Episode Summary
In this episode of the 7 Figures and Beyond e-commerce marketing podcast, Greg Shuey interviews Madelyn Banat, the Director of Marketing for GoBe Kids. They discuss how GoBe Kids leveraged influencer marketing to achieve 40 million views on their content. Madelyn shares her journey in marketing, emphasizing the importance of creating authentic content through influencers and the strategy behind their success. She details her three-bucket approach to influencer marketing, covering nano-influencers, affiliate programs, and paid campaigns. Madeline also highlights the challenges of budget constraints, the significance of building genuine relationships with creators, and the necessity of adapting to evolving social media algorithms.
Key Takeaways
- Three-Bucket Strategy: Madelyn’s influencer marketing strategy involves categorizing influencers into three buckets: nano-influencers for word-of-mouth marketing, affiliate programs for broader reach, and paid campaigns for targeted promotions.
- Authentic Content Creation: Allowing influencers to create content in their authentic voice without strict scripts is crucial. This approach helps in maintaining the genuineness of the promotions and avoids the pitfalls of overly scripted ads.
- Budget Constraints: Small businesses often face challenges with budget constraints in influencer marketing. Building relationships with influencers who genuinely believe in the brand can help mitigate high costs and foster more organic promotions.
- Platform Utilization: Using tools like Aspire to manage and track influencer campaigns is essential for keeping organized and ensuring the effectiveness of each influencer’s contribution.
- Diverse Influencer Selection: Expanding beyond typical mom and kid influencers to include those from various niches like travel, pets, and beauty can significantly broaden reach and engage different audiences, enhancing overall brand visibility
Episode Links
Greg Shuey LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-shuey/
Madelyn Banat LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/madelyn-banat/
GoBe Kids https://www.gobekids.co/
Aspire: https://www.aspire.io/
Episode Transcript
Greg Shuey (00:01.272)
Hey everyone, welcome to episode 28 of the Seven Figures and Beyond podcast. Hope everyone is having an amazing day today. Today, I have my friend, Madelyn Banat, the Director of Marketing for Gobi Kids on, and I’m really excited to be able to have a fun discussion with her. GoBe Kids has some really innovative baby and toddler snack organization products and they have driven a significant amount of business and revenue from influencers and creators. So that’s really what’s going to be our topic today is the world of influencers, specifically how GoBe Kids went from zero to 40 million views on their content. Like that’s a significant amount of eyeballs on content. So it’s a lot of brand awareness. I’m really excited to dive in and learn about how they did that.
And hopefully you can take a few nuggets here or there, get some ideas to build a similar program for your brand. So Madelyn, thank you for taking some time to be with us today.
Madelyn (01:13.742)
Yeah, I’m happy to be here.
Greg Shuey (01:16.056)
Awesome. Before we dive in, could you just take a few minutes to introduce yourself to our listeners and share a little bit about your personal story and how you’ve gotten to where you are today.
Madelyn (01:29.806)
Of course, yeah. So I’m from North Carolina and I went to UNC Chapel Hill. Shortly after graduating there, I went and got my master’s degree in marketing from UNC Wilmington. I went from there to just working with small businesses. I worked part time for a lot of small businesses and I really found my passion in helping fast growing businesses with their marketing efforts. It’s something that a lot of small businesses can’t, you know,
take on an agency or take on like a big marketing firm to help them. So I came in with, you know, my experience and my knowledge and I just like to lay the groundwork.
for teams. So about a year and a half ago, I joined GoBe’s team as part of their marketing efforts, and I just helped them establish strong marketing funnels, fueled their growth through email, SMS, all kinds of things. But my big impact has really been through their influencer marketing efforts.
Greg Shuey (02:30.84)
That’s awesome. That’s a fun story. Are you still in North Carolina? I can’t remember.
Madelyn (02:35.63)
I am, yes.
Greg Shuey (02:37.432)
That’s awesome. How’s the weather out there these days?
Madelyn (02:40.366)
It is hot nowadays. We are end of May and it was 90 yesterday. So it’s getting hot.
Greg Shuey (02:47.576)
Well, here in Utah, right now, it’s 42 degrees. Like, we have this little cold front and it’s almost June. It’s like, come on, what are we doing here? Let’s go, let’s get some, some warm weather. Yeah. It’s crazy. Usually end of May, beginning of June, it’s beautiful here, but no, I was in a coat this morning. So yeah. All right. You ready to jump in?
Madelyn (02:52.65)
No, no.
Madelyn (02:58.382)
That’s crazy. I can’t even imagine that.
Madelyn (03:13.23)
opposite. Yeah, let’s go for it.
Greg Shuey (03:17.176)
Cool, so as you came into the business year and a half ago, you started to really plan out your marketing strategy and figure out how you were gonna take them from where they were to where they wanted to go. How did you come up with the objective of really pushing content and driving as many views as possible to that content?
Madelyn (03:41.07)
Yeah, I mean, influencer marketing, it is on the forefront of everyone’s minds right now. You know, it is something that we all see, we all experience it every single day. And every business that I’ve worked with has said, how do I, how do I get into influencer marketing? So, you know, I joined Gobi’s team and I’m not going to say that it was my revolutionary idea to do influencer marketing. They came to me and said, how do we do influencer marketing? so that was really where I came in and had the, I had to structure.
Greg Shuey (03:46.072)
Yeah.
Greg Shuey (03:54.808)
Yep.
Greg Shuey (04:04.888)
Got it.
Madelyn (04:10.894)
how we were going to take advantage of influencers. That was really the thing is most people don’t know how to get started. So I just had to come up with, you know, what was happening at Gobi naturally, which is that the product is super dynamic. They get incredible word of mouth and people want to share their product online. So that made my job a little bit easier and then drive that into a sales channel. So, you know, providing people with codes and links in order to see conversions and, you know, establish what an ROI would look like.
Greg Shuey (04:17.271)
right.
Madelyn (04:40.8)
like in the influencer space.
Greg Shuey (04:43.306)
for sure. Yeah. Anytime I talk to young brands, they come to us, they’re like, we want all of this marketing. I’m like, hang on. No, no, no, no, no. One, that’s too expensive. Two, like influencers is probably the right place to start for you because they can help start to spread the word and build the brand awareness. And then once you’re able to start to get some traction and snowball, like then you’re spitting out some cash to be able to invest in paid media and SEO and then.
amplify what you’re doing there. So cool. So I love that that’s one of the first things that they wanted to kind of figure out as they brought you in. That’s awesome.
Madelyn (05:19.374)
So true, yeah.
Greg Shuey (05:21.72)
Cool, so they came to you, hey, how do we do this? So how did you begin to scope it out? What did that look like? So our listeners can start to visualize what that looks like once you start to put that on paper.
Madelyn (05:38.446)
Yeah, this is something that I have established, you know, working at Gobi and working at other companies is my influencer marketing strategy. And what I call it is my like three bucket approach. I look at influencers, creators in three different buckets. The first one would be those word of mouth, nano, they’re not really heavy followers. They’re not really looking to get paid. But they want to drive traffic to your website. Like they just really are passionate about your product.
And so for those people I usually set up a loyalty and referrals program So anyone can go on Gobi kids website right now Sign up for our referrals program and by sharing the product with your friends your family You can give them discounts they can give you points that you can use to earn products And that’s usually what most people want to do, you know, they are already worried about promoting your product So giving them a reward for doing it is you know?
exciting for everyone. Yes, exactly, exactly. So then, yeah, so the second bucket that I look into is probably the most.
Greg Shuey (06:38.2)
icing on the cake, right?
Madelyn (06:48.27)
Ongoing and effective which is that affiliate and commission based influencer marketing bucket? So these are people that can have any range of followers really any range of engagement, but they’re Reaching more people every time they post they’re really spreading the word and what I do for them is I provide them You know gifts from Gobi. I let them kind of have free reign over their content I want them to create stuff in their authentic voices. I don’t script them I just give them you know some
not even guidelines, they’re, you know, tips, examples from other people, but it’s not strict. I’m not approving each piece of content that comes from them. I’m just letting them roll. I try to have at minimum 30 people in our affiliate program every month, and I like to swap them out occasionally, you know, have new people coming in, have some affiliates leave the program, bring them back if they’re doing really well, things like that. It kind of runs itself to an extent at that point.
Greg Shuey (07:36.92)
Hmm.
Greg Shuey (07:47.384)
interesting. I’ve never heard of someone retiring affiliates. It’s fascinating.
Madelyn (07:51.854)
Yeah, yeah, I mean, they’re not, you know, they’re not going away. They can still post all they want, but I’m not focusing my attention into them anymore. I’m really just trying to give attention to new people coming into the program.
Greg Shuey (08:07.704)
Got it, so you’re not booting them, but you’re just saying, you do you, I’m gonna focus on these 30. Got it, cool.
Madelyn (08:09.71)
Yes.
Madelyn (08:14.542)
Exactly, exactly. And then the final bucket is the one that most people think of when they think influencer, which are those paid campaigns where, you know, you’re you’ve got a paid ad budget, you’re giving them money to post something very specific for a specific period of time. I try to keep my paid campaigns to those holidays, sales, anything where I really want to push people coming to our website, and I’m not just pushing for reach or awareness. I’m really trying to get that conversion.
Greg Shuey (08:23.608)
Yeah.
Madelyn (08:43.918)
So they’re not scripted, they just have a little bit more guide behind them. I still always want influencers to use their authentic voice. I think that’s so important. But that would be that third campaign bucket. And…
Oftentimes what happens is those people that are in that second round, that affiliate bucket, get pulled up into the paid campaign bucket. So that’s why I like having that back and forth. The second round gives me the ability to establish those relationships, see what kind of content people are creating, but then moving them into that third round is where I can really see them shine.
Greg Shuey (09:19.16)
Yeah, how do you manage, like how do you keep all of that straight? Do you, are you just using spreadsheets? Do you have a tool that you use?
Madelyn (09:27.022)
Yeah, I do have a tool that I use. I really like Aspire, but there’s hundreds of tools out there. I went through lots of them. I found Aspire to be the one that works for me. But there’s so many out there. I would recommend just finding what works for you and your team.
Greg Shuey (09:43.224)
Yeah, awesome, cool. So walk me through your process of what it looks like to like the vetting and the selection of influencers and what criteria do you use to determine if they’re the right fit for the brand?
Madelyn (10:04.11)
That’s such a good question. I like to find influencers from all kinds of industries. So I don’t just focus on moms with kids. I mean, you know, I want influencers that have kids, obviously, so they understand our product.
Greg Shuey (10:15.864)
Hmm.
Madelyn (10:21.326)
Mom and kid influencers aren’t necessarily the only thing I focus on. I even, GoBe even worked with a dog influencer at one point, and that was one of our highest performing pieces of content. So, and it was just like, it was so amazing because it was like not focused on the kid, but the kid was like sharing the snacks with the dog out of the snack spinner. And it got so much attention. which was amazing. So I think just reaching into different industries and, you know, finding that.
Greg Shuey (10:32.856)
Huh.
Greg Shuey (10:44.888)
Interesting.
Madelyn (10:51.022)
outreach in places that you wouldn’t already get it because GoBe is well known by moms. If you’re a mom, you’ve probably heard of the snack spinner already. So finding those different places to reach out are great. And then I take into consideration those metrics, engagement and follower count, but…
Greg Shuey (10:56.6)
Yeah.
Yep.
Madelyn (11:09.486)
I look more into the comments. What are people saying about this influencer? What type of content are they creating? If they have not that many followers, but amazing comments and create beautiful content, I want them on my team. Like I don’t care if you don’t have millions of followers because if you’re creating good content now, you might have millions of followers later on, but best case scenario, you’re just making good content for us to have. So, I go for a wide range. I don’t have any strict criteria that I have.
Greg Shuey (11:31.416)
later. Yep.
Madelyn (11:39.392)
I go off of.
Greg Shuey (11:41.08)
Okay, are there any social platforms that you lean into more than others?
Madelyn (11:46.414)
Yes, I definitely for GoBe use Instagram more than anything else. I am looking to push us more into the TikTok space, but for our target demographic, they live on Instagram. So that’s where I focus most of it. And then Reels video content, that does really well.
Greg Shuey (12:05.592)
Yeah, that was going to be my next question, the TikTok. So I know a lot of brands are leveraging TikTok creators and they’re setting up TikTok shops and it’s just kind of blowing up. So I was curious there. Cool.
Madelyn (12:19.022)
Yeah, it is, it’s really on the rise. It’s something that I’d love to put more energy into in the coming months, years, et cetera.
Greg Shuey (12:27.768)
Awesome, cool. So what kind of, I mean, you’ve already kind of talked about it a little bit, but what kind of content did your influencers create? And then how did you make sure that it aligned with the brand and was also actionable?
Madelyn (12:44.43)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah, that’s such a good question. I mean, like I said, I want influencers to use their authentic voice. They need to be creating for their community. I don’t give scripts. I think when I clock a scripted ad from an influencer, I immediately scroll away. I’m like, I know that this was paid for. I don’t want to hear it. Like I don’t want to be advertised to. so I let them really have free rein of how they’re creating their content. But for those paid campaigns, I do provide, you know, talking points. What are.
Greg Shuey (13:01.688)
Ha ha ha.
Madelyn (13:15.456)
we doing? What is the campaign for? If it’s a back to school campaign, what are the features of the lunchbox that I want you to highlight? And then here at the end, just let them know you have a link to shop it. And so it’s just those little guidelines. Something that we get a lot of at GoBe is travel. People love using snacks when they’re traveling. So if I’m running a travel campaign, lean into that. What makes it great for travel? But at the end of the day,
they’re making their own content and using their voice.
Greg Shuey (13:46.296)
Do you find that for the most part, because of the way that you vet them and select them, that they’re pretty on brand with how they represent you?
Madelyn (13:57.838)
Yeah, I mean, like on brand is such an interesting way to define it because it can be, it can be so much like, no, they’re not, you know, using our fonts and our colors and doing it exactly the way I would do it. But I only want to work with creators that believe in Gobi actually like our products, actually believe in our mission. so that’s really where, you know, I find them to be on brand is they’re like.
Greg Shuey (14:03.704)
Yeah. Right.
Greg Shuey (14:18.68)
Yeah. Yeah.
Madelyn (14:24.59)
This product has changed the way that my kids eat. This product has been helpful for travel and they’re not lying to people about it. Just to catch a break and to be able to work with a brand.
Greg Shuey (14:31.864)
Yeah.
Greg Shuey (14:37.048)
They’re true advocates, and so they are the brand. How about that? They are the brand. Yeah.
Madelyn (14:39.054)
Yes. Yeah, it’s such a good way to put it. Such a good way to put it. I love that. I’m gonna use that.
Greg Shuey (14:48.024)
Awesome. So what types of content do you feel worked the best for this kind of work?
Madelyn (15:01.646)
You know, it does depend, but like I said, I love working with creators that aren’t already in the kids space. It’s so over saturated right now with kids products and other people, you know, giving stuff to them that I love reaching out to those creators that are, you know, animals or beauty influencers or.
anything, you know, travel, just their space isn’t kids because once you can kind of expand beyond just working with kid influencers, that’s really where you get that big reach. And if a travel influencer is promoting your product, you know, they’re not just doing it because they’re a kid influencer and it aligns perfectly with everything they talk about.
Greg Shuey (15:44.696)
Cool, I like that. So yeah, travel, pets, what other wild industries that are not baby? I’m just curious.
Madelyn (15:55.15)
man, I mean, like I said, like beauty influencers are something that we’ve reached into. We’re looking into, you know, like reality TV stars, people like that, you know, fitness influencers, because we have that nutrition aspect to our product. So, you know, there is a component of that we have.
Greg Shuey (16:05.592)
Huh. Yeah.
Greg Shuey (16:12.472)
Yeah.
Madelyn (16:16.206)
someone that she promotes stuff for adults that have ADHD and she really loves our product for like herself. and so she promotes it as like an adult product. So I find that just amazing. Yeah. So all kinds of stuff.
Greg Shuey (16:30.168)
interesting that’s super cool and is it mostly video content?
Madelyn (16:36.046)
Yeah, I try to lean into video content because that’s what the algorithms are promoting nowadays. But I mean, we’ll get stories all the time. Sometimes we’ll do collaborative blogs, static content. Just depends on what that influencer specializes in, really.
Greg Shuey (16:39.64)
Yeah.
Greg Shuey (16:53.688)
Yeah, for sure. Cool. Static blogs. You don’t hear very many influencers producing just blog posts anymore.
Madelyn (17:00.878)
Yeah, it’s rare, but it does happen.
Greg Shuey (17:04.696)
Yeah, cool. Awesome. All right. So what challenges did you face, you know, throughout building your influencer program? And then how did you work to overcome those?
Madelyn (17:16.782)
Yeah, I think that the biggest challenge that I’ve seen…
you know, not just at Gobi, but at any small business I’ve worked with in this space is those constraints of budgeting. Because you’re competing with these big box brands. You’re competing with brands that are able to pay influencers, you know, thousands and thousands of dollars for one post. And that’s just not something that most small businesses can do. So how do you get around that? I mean, you can negotiate all you want, but a lot of people have their minimum and you’re not going to get to it. That’s okay. I.
Greg Shuey (17:28.856)
Yeah.
Greg Shuey (17:45.048)
Yeah.
Madelyn (17:51.472)
I think it’s vital to find influencers who really believe in your brand. People that want to be a part of your brand and part of your mission because then they’re more willing to meet you where you’re at. They want your goals to align and they’ll often understand that if you’re a small business, you can’t make those quotes, those big rates. But also, I mean,
Greg Shuey (18:16.568)
Yeah.
Madelyn (18:18.062)
I get really scared by big numbers. I’ll get some media kits with requests that I am like, who is paying this much for Instagram posts? Like, it blows my mind sometimes, but you know, it’s
Greg Shuey (18:33.176)
Right?
Madelyn (18:33.838)
They really, really like your brand. You can go back and say, hey, like we’re a small business. We’d love to work with you. We really think that your stuff aligns with us, but this is where we max out. Can you meet us there? Can we add commission to your profile? Can we, you know, work something else in to make it doable for our team and our restraints? So, you know, the worst thing that they can say is no, right? So it’s always worth it to ask.
Greg Shuey (18:56.504)
Right. 100%. Yeah. Do you find as you’ve been going that you have more influencers reaching out to you or are you still doing a lot of that outreach and trying to source them yourself?
Madelyn (19:13.934)
Yeah, Gobi gets a lot of requests. We have so many people reaching out to us, which is amazing. I’m like always impressed that Gobi gets this type of recognition and people want to work with us. It goes to show what we’re doing online is working and we’re getting that attention.
So, you know, I think that’s great. And it’s gotten to a point where, you know, I’m just getting people to apply. You know, I’m saying, you know, Hey, like we’d love to work with you apply to our creator program. If they come into their, you know, see how they perform before moving them potentially into a paid campaign. But I’ve also worked with brands that don’t get any requests. You know, we have to do all the outreach. It’s a lot of customer education. What is the product? How does it work? We’re trying to beg influencers to understand what the product is to use it.
And that can be really difficult to really, really draining, but there are so many influencers out there. And if you invest in the right program, you are able to find them. There are people out there that are willing to work with you. You just gotta put some work into it and find them.
Greg Shuey (20:21.048)
Yep. You know, when you when you have budget constraints, like how often are influencers and creators willing to work on commission or get like an affiliate, you know, commission? I kind of feel like that’s and I’ve talked about it on LinkedIn a little bit is I feel like that’s the path forward for a lot of brands and a lot of affiliates. So.
How often do they come back and say, yeah, I’d be willing to work on commission?
Madelyn (20:53.038)
It happens from time to time. I think that it depends, you know, where, what other partnerships they’re getting, right? You know, if you’re talking to someone with millions of followers, they’re probably not going to come back and want to do commission because they’ve already got a bunch of other brands offering them, you know, what they.
Greg Shuey (21:08.024)
who are already paying them. Yeah.
Madelyn (21:09.582)
Exactly. So they’re probably not going to come back, but you know, people in the, you know, 50, a hundred, couple hundred follower range that are trying to grow their base, you know, they’re looking at this as an opportunity to work with a brand, get some recognition in the space.
Greg Shuey (21:21.495)
Yeah.
Madelyn (21:27.598)
And so they do often come back, you know, and I’ll tell people all the time, being a part of our commission program is your first step in getting into that paid bucket for me. Like if I can see some of the work you do, get some social proof that what you’re doing is working, then I’m even more willing to pay you when we do eventually have a paid campaign coming up. So that often, you know, entices people a little bit to want to join that commission based program. And, you know, you’re getting free gifts. Like we’re not just, not just making you buy your own products and posts. We’re sending you some stuff.
Greg Shuey (21:46.456)
Got it, okay.
Greg Shuey (21:58.36)
Yeah, cool. And then how do you track all of this? Like how do you track the effectiveness of each influencer?
Madelyn (22:05.646)
Yeah, so I use platform. Like I said, I use Aspire and it tracks, you know, their codes, their links. Something that I run into a lot though is that Amazon is also in their space. You know, influencers want to drive traffic to Amazon. So having to kind of look back and forth between the two to check effectiveness is really important. So tracking it in that way, I…
Greg Shuey (22:29.976)
Yeah.
Madelyn (22:33.294)
caution brands that I work with to look for
dollars earned in terms of ROI though because Influencer marketing does not always lead to clicks. It doesn’t always lead to sales in that moment You know, it’s just like ads you might have to see it a few times Maybe they see an influencer ad and then they check out our website and then they get targeted a Facebook ad later And that’s what makes them buy but if we’re looking at you know 40 million people reached and we’re seeing a spike in sales we have to say that there is some sort of
Greg Shuey (22:59.768)
Yeah.
Madelyn (23:07.632)
like attribution there even if it’s not directly in every single click because influencer marketing is organic. It’s not paid. You’re not getting that direct tracking the way that you normally would.
Greg Shuey (23:18.552)
I mean the customer journey, I say it a lot, is incredibly messy. They could see that influencer post and then they could go search your brand in three weeks and come in as an organic visitor and purchase. Who gets the credit? Well, the SEO person gets the credit. We all know that. Do you also sell on Amazon?
Madelyn (23:34.798)
Yes. Exactly.
We do, yeah, Gobi is on Amazon. So I do have a creator’s program also set up on Amazon. So people can be in both. And it’s just a matter of making those relationships and knowing where people are posting. Sometimes that’s the biggest battle, which is keeping track of everyone.
Greg Shuey (24:00.824)
Yeah. And that also makes it tricky as soon as you’re tapping into marketplaces too, because they may see it and hop right over to Amazon and search for your brand and boom. Yeah. Interesting. Cool.
Madelyn (24:05.838)
Yes.
Madelyn (24:09.966)
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I’ll say like, if we have a big paid campaign and an influencer with millions of followers posts, and I don’t see that direct ROI, I go and I look at how’s Amazon doing? Like is the product that they’re promoting spiking Amazon? Right. Exactly. And then I can say, okay, so this is where all those sales went. They’re still coming in, even if I’m not directly tracking them through their link.
Greg Shuey (24:25.176)
and you probably see a huge spike.
Greg Shuey (24:36.6)
Yeah. How does, and this may be kind of a loaded question, how do the company owners feel about influencers and not being able to attribute 100 % of that revenue? Are they on board? Do they understand that concept? Because a lot don’t, and they’re not willing to bend on that.
Madelyn (25:00.238)
I have worked with brands that don’t, like you said, a lot don’t. Gobi has been great. They look at me, they say, they trust me. So when I tell them it’s organic and just trust that 40 million views means that we’re doing really well. Yes, it means revenue. They do, they understand. When I first joined, it took some explaining, a little bit of connecting spikes in sales here and there, but…
Greg Shuey (25:03.8)
Yeah.
Greg Shuey (25:08.408)
awesome.
Greg Shuey (25:17.208)
Means heaven -o.
Madelyn (25:28.558)
They are really great at Gobi and they understand that. They understand the impact of word of mouth and reach and just spreading the word about what Gobi is and how that can be super impactful to sales.
Greg Shuey (25:42.2)
That’s awesome, cool. So based on all of your experience, your years of experience, what advice would you give to other brands who are just looking to maybe one, just start, and then two, who are like, yeah, I wanna swing big. I want that many views. Like, what advice do you have?
Madelyn (26:01.582)
Yeah, I mean, I would say that getting started is the hardest part. So take your time in that phase of determining what your approach is. If you want to copy mine and say, I’m going to look at it in these three buckets, do it. I’m not gatekeeping my strategy. But if you do things, yeah, I mean, that doesn’t work for everyone, right? If you don’t have the resources to manage three.
Greg Shuey (26:19.128)
I love your strategy.
Madelyn (26:27.182)
different buckets of influencers, maybe choose one and start there. Or if you need to hire help for that, or if you have a platform that you really love. I mean, spend the time to figure it out. I probably took four to six months before I felt confident in the strategy that I had for Gobi. It took some trial and error, and don’t be afraid to like…
not get the right influencers right at the jump because it takes a little bit of time to know who’s going to work for your brand, what is actually going to perform best, what type of content you need. So then, yeah, I would say, you know, keep track of that stuff with a good platform and probably more important than anything is create strong relationships with your creators. You know, don’t look at each piece of content as one and done. Creators can be vital for lots of…
lots of parts of your business. I mean, you know, UGC is huge. Everyone’s all over the UGC right now. But even beyond that, I mean, at Gobi, we’ve leaned on our creators for product testing. We’ve leaned on them for reviews. You know, they can be helpful in all kinds of aspects and not just social media marketing. So those relationships can become really, really important as you grow.
Greg Shuey (27:30.424)
Cool.
Greg Shuey (27:39.352)
I love that. That is some really good insight and recommendations. So where do you see influencer marketing going kind of for the rest of the year into 2025? Do you have any predictions?
Madelyn (27:52.27)
Yeah, I mean, it’s here to stay, right? Influencer marketing is not going anywhere, but it is evolving, right? So it started out superscripted. We’re getting more into that authentic type of influencer marketing. I personally think that with the upcoming algorithm changes that Meta’s announced, collaborative posts are going to be even more important for having…
Greg Shuey (27:55.672)
It’s here.
Madelyn (28:15.566)
a strong brand page because I think that brand accounts are going less and less effective in terms of engagement followers. And so being able to collaborate and kind of link one post to both accounts from a creator is going to be big. That leans into the idea of whitelisting as well and just keeping that brand engagement up by leaning on your creators to get the help there.
Greg Shuey (28:41.624)
I like that a lot. And then do you have any final words of wisdom before we wrap up?
Madelyn (28:47.63)
I mean, no, I just, you know, you can do it. It’s like the hardest hurdle is getting started. Genuinely, I spent, you know, years at other companies thinking that this is impossible. How does anyone do this on their own? But it just takes time to find what works. It takes trial and error. So don’t be afraid to fail. Yes.
Greg Shuey (29:09.496)
Just do it, carve out some time, put in the hard work, and make it happen. I like it.
Madelyn (29:16.686)
I mean, it’s all he can do, right?
Greg Shuey (29:18.872)
It’s about all you can do with anything marketing and business related, right? It’s all hard and it’s all scary. So just do it. I love it. Cool, cool. Well, that was an awesome discussion. Thank you so much for taking some time to be with us today.
Madelyn (29:23.598)
It’s time for a –
Yeah.
Madelyn (29:33.102)
Yeah, thanks for having me on. I’m excited to have been here and I’m really excited to see what everyone else does in influencer marketing.
Greg is the founder and CEO of Stryde and a seasoned digital marketer who has worked with thousands of businesses, large and small, to generate more revenue via online marketing strategy and execution. Greg has written hundreds of blog posts as well as spoken at many events about online marketing strategy. You can follow Greg on Twitter and connect with him on LinkedIn.
