partnerships.
Test Budgets, Know Audiences: Secure a designated budget for testing influencers to ensure your audience aligns with your brand and sidestep ineffective partnerships.
Gift First, Engage Next: Begin with product gifting for influencer engagement, and consider retainer-based relationships for ongoing content creation.
Creative Rights, Cost-effective Rates: In negotiations, cut costs by securing creative and usage rights upfront.
Volume and Variety: Harness the power of volume in sourcing influencers, especially in niche markets where influencer volume may be limited.
Forge Strong Bonds in Niche Networks: In smaller markets, create deep, steady relationships with a core set of influencers.
Align Strategy with Scale: Tailor your influencer campaign strategy to your brand’s budget, market presence, and size.
Treat Influencer Marketing as Top-of-Funnel Success: Assess influencer efforts as a channel for awareness and traffic that can translate to sales over time.
Survey and Reward: Implement post-purchase surveys and other methods to reward influencers and track their contribution to revenue.
Quality Impression, Not Just CPM: Vet influencer impressions based on the audience's demographics and locations, ensuring relevance.
Report, Reflect, Readjust: Maintain consistent reporting on all stages — from creator sourcing to organic reach — and adapt as needed.
Quality Products Lead to Quality Partnerships: Establish the worth of your products through free samples, creating pathways to subsequent paid collaborations.
Differentiate Content, Maximize UGC: Recognize the distinction between influencer content and user-generated content for optimal performance.
Editing is Key: Work on creating engaging repurposed content with strong editorial influence for various social platforms.
Embrace a Decentralized Approach: Facilitate easier access for influencers by adopting decentralized campaign structures and capitalize on significant product launch moments.
Echo Performance in Briefs: When briefing creators, provide guidelines, not scripts, drawing on examples of successful brand content.
Central Hub for Coherence and Control: Use a central hub like Aspire to build out influencer programs and analyze different influencer opt-in rates.
Threefold Path to Influence: Focus on three main stages - design, centralized management, and scaling - with dedicated teams to oversee strategy, sourcing, and outreach.
By integrating these maxims into a DTC brand's strategy, as elucidated by Josh Durham, businesses can lay the groundwork for aligned growth and a successful influencer marketing journey.
🌟 3 Fun Facts
Josh Durham started his marketing journey in-house at a weighted blanket company.
Align Growth, Josh's agency, was launched in 2021 after his experience managing seven figures a month in ad spend at Groove Life.
Some of Align Growth's clients attribute as much as 42% of their revenue to influencer partnerships.
📓 Blog Post
Maximizing Influencer Partnerships for DTC Brands with Josh Durham
Building a successful Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) brand isn't solely about having an incredible product; it's about creating awareness and strategically driving growth. On the latest episode of DTC POD, Blaine Bolus and Ramon Berrios dive into conversation with Josh Durham, founder of Align Growth, discussing how DTC brands can efficiently scale their influencer partnerships.
Laying the Foundation for Influencer Engagement
Before allocating resources to influencer marketing, Josh advises emerging brands to solidify their presence in paid social, email marketing, and search. Brands that have not yet hit seven figures in revenue could prematurely burn through capital by investing in influencer marketing without this foundational groundwork.
For brands earning between 1 and 5 million USD annually, product gifting becomes a crucial part of the strategy. It’s an efficient way to forge awareness and create a steady flow of content, turning influencers into brand ambassadors without high initial costs.
Streamlining Outreach with Sourcing Tools
Consistency is key when engaging influencers. Josh discusses the value of reaching out to 100-200 influencers per week to optimize opt-in rates. Tools like Aspire and Story Clash, which have robust relationships with platforms like TikTok and Meta, streamline this process. In the DTC space, where time equals money, these tools are indispensable for efficiently managing high-volume outreach campaigns.
Focused Strategy for Solo Founders
Solo entrepreneurs often wear multiple hats, but Josh stresses the importance of delegating influencer outreach. He underlines the necessity for someone dedicated to managing relationships, thus allowing founders to maintain their focus on other critical aspects of business growth.
Quality over Virality in Content Partnerships
When negotiating with content creators, Josh points out that seeking consistent viewership is more advantageous than chasing viral hits. Long-term success stems from steady exposure over irregular spikes in attention. Therefore, agreements should aim to secure consistent content production and use rights to maximize value.
The Importance of Metrics in Influencer Marketing
Performance metrics such as Cost Per Mille (CPM) and total views over time serve as benchmarks when forming influencer partnerships. These figures help brands decide on compensation that reflects the level of exposure the influencer will provide. Establishing a fixed testing budget and closely tracking audience demographics ensure the partnerships target the right consumers and avoid fruitless engagements with inauthentic followers.
Crafting Authentic Relationships in Niche Markets
In niche sectors, where influencer options are not as abundant, Josh suggests building close-knit, lasting relationships with a select group of key influencers. This approach nurtures brand loyalty and often leads to more genuine endorsements.
Align Growth’s Approach to Influencer Marketing
Josh’s agency, Align Growth, specializes in pairing influencer marketing with user-generated content to drive top-of-funnel awareness that translates into sales. By leveraging influencers' organic reach, brands can achieve lower CPMs and higher traffic. Post-purchase surveys are essential tools in attributing these results directly to influencer efforts.
The Value of High-Quality Product Offerings
A discussion with Ramon Berrios brought up concerns surrounding free product offerings. Josh underscores the importance of leading with quality products, advocating for providing products sans payment agreements initially. This step builds trust and lays the foundation for future paid partnerships.
Merging Influencer Content with UGC
Blaine Bolus inquires about the crossovers between influencer content and UGC, highlighting concerns around performance. Josh elaborates on success stories where repurposing content has proved effective. Obtaining creative rights upfront ensures versatility in how brands can leverage influencer material for different stages of the customer journey.
Increasing Efficiency with Aspire
Aspire is singled out as a pivotal tool for managing comprehensive influencer and affiliate campaigns. Josh showcases how it becomes a centralized platform, playing a critical role in creating influential moments for product launches and promotions.
Conclusion: The Influencer Roadmap
Wrapping up, Josh outlines the three phases in his influencer roadmap: design, build a centralized hub, and scale with a dedicated team. This streamlined approach prepares brands for effective strategy implementation, efficient influencer sourcing, and proactive outreach. By following Josh Durham's insights, DTC brands can position themselves to harness the full potential of influencer partnerships, driving measurable growth and market presence.
🎤 Voiceover Script
Looking to scale your DTC brand but unsure where to put your marketing dollars? Josh Durham of Align Growth joins us on DTC Pod to guide you through the maze of growth strategies.
In this episode, we uncover:
Why paid social, email, and search are the triumvirate for brands under seven figures.
The ambition behind reaching out to 100-200 influencers weekly and the tools that make this possible.
The art of deal-making with influencers, focusing on views over virality, and the importance of volume in niche markets.
And finally, how influencer marketing can account for a significant chunk of your revenue, even when affiliate links fall short.
Tune in for a can't-miss playbook on fostering long-term, impactful creator relationships and fueling your growth trajectory!
🔘 Best Practices Guide
Aligned Growth's Influencer Marketing Best-Practices Guide
Prioritize Your Platform: Initially invest in paid social, email, and search, adding influencer marketing as your brand approaches seven figures.
Leverage Gifting: For brands earning 1-5 million, use product gifting to create content and awareness through influencer partnerships.
Outsource Outreach: Task team members with influencer sourcing and aim for 100-200 contacts weekly, using tools like Aspire and Story Clash for efficiency.
Opt for Consistency Over Virality: When partnering with creators, seek steady viewership rather than one-off viral hits, focusing on metrics such as CPM and total view count.
Vet and Test: Implement a testing budget to ensure influencer audiences are genuine and relevant, avoiding bots and mismatches.
Build Relationships: Start with product gifting, and consider long-term, retainer-based collaborations with the adjustment of creative and usage rights to optimize costs.
Nurture Niche Influence: In specialized markets, cultivating close ties with a smaller group of influencers can be more beneficial than broad-scale efforts.
🎆 Social Carousel: Do's/Don'ts
Absolutely, here's a LinkedIn carousel outline for "10 Tips Every Retention Marketer Needs to Know" featuring insights from the DTC POD episode with Josh Durham.
Slide 1: Cover Slide
10 Tips Every Retention Marketer Needs to Know
Slide 2: Rush Influencers
Avoid rushing to influencer marketing. Prioritize paid social, email, and search in early stages.
Slide 3: Overlook Gifts
Don’t ignore product gifting. Use it to generate influencer content and brand awareness efficiently.
Slide 4: Solo Outreach
Don't do outreach alone. Delegate it to reach 100-200 influencers weekly, optimizing opt-in rates.
Slide 5: Sparse Tools
Don't use inadequate tools. Apply platforms like Aspire and Story Clash for better influencer sourcing.
Slide 6: No Delegation
Don’t try to manage everything. Assign team members to influencer outreach and content generation.
Slide 7: Viral Fixation
Don't focus solely on virality. Aim for consistent views when negotiating creator partnerships.
Slide 8: Ignore Metrics
Never neglect performance metrics. Use CPM and total views to define successful partnerships.
Slide 9: Avoid Testing
Don't skip setting a testing budget. Understand demographics to dodge bots and irrelevant audiences.
Slide 10: Single Deals
Don’t just make single post deals. Consider retainer engagements for ongoing influencer relationships.
Slide 11: Ignore Rights
Don't forget creative rights. Negotiate these along with usage rights to lower rates.
Remember to keep the language succinct and informative, resonating with the podcast's focus on providing actionable advice for marketers.
🎠 Social Carousel
Cover Slide:
"10 Growth Essentials Every Marketer Needs to Prioritize"
Slide 1: Start Basic
Begin with paid social, email marketing, and search to build revenue foundation.
Slide 2: Influencer Strategy
For 1-5M brands, focus on product gifting and content via influencer partnerships.
Slide 3: Delegate Outreach
Outsource influencer sourcing and outreach to reach 100-200 influencers weekly.
Slide 4: Smart Tools
Utilize Aspire and Story Clash to enhance influencer sourcing on TikTok and meta.
Slide 5: Engage Creators
Prioritize consistent viewership over one-time viral spikes in creator deals.
Slide 6: Measure Performance
Track CPM and total views to determine fair value in influencer partnerships.
Slide 7: Test Budgets
Allocate funds for testing to ensure audience relevance and avoid bots.
Slide 8: Niche Networks
In niche markets, cultivate close relationships with a handful of key influencers.
Slide 9: UGC Synergy
Negotiate rights to repurpose influencer content, enhancing UGC effectiveness.
Slide 10: Connect with Josh
For detailed insights and strategies, follow Josh Durham and Aligned Growth.
CTA Slide:
"Scale Up with Influencers"
Ready to grow your brand with influencers? Visit Aligned Growth Management for expert support. 🚀
One Off Tweets
Tweet 1
Founders, if you're not at seven figures yet, prioritize paid social, email, and search. Diversify your growth tactics early to build a solid foundation.
Tweet 2
For brands in the 1-5 million range, product gifting is a game-changer. Collaborate with influencers to create buzz and drive awareness smartly.
Tweet 3
Efficiency tip for scaling brands: Get someone on your team to reach out to 100-200 influencers weekly. It's all about optimization and delegation.
Tweet 4
Creators with consistent views over time offer better value than one-hit viral wonders. Aim for long-term partnerships to really amplify your brand.
Tweet 5
Understanding your audience is key. Invest in a testing budget to ensure influencer audiences align with your brand and aren't just numbers.
Tweet 6
Strategic partnerships start with gifting products. If the fit is right, progress to retainer-based relationships that benefit both parties.
Tweet 7
Negotiating deals? Don't forget creative and usage rights can lower your costs. Balance quality content with budget-savvy strategies.
Tweet 8
In a crowded marketplace, an intimate relationship with a few influential niche players might just be the key to genuine engagement and growth.
Tweet 9
Top-of-funnel traffic from influencers shouldn’t be underestimated. Use post-purchase surveys to measure impact and drive sales effectively.
Tweet 10
Creators bring your products to life. By sourcing diverse talent, you’re curating a community around your brand that resonates through authenticity.
Twitter Post 1
Here's a quick pro tip from Josh Durham's playbook for boosting outreach efficiency:
If you're aiming to connect with 100-200 influencers weekly, leveraging tools like Aspire can significantly streamline your influencer sourcing process. It's like having a GPS for navigating the vast influencer landscape! 🌐🚀
Mindsets
If you’re striving to harness the power of influencer marketing for your brand, consider these transformative mindset shifts to enhance your strategy and deployment:
💭 Prioritize building genuine relationships over chasing flashy metrics. This mindset change can lead to a more authentic connection with your audience. Brands should aim to find creators with whom their values align and who resonate with their target demographic, rather than solely focusing on vanity metrics like follower counts.
💭 Embrace the long game by considering influencer engagements as a marathon, not a sprint. Rather than seeking immediate sales spikes, understand that influencer partnerships can compound in value over time, creating lasting brand awareness and fostering customer loyalty. This shift helps set realistic expectations for the kind of returns you may see from influencer strategies.
💭 See value beyond direct attribution by recognizing the broader impact of influencer collaborations. While direct sales are important, acknowledging the role of influencers in top-of-funnel activities can change your perception of success. Influencers can significantly increase brand visibility and contribute to a supportive ecosystem for your customer journey, even when it's challenging to track every sale back to a specific influencer.
For more insights on how to create effective influencer partnerships and harness user-generated content for your brand’s growth, don't miss Josh Durham's deep dive on the DTC POD. His wealth of experience in scaling DTC brands through strategic influencer and UGC campaigns is packed with actionable advice tailored to suit various stages of brand development. Tune in to the episode titled "Josh Durham - Aligned Growth" to learn more!
Tactics
If you're ready to invigorate your brand's engagement with customers, elevate your influence, and catalyze growth, here are some non-standard maneuvers garnered from the wisdom of Josh Durham on our latest DTC POD episode:
🔍 Prioritize influencer outreach with a targeted approach. Create a robust plan that includes reaching out to 100-200 influencers weekly. By fostering a high volume of connections, you diversify potential collaborations and increase the odds of finding the perfect brand ambassadors.
🛠 Adopt strategic tools for influencer discovery. Platforms like Aspire and Story Clash are adept at syncing with social media algorithms, providing a richer pool of influencer resources. These venues can streamline your search process for the most aligned influencers, particularly on contemporary platforms like TikTok and Meta.
📦 Optimize product gifting as a gateway. For brands experiencing rapid growth, gifting can pave the way for fruitful partnerships. When you send high-quality products without immediately enforcing a payment structure, you lay foundational bricks for future negotiations that can lead to a sustainable and cooperative relationship with influencers.
📊 Lean on meticulous metrics. Go beyond the standard CPM analysis. By meticulously tracking metrics, such as the total views over a period and the authentic engagement of creator content, you can craft more strategic partnerships that resonate with your audience demographics and drive sustained growth.
🛒 Utilize post-purchase surveys for attribution accuracy. To sidestep the discrepancies often found in affiliate link tracking, implement post-purchase surveys as a reliable measuring stick. This will help you attribute revenue more accurately and recognize the real impact of influencer marketing on your bottom line.
Implementing new strategies into your business operations is a journey that can bring a variety of results. The roadmap can look different for each brand, but by applying these data-driven, community-focused, and exploratory techniques, you are positioning your business to harness the power of influencer partnerships effectively. Remember, it's about nurturing these relationships and building an ecosystem around your brand that thrives on authentic connections and shared success.
In Depth Thread
Overrated: Traditional Influencer Marketing.
Brands throwing budget into the wind, hoping to catch the viral wave through influencer star power.
Underrated: Aligned Growth.
Here's the precise methodology employed when our guest, Josh Durham, propelled brands towards scalable influencer success:
Stick to Essentials Rule
Focus on three essentials until you hit seven figures.
Paid Social
Email Marketing
Search
Volume and Outreach
For brands earning 1 to 5 million a year, pivot towards:
Product Gifting
Influencer Content Generation
Efficient Awareness Expansion
Tools of the Trade
For sourcing, go with leaders like Aspire and Story Clash. Why? They get TikTok and meta.
Delegate Outreach
Have a team member own influencer outreach, hitting 100-200 influencers each week, and prioritize opt-in optimization.
Performance over Virality
Don't chase after one-hit wonders. Consistent views seal the long-term deal.
Metrics Management
Evaluate partners through:
CPM
Total Views Over Time
Audience Relevance
Free First Strategy
Offer products before payments. Build value in partnership, then scale to retainer engagement.
Ignore Numbers Alone
Dodge bots and irrelevant metrics. Concentrate on quality impressions with proper demographic and location analytics.
Reporting Routines
Stay ahead with reports on:
Creator Sourcing
Product Sent
Applications
Organic Reach
Tagline
For Influencer Marketing: “We're the GPS on your influencer journey, navigating through the numbers towards meaningful traffic and sales."
For Align Growth: “Scaling DTC brands with curated influencer partnerships and authentic UGC creation."
Briefs Over Scripts
Share guardrails, not scripts. Let creators resonate authenticity with examples of content that's already amplifying brand messaging.
Three-Phase Roadmap
Our playbook for influencers includes:
Strategy Design - Setting the stage for growth.
Centralized Hub - Managing campaigns and relationships in one spot.
Scaling Team - Deploying dedicated people for strategy, sourcing, and partnerships.
Put these action steps into play, and like Josh Durham's insights, you could see your brand flourish through influencer partnerships and UGC content. Ready to up your game? Head over to the Aligned Growth Management website for advanced strategies to truly harness the power of influencer marketing.
Remember, it's not about the big names – it's about the right fits.
New Idea
Idea #3: Streamlining Influencer Partnerships
Josh Durham advises on crafting efficient influencer relationships to scale direct-to-consumer (DTC) brand growth with strategies like:
Delegating Outreach and Optimization: Josh underscores the importance of delegating influencer outreach, aiming for a target of reaching out to 100-200 influencers per week to maximize opt-in rates. This volume-centric approach is key for brands to find their right advocates in the digital space.
Using Specialized Tools for Sourcing: To enhance the process of finding suitable influencers, Josh recommends leveraging platforms such as Aspire and Story Clash. These tools have strong relationships with major social platforms and facilitate more efficient influencer sourcing and management, crucial for aligning the right personalities with a brand's image and target market.
Prioritizing Long-Term Relationships: By focusing on building consistent and intimate relationships with influencers, particularly in niche markets, brands can ensure a more dedicated and authentic promotion of their products. Josh suggests starting with product gifting and evolving into retainer-based collaborations for long-term partnerships that yield consistent content and audience engagement.
Tweet thread on learnings
Tweet 1:
On the latest DTC POD, the brilliant @JoshDurham shares robust strategies on fueling growth via influencer partnerships. Brands under 7-figures, take note—this is a game plan crafted from the trenches of scaling a DTC! 📈 Here's the essence distilled into threads:
Tweet 2:
Start With Paid Social, NOT Influencers
Josh advises startups on a tight budget to pump the brakes on influencer engagement, instead cultivating the soil with paid social. This isn't just cost-effective; it’s foundational before seeding the influencer field. #ScaleWisely
Tweet 3:
Gifting Before $$$ Contracts
For those at the $1-5M rev mark, Josh suggests initiating influencer relations with product gifts. It’s not about parsimony but about efficiency in content creation and relationship-building! #InfluencerGrowth
Tweet 4:
Systemize Outreach for Scale
Scaling requires a machine-like approach to outreach. Josh pushes for 100-200 influencer touches per week. Delegate, systemize, and always fine-tune for better opt-in rates. 💪 #GrowthMachinery
Tweet 5:
Tools of the Trade: Aspire & Story Clash
The right tools make a difference, especially in influencer sourcing. These platforms have a strong rapport with TikTok and Meta, essential for modern campaigns. #InfluencerTools
Tweet 6:
Performance Metrics Over Viral Views
While viral content is exciting, it’s the consistent performance that counts. Understanding CPM and total views helps to keep things real and agreeable with creators. #MetricsMatter
Tweet 7:
Testing Budget and Audience Demographics
Know where your dollars flow and who’s watching. Testing budgets counter bot interactions, while understanding demographics confirms relevance and quality impressions. #SmartTesting
Tweet 8:
The Art of Influencer Deals
Starting with product gifting and moving towards a retainer model, Josh underscores nuanced deal-making including negotiation on creative and usage rights, to get more bang for your buck. #DealSavvy
Tweet 9:
Quality Over Quantity in Niche Markets
In limited influencer ecosystems, intimate connections reign. Josh stresses on crafting strong bonds with a select few rather than spreading yourself too thin. #NicheStrategy
For the full lowdown on influencer strategy for both burgeoning and established brands, tune into DTC POD! Insights await.🎙️🌟
➡️Listen now: [InsertPodcastLinkHere]
#DTCPOD #JoshDurham #GrowthHacking #InfluencerMarketing
Future State, 6 reasons post
In the span of a single quarter, Align Growth has revolutionized influencer marketing, generating staggering organic impressions for DTC (Direct-to-Consumer) brands and nurturing key partnerships that translate into real sales growth. Previously, brands struggled with inefficient outreach, low content production, and a foggy understanding of influencer campaign effectiveness.
But the future beckons with a well-crafted influencer marketing machine that systematically raises brand awareness, builds intimate creator relationships, and heightens audience engagement—all with a keen eye on performance metrics.
Here's how the landscape has shifted:
Old Influencer Marketing Approach:
Manual influencer sourcing with low success rate
Scattered communication and relationship management
Ill-defined metrics leading to uncertain ROI
Low product awareness and audience reach
Vague negotiation terms regarding content rights
New Influencer Marketing Approach:
Streamlined and automated influencer sourcing leading to a high opt-in rate
Centralized influencer relationship management systems
Defined metrics with clear links to ROI
High levels of brand awareness and audience engagement
Clearly negotiated creative and usage rights from the outset
At Align Growth, we've transitioned from ad-hoc influencer engagement to a systematic strategy that drives top-of-funnel traffic and builds durable sales channels. Here's how you can achieve the same:
Utilize advanced tools like Aspire for efficient influencer sourcing and to better engage with platforms like TikTok and Meta.
Delegate outreach to a team member, targeting 100-200 influencers per week to enhance opt-in rates.
Prioritize influencer partnerships and product gifting over paid agreements for brands still emerging in the market space.
Focus on consistent views rather than chasing viral anomalies, emphasizing a gradual build-up of brand presence.
Establish rigorous metrics, such as CPM and total views over time, to gauge the success of influencer partnerships effectively.
Lay out creator briefs that provide direction without stifling creativity, ensuring content that resonates with both the brand's vision and the influencer's style.
With these approaches, Align Growth has seen brands benefit from over 100 million organic impressions, a testament to the potential of well-executed influencer campaigns.
Are you capitalizing on the potency of influencer marketing as part of your DTC strategy? How might these recommendations shift your current approach? Share your thoughts and let's explore the vast potential together.
DTC Pod Linkedin
🚀 Powerhouse marketer Josh Durham of @Aligned Growth joins hosts @RamonBerrios and @BlaineBolus on DTC Pod to unveil the "100M+ Impression Strategy" with influencer seeding.
Josh breaks down the journey to massive brand awareness — starting with ensuring strong foundations in paid social and search, to gifting products and creating strategic influencer partnerships that can skyrocket a brand from 1 to 5 million a year.
He dives into the nuances of influencer sourcing and outreach, the significance of nurturing consistent creator relationships, and how to optimize performance metrics to find the perfect match for your demographic.
For those eyeing to scale their DTC venture, Josh's insights are a treasure trove – offering a peek at Align Growth’s successes and strategies in influencer marketing that have led to monumental impression counts at low CPM.
Curious about how product gifting can lead to paid partnerships and incredible growth? Tune in to episode #315 of DTC Pod for the road map to influencer marketing mastery.
Listen now: [Spotify Link]
#dtcpod #marketingtips #growthstrategy #influencermarketing #directtoconsumer #brandawareness #socialmediamarketing #ecommerce
About the Episode
In Episode #315 of DTC POD, Josh Durham, the founder of Align Growth, shared an influencer seeding strategy that has driven more than 100 million organic impressions for his clients. He underscored the significance of volume and precision in influencer partnerships, particularly advising brands in the $1-5 million revenue bracket to lean into product gifting as a way to foster content creation and brand awareness. By reaching out to an ambitious number of influencers per week, around 100-200, and employing tools like Aspire for efficient sourcing and Story Clash for a stronger connection with platforms like TikTok and Meta, Josh emphasized the efficiency of this approach for both awareness and content generation.
During the podcast, Josh elaborated on the intricate process of designing influencer deals. Rather than chasing after viral hits, his methodology places a high emphasis on the consistency of views to secure good terms with creators. The approach starts with gifting products without an initial payment, evolving into a possible retainer-based collaboration for consistent posting over several months. By negotiating creative and usage rights, brands can strategically lower the costs of such contracts. This system not only helps in maintaining a lucrative creator engagement but also ensures a more predictable and steady influx of audience attention.
Josh also shared insights on the crucial aspect of tracking and reporting the effectiveness of influencer marketing. He highlighted that while some clients have attributed a sizable part of their revenue to influencer efforts, many face tracking hurdles, with affiliate links capturing only a portion of the impact. To mitigate this, some brands have taken manual approaches, rewarding influencers after sales and using pre-purchase surveys to better understand the influence on customers' decision-making. Furthermore, by creating concise but flexible creator briefs, providing examples of successful content, and using Aspire as a central hub, Josh detailed a strategic process that takes brands from initial influencer engagement to a scaled approach with a dedicated team optimizing each step of the journey.
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