E009: Ashton Wall: Putting Influencer Marketing At The Core of your Marketing Stack

[00:00:00] Welcome to episode nine of the marketing operators podcast today. We've got a great one. We've got a special guest,

[00:00:05] Ashden Wall from Gatemaker who formally was a CMO of color pop cosmetics where they grew to $300

[00:00:12] million a year without spending a dollar on ads. So in case you're wondering how to do that,

[00:00:17] that's what Ashden is going to drop some bombs on today. She's the smartest person I know in

[00:00:21] influence of marketing. We personally work with her and her agency gatemaker at Jones Road. So we've

[00:00:25] asked her to come on just to drop some bombs. Ashden has plenty of hot takes, loves talking

[00:00:30] about attribution. Her hot takes on PR, where influence for shit report in Oregon. This is going

[00:00:36] to be a really great one. We picked her brain at the end of it, just actually learned some

[00:00:40] strategies that she recommends for Jones Road, hexclad and rage. So I think you guys are going

[00:00:44] to get a lot out of this and as always thank you so much to our sponsor, Motion, Rich Panel,

[00:00:50] House and After So. So I'm constantly asking my team to the same question. I'm saying how do we

[00:01:03] make ads that convert? What's the content? What's the creative? What's our strategy so that we

[00:01:07] can make ads that convert users into customers? Luckily, our premier sponsors here to help Motion.

[00:01:13] They are a creative analytics tool. We use them, hexclad, use them. Jones Road uses them.

[00:01:18] Viori, true classic. All of the big nine figure heavy hit or D to see brands rely on motion

[00:01:23] to give their teams more analytical rigor when it comes creating content. And when they're asking

[00:01:27] themselves, how do we create ads that convert motions here to help even more? They've got a weekly

[00:01:33] Thursday seminar called make ads that convert aptly named. They've got some great people,

[00:01:39] Morella, Corress, B, Dara, Danny, Jess, Bach, Mincevana Sanchez, all people that I've looked up

[00:01:44] to for a long time when it comes performance creative and they'll be teaching some of the best in

[00:01:48] class practices and strategies when it comes to creating ads. So make sure to join at MotionApp.com.

[00:01:54] They've got a few sessions left and for the ones that you have missed, there are recordings

[00:01:59] that you can check out. So make sure you do and thanks for listening. All right, welcome to episode 9

[00:02:06] of Marketing Operators podcast today. Today is a really fun one. We have an amazing guest I think.

[00:02:11] Yeah, our second guest this season. We got some really good feedback on the one with Dave

[00:02:16] and super excited today. We have Ash and Wall. The influencer expert, the smartest influencer

[00:02:21] person I know to teach all of us a little bit about influencer so well-combation. Thank you. Thank you

[00:02:28] for having me. I caught the two in Devine. It sounded like a very kind and true of things Cody.

[00:02:32] It was. It was. No, Ash and as much too humble to introduce herself. So I will do a little bit for her.

[00:02:40] Ash and what was the CMO at Color Pop? And was wildly successful there growing that brand.

[00:02:46] I'm pretty sure it was nine figures but grew that rapidly and is now the co-founder of

[00:02:54] gatemaker and influencer agency that works with some of the best beauty brands, including Jones

[00:02:59] Rob beauty. So firsthand experience working with Ash and our, our, our, our, one thing I'll

[00:03:06] share, like you originally reached out Twitter DM may, you know, when you guys were launching

[00:03:10] and you didn't pitch at all. Like you obviously told me what you're doing but just connected

[00:03:14] and we kind of just stayed in touch after that. When we had some turnover I reached out. We

[00:03:18] did a mentor past call and like I could just see like the way I look at Facebook ads manager. It was

[00:03:22] like how you looked at tribe, which is what we used for software and just like how well you know it

[00:03:26] but you also have a paid media background. Is that right? That's right. That's right. Which is

[00:03:33] cool. So I think you look at things very similar to how we do at least fun, like principally

[00:03:39] but obviously it's very different for the influencer side. So I'm very excited. I know that you

[00:03:43] you know that you know Connor from from Ridge as well and you've you know helped them a little bit.

[00:03:47] So I'm super excited just to have you share some of some of your wisdom as well with us.

[00:03:52] Now I think some are excited to be here and thanks for accommodating the Paris time zone.

[00:03:56] Of course, absolutely. All right. So if you listen you know we like to kick things off with a

[00:04:00] bit of a test of the week. We usually just share one thing that we are you know testing what

[00:04:05] we did, what we learned from it, just so people can share and so we're going to put you on the spot.

[00:04:09] Do you have anything that you've done recently? A test that you guys have ran and yeah tell us about it.

[00:04:16] But this is like one of my favorite tests that we've continued to continue to run quarterly

[00:04:21] with many of our clients. But so one of the gatemaker, the philosophies is we're kind of anti-brief.

[00:04:26] So we believe that the work and influencer lies in what selecting the right partners. And

[00:04:33] you know respectfully I don't know that in those marketing managers no content better than people

[00:04:37] that have hundreds and thousands of non-millions of followers. We kind of pick a painter if you will and let them

[00:04:41] pay. But we get a lot of pushback on that from our brands and rightfully so maybe when you're paying

[00:04:46] money for a creator you won't and they hit this or talking point, etc. So we ran this test recently

[00:04:51] with one of our largest brands where we took a high six-figure monthly budget and we broken into two

[00:04:57] one side. Okay for every creator that we're bringing content with this month we are going to have

[00:05:02] one piece of content that's non-braved and one piece of content that's braved and we want to see

[00:05:05] how it performs on impressions views, BMB, etc. And what I tell you was like not even close

[00:05:11] to the performance of non-braved content versus brief content like sometimes 5x10x the performance

[00:05:18] of non-braved was really really interesting and this is like I said something that we continue to

[00:05:22] run quarterly. We continued to see these results and it's just something I'm really excited about

[00:05:28] and I'd love to run that with our brands. Non-braved like hey here's a product that's it makes

[00:05:34] up make some shit that was all. Yes, yes. And this is like urr and url. This is the reaction

[00:05:40] I get every time. This is urr and it's like paid what's the content is purely like urr and media

[00:05:47] sponsor content. Purely urr and media sponsor content but we always begin rights for usage

[00:05:54] and that non-braved content that performed really well goes into paid and it did just as well

[00:05:59] relative to the brief content. So yeah so I think on the iLiveJew reaction contract is that's

[00:06:05] the reaction you get every time when I've pitched this to my brands especially when they're spending

[00:06:09] 500,600,000 which a lot of them and beauty do is that not on a monthly basis. So we just say

[00:06:16] hey the hard work is selecting the creators and let them go wild and let them talk about other brands.

[00:06:21] Like let even know your paying for the content let them talk about other brands and I think I would

[00:06:26] say on average it takes our clients maybe six months to let us do that but when we finally get them to

[00:06:31] say okay we'll try it and I'm using things happen. I have so many questions. Thank you wait for

[00:06:36] you. No I'm just kind of curious like you know because we're we've gone back and forth.

[00:06:43] I also think like we sponsor a lot of creators and I feel some like don't need brief so I've

[00:06:47] totally been in that camp and then some of them like yeah these guys clearly need some help over here

[00:06:51] but when we get to like USPs or like you know differentiators or things like that do you

[00:06:57] feel it's best to just not highlight those? It's not needed you just want to let the painters paint

[00:07:02] yeah I mean we will educate so that's not to say that we don't educate and you're some talking points

[00:07:07] just to help them out. We say don't I don't expect them to do all of that recon on their own but in

[00:07:12] terms of saying he must hit this USP you must open with this hug absolutely not and one

[00:07:20] one example I love to use with my brands even though we're primarily beauty and a little bit

[00:07:23] of fashion like there's a divert of course we're in as you know Stanley the Stanley cut like the actual

[00:07:28] cabinet everyone's going nuts for when you look at that content and how it overtook

[00:07:32] TikTok and YouTube and Instagram and how I mean it's indescapable at this point

[00:07:36] and people are stealing the target right there's like crazy stories about it but I don't think

[00:07:41] I've ever once seen a piece of content about a Stanley cut that talks about any any USP or anything

[00:07:47] attributes about the cup really like it's just this like tertiary or secondary character in

[00:07:52] every video that you can't escape and I think there's a lot to be learned from that when we apply

[00:07:57] a video in the truck that had burned that wasn't a brief

[00:08:06] awesome pool all right so yeah I want to get into like just your general strategy and maybe

[00:08:12] I can try to kind of pinpoint the question but I would love just to kind of hear breakdown of like

[00:08:16] how you view influencer I think there's there's so many things on this world there's influencers

[00:08:20] there's creators there's using creators for ads or using creators for earn media there's you

[00:08:25] know partnership deals there's affiliate like how do you view it and help people make sense of it

[00:08:29] and and yes yeah what's your general strategy when you work with brands?

[00:08:32] Oh man um okay first of all I have a question for you because I'm pulling everybody on this

[00:08:38] how do you define creator or simple answer the cows, Jones, bro defining that internally

[00:08:42] in um hex cloud and rich do you guys make the distinction? I hope we are defining the same way I think

[00:08:48] influencer is probably more of like are we working with them for their audience for an

[00:08:53] earn media value factor? I don't I don't know if we're differentiating that much maybe we should

[00:08:57] more on like if they truly have influence but I think it's more of if we're working with somebody

[00:09:00] further audience they are an influencer versus if we're working with someone purely for the

[00:09:04] content whether that is you know organic social or paid social they're mainly a creator

[00:09:10] curious how you guys would say that yeah if we're like working with someone purely because like

[00:09:14] hey we're like we're one of the things we're doing right now is we're trying to go after and get

[00:09:18] more older talent in our ads because that's a huge demo for us but we don't do a good job

[00:09:22] of showing them in ads that's pure ad curation like I would say those folks are creators not that

[00:09:28] some of them don't have audiences because they do but just the deals that we have with them there's

[00:09:32] no sort of organic deliverable sometimes it's like influencer and creator deal where they OS an organic

[00:09:38] deliverable and content that we're going to use in ads so that's kind of like hybrid but yeah

[00:09:43] co-dead say we're defining it the same way depending on the the tactic that we're trying to roll

[00:09:47] out we almost exclusively use the word creator so we use that like very generally one distinction

[00:09:53] we've been making internally and it's like in a very narrow capacity and it comes from like

[00:10:00] influence but we look at like Mark has brownly an Andrew he remenet him ferris you put like

[00:10:05] Guineth Paltro Oprah in that bucket like people who truly have influence we like to make that

[00:10:10] distinction because they're like people who you know consumers or users look up to to make decisions that

[00:10:16] truly have influence on their lives that is a slightly different and smaller bucket than just

[00:10:21] like general creators but like I said that's like I'm talking about a pretty small percentage of

[00:10:26] people at that point it's a really narrow definition of like true influence all right what's the real answer

[00:10:32] no I mean I don't I don't know that I have the real answer but I'm I used to kind of exclusively

[00:10:36] use the term influencer anything that's just my background coming from color pop it now everyone's

[00:10:40] a creator and some creators have influence so I think we're kind of all saying the same thing

[00:10:44] but that's kind of a hot topic inside Kate and Edgar right now for how are we are we defining them

[00:10:49] okay sorry to answer your question though about general strategy and how I view influencer that's a

[00:10:53] big one to start co-vichees um I think it's different for every brand but what I would say of how

[00:11:01] I approach influencer and creators for me that most important thing is community size so that's what

[00:11:08] I'm really really cared about when I look at each brand so um yes quality matters and you should

[00:11:13] have some key like marquee partnerships depending on where you are in the stage of your brand and

[00:11:18] your budget um but I think the most important thing is how many people are talking about you on the

[00:11:23] internet that are a creator of some sorts and monitoring that number of months over month and

[00:11:27] monitoring that retention that is like the I guess the the cornerstone of everything that we do

[00:11:33] at Kate Maker um and I don't think that's how most brands look at it at least in fashion and

[00:11:38] beauty so please keep in mind I'm coming at it from a fashion and beauty lines not um not any verticals

[00:11:43] outside of fashion and beauty um so that's really the cornerstone and then um you know what you think

[00:11:49] about optimizing for community size and optimizing for um kind of that post-frequency and retention

[00:11:55] I think there's a lot of things that most brands when they start their influencer creator journey

[00:12:01] care about that we don't necessarily care about so things that are like I only want to work with

[00:12:05] creators that are on brand and like that's we could spend an hour just on that um or I only want

[00:12:11] to work with creators that have X amount of that have you know this fall over tier or um are in

[00:12:17] this vertical of content creation we're pretty agnostic when it comes to when it comes to those things

[00:12:22] like I would say those are like the second and third things that we look at the first things that

[00:12:25] we look at are um likelihood of post-frequency and well they stay in the community. And and so

[00:12:30] your general strategy to grow that obviously those are the metrics you look at this is kind of

[00:12:35] leading questions because I know but just break it down like are you are you going and finding you

[00:12:39] creators influencers to pay are you gifting giving organic things like are you doing affiliate like

[00:12:45] what's the general strategy when you start you know if you were to come into jumps road and say like

[00:12:49] hey this is what you guys should be doing or going into another company. Yeah yeah all of the above

[00:12:54] and it just depends on kind of um I would say where we toggle the volume on each so you have

[00:12:59] gifting you have um seating and I think those are two different things so we can drill into that

[00:13:04] and then a paid capacity and then affiliate I would say affiliate is last for us like I never

[00:13:09] like to start a relationship as an affiliate. I know there are a lot of brands that do do that

[00:13:12] and that that can work I think in the beauty and fashion space specifically um when I look at

[00:13:18] like the arc of brands that got into influencer and creators early I think beauties most matured

[00:13:23] if you will so an affiliate code I don't think is as enticing as it was maybe five years ago

[00:13:28] but so on to say that you can't end the relationship there but starting at their right

[00:13:30] I haven't seen a lot of success. But anyway back to your original question I think

[00:13:36] toggling the volumes is different for every brand so like when I look at your brand like Jones

[00:13:39] Road you have so much recognition with Bobby, so much credibility, your um product offering is so unique

[00:13:46] and who you are targeting and how you speak about the product that's not the case for everybody else

[00:13:50] so you can get away with a lot deeper gifting and seeding then another brand that I think would have to

[00:13:57] go harder on paid relationships to start and get the word out. So yeah whenever we take on a new

[00:14:03] brand that that answer really depends another example I would use is um rare beauty like rare

[00:14:08] beauty I don't think needs to pay anybody maybe they do now that it's been like three years and

[00:14:12] I'm watching their EMV numbers and they're not as good as they were but they're still very much

[00:14:16] they're still very much rolling yeah what's the difference between gifting and seeding?

[00:14:21] Is that all you know find now? Yeah um a seeding is just mass getting the product in people's hands

[00:14:28] gifting I think comes with more of a premium and premium unboxing experience or storytelling that

[00:14:32] comes along with it so that's how we differentiate differentiate the two. Okay got it yeah so

[00:14:37] at least for us we are doing almost no paid content and you know want to ask you some questions about it

[00:14:43] but the general strategy is and maybe you can elaborate on it like find people to reach out

[00:14:47] everyone you know every month find new people kind of acquisition to reach out a certain

[00:14:53] number then we'll say yes or remember then we'll post and then you know just freeze stuff and

[00:14:58] then we're doing our best creating strategies to help retain them because one thing that was

[00:15:03] really interesting to me when we first chatted um you shared some data I think this was from you

[00:15:07] know from Connor from Tribe but like the relationships the correlation between the strategies

[00:15:12] that the best EMV teams are doing at least in beauty um it was it was very relationship heavy

[00:15:17] I felt like it was very little paid uh as you know the correlation and very little affiliate can

[00:15:21] you talk about that a little bit yeah um so I think that goes back to community size right so when

[00:15:27] I look at the top brands um and I'm defining top as community size or top 10 EMV and I want to make

[00:15:33] sure we don't like when we talk about EMV this whole conversation but for the beauty can we define it

[00:15:38] yeah yeah thank you um yeah so EMV earned media value um it's a term that's been around forever

[00:15:45] and I term that many software companies um use and define I love Tribe Dynamics because they put

[00:15:52] everybody on an even playing field and all of the data that they capture to me is the most accurate

[00:15:57] they have competitors but there's things that are left out like Instagram stories etc um so EMV is just

[00:16:02] rolling up impressions engagement views like shares etc and then just kind of putting everyone

[00:16:08] on an apples to apples playing field um so I know and that's your main KPI for your programs correct

[00:16:14] for like 70% of our clients the other 30% would we work with them to get them content for paid or

[00:16:20] affiliate etc yeah but 70% of our clients and so I would imagine a lot of people listen to this

[00:16:25] are you know more unlike from the performance back marketing background and they're you know maybe

[00:16:29] bootstrap companies looking for revenue like is there something only larger established retail brands

[00:16:34] should be thinking about is that something that's important for everyone listening even smaller brands

[00:16:39] I think so I really think so when I look at color pop in the early days and um I'm talking like

[00:16:44] 2014 2015 so even before my time um I think I can say this but color pop hit uh I want to see

[00:16:51] 300 million in revenue without spending a single penny on Facebook or Google which is wild yeah in

[00:16:57] yeah yeah um so I think the proof is in the putting there do I think that you could you know replicate

[00:17:03] those results in 2024 I don't know because they were really early to the space of social and

[00:17:07] influencer but I think it's so so important to connect with community early on um and we have a lot

[00:17:14] of brands that we advise that we don't necessarily take on in an executional capacity of how they

[00:17:18] can do that even if they just have a founder and a marketing coordinator and in fact when you look at

[00:17:22] some brands like um I love the founders of blow recipe and the early days when they had no budget

[00:17:27] glow recipe I think targeted 300 creators that they thought really would resonate with their brand

[00:17:34] in the founders developed a relationship with all 300 of them and wrote them um like a

[00:17:39] prescriptive skincare regimen that didn't just include glow recipe which I love like I love this idea

[00:17:45] of like not just thinking the world evolves around your brand and you can't bring another products

[00:17:49] so yeah so they took those 300 people it might have been 100 100 300 and then wrote them that

[00:17:54] regimen instead okay this is what I would do for you Cody for you Connor for you Connor um I

[00:17:59] used this from glow recipe but then I would pad it with this and that's how those relationships

[00:18:03] started and to this day you can track back everybody in their communities that initial 100 or 300

[00:18:09] whatever it was and that's just such a powerful takeaway for me and now you look at glow recipe

[00:18:13] and I mean there you know nine figures in revenue like the absolute darling at Sephora I've not

[00:18:18] one of the top three brands at Sephora I was incredible and quickly I want to jump back to EMV just

[00:18:24] for a second we defined it this earned media value because I found this really interesting when we

[00:18:29] we first spoke a couple years ago uh but like tribe dynamics gives you like a dollar number

[00:18:35] it could be anything but it's like some sort of metric and then like what what you and your teams do

[00:18:40] are you guys are like plotting that dollar metric out over time so it's like you're looking at it

[00:18:44] in the same way that I might look at a revenue or like revenue attributed to ad you guys are looking

[00:18:49] at the media value attributed to all of your influencer campaigns I think that's nice for people

[00:18:54] to visualize as we start talking about strategies it's like that's ultimately how we're measuring

[00:18:58] it which I think is incredibly unique yeah yeah thank you and um when I was at color pop with a

[00:19:04] Amelia my co-founder we actually started plotting EMV against the hardware metric so site traffic

[00:19:11] conversion rate revenue AOV and it was absolutely undeniable the correlation and keep in mind

[00:19:17] and I don't expect everyone to know this but color pop launched at minimum one collection a week

[00:19:23] like at minimum so sometimes we were launching two or three collections a week and keep in mind

[00:19:27] we also belonged to a larger company called seed beauty which incubated the Kardashian brands

[00:19:32] and a couple of others which I was over and so was my co-founder Amelia so this statistical

[00:19:37] significance of this data so you have all of these brands like eight brands launching a collection

[00:19:42] per week and we're plotting on each brand what was the EMV what was the community size what was

[00:19:47] the post-pote and seed meaning like you know how potent how many likes engagement etc

[00:19:51] what was the post frequency of the community and then against the revenue the site traffic the

[00:19:56] conversion rate and then even the row as in the CPA and it was wild and for every brand that

[00:20:02] lead time differ so like for color pop it was pretty immediate like within four weeks if we saw

[00:20:07] the EMV like we go on of the month we pretty much know where revenue was gonna end up for other

[00:20:11] brands the tail is a little bit longer but it was this amazing leading indicator so if we saw

[00:20:15] that EMV was kind of lacking on a certain collection so when we blew back up just a second to

[00:20:22] we would seed collections and products like three weeks ahead of it being for sale

[00:20:26] and whatever that EMV read on was whatever that EMV read was would tell us exactly how

[00:20:30] that collection was gonna do so if that EMV was pretty low for the collection I would call our CEO

[00:20:34] and be like it's gonna be bloody.

[00:20:42] Well you optimize towards EMV I want to make like a media buying kind of comparison here like

[00:20:47] we optimize our Facebook ad account based on one day click so if we're going to go and

[00:20:51] spend more we're gonna go put more budget until whatever has the best one day click so you're

[00:20:56] tracking EMV for like your entire program and then you're getting more granular you're breaking

[00:21:00] it down by collection and product type all that are you also doing it on a per creator basis

[00:21:04] like the same way a media buyer is going to go optimize and put more spending into whatever

[00:21:08] as the best one day click and kind of kill whatever as the lowest one day click to lift up the

[00:21:12] entire account are you doing the same thing we're like hey if we want to go spend more on influencer

[00:21:16] or do more seeding like let's go optimize towards the creators with the best EMV and A

[00:21:21] like see if we can activate more with those folks but then be go find people that are similar to

[00:21:26] them and that's like your key metric on an individual basis too.

[00:21:30] Yes that's exactly right so the EMV contribution per creator and when we saw creators that really

[00:21:36] over indexed on their EMV contribution relative to their size and their post-requency etc anything

[00:21:41] we could do to lock them up as an exclusive with the brand to break. Okay.

[00:21:43] With that old with my brands now and a curse corner all the time he built the best software in

[00:21:48] the world that I love but he also made it so everybody can see what everyone else is doing and

[00:21:52] everyone else is working with. So anytime one of my brands find a star and like oh it's just

[00:21:56] a matter of weeks until all their competitors are now. Okay so you'll go use the EMV so like if

[00:22:02] you did seeding or gifting with someone and you see someone shoots up in your EMV rankings you'll

[00:22:08] often use that to inform more like a paid brand ambassador type deal. Okay cool.

[00:22:15] And then when you do pay you also look at like EMV row S right? That's exactly yes yes and that

[00:22:20] determines who gets rebooked and and who doesn't and then we also I mean we look at so many things we

[00:22:25] also look at you know who gave post outside of what their scope was right so if we scope

[00:22:28] do for three posts but you gave us six we're gonna rebook you. I wish I could I wish I could just

[00:22:34] like bring all the managers and agents in that room and say please there's so much you could do to

[00:22:38] get rebooked and get no anyway. All of us our house customers and very big fans

[00:22:46] in fact I've actually been told I talk about how it's more than my own daughter. So what is

[00:22:50] house houses of marketing science and experimentation platform that enables you to measure true

[00:22:55] income mentality and allocate budget efficiently to maximize growth and profitability.

[00:23:00] House allows you to comprehensively measure your marketing across all channels to measure the true

[00:23:05] incremental impact of all of your channels on retail and Amazon, DTC etc. House allows you to design

[00:23:12] and launch experiments in minutes and get results in as little as two weeks. So we are all

[00:23:17] actual customers of house we all use it. I actually got the both corners onto it. I was just

[00:23:22] such a big fan and I just couldn't help but share some of the tests that we were running

[00:23:26] and I thought it was super cool and I knew we had a group chat going and I knew that both

[00:23:30] of these guys were spending on a lot of different you know channels and platforms and

[00:23:34] we were all looking at things similarly but really looking to kind of take us step up so

[00:23:38] yeah if it's good enough for me to sell these kind of guys on I think it's good enough for you

[00:23:42] to try out. As you can tell we could do a whole episode about house and we probably will at some

[00:23:47] point but this is just the ad read so if you want to add marketing rigor to your organization

[00:23:52] and make the most impact with your spend go to house.io slash operators that's HAUS.io slash

[00:23:59] operators to learn more. So I do have a question of backtracks lightly a collection of week

[00:24:06] you're launching across many brands you said you're seeding products through weeks in advance

[00:24:10] I'd love for you to just speak to like maybe some more points of that go-to-market strategy it's

[00:24:15] just such an insane cadence and like there's so much manual work dealing with all the creators

[00:24:19] so what did that look like? And also you were CMO you weren't just like I mean it was in fluencer

[00:24:25] as a cornerstone but like there's a lot going on so if you speak to email or anything else

[00:24:29] I'd love to hear like the playbook. Yeah absolutely okay so let me think of like a really

[00:24:36] big collection because we would have you know tier A tier B tier C. I'll talk about our

[00:24:41] cellular room collaboration we did a Sailor Moon collaboration and sold out in two minutes and we

[00:24:45] couldn't get a inventory for like nine months that was painful that amazing at the same time

[00:24:50] so that good a market strategy probably started I'm just a six weeks before launch so we

[00:24:55] teased it now keep in mind color pop had 10 million followers on Instagram this was pre-ticktockers

[00:25:00] and we were also like a media company in a way and in that way so we would drop all these breadcrumbs

[00:25:05] and teased that something exciting was coming on Instagram and we also conjured up a lot of

[00:25:10] Reddit communities I love marketing on Reddit and in an organic way we would see a little

[00:25:15] leaks on Reddit so all the leaks for color pop on Reddit was stompired to and so we would get

[00:25:20] the community stocking and then when we teased something like that it was amazing that some of

[00:25:26] the big powerhouse influencers would reach out to us and say is it true are you launching a Sailor Moon

[00:25:30] pop? What's going on? I want to be the first to get it something like the Jeffrey Stars back in the

[00:25:34] day or this is like pre-micala but you know that caliber of talent so then we would put together

[00:25:40] okay here here are the powerhouses like you know a million five million 10 million followers

[00:25:45] on the polling is everything but just to give you an idea that we think are really going to

[00:25:48] resonate with this collection let's make sure they feel really special and that they are gifted to

[00:25:53] and not seated well ahead of everybody else like they are in on the secret they have something

[00:25:57] under embargo they can talk to a product development team etc so we would gift maybe five weeks

[00:26:04] before the floor launch and then from there we would seed three weeks before launch

[00:26:10] and we would ask for this content back to us before launch so we could use it in paid

[00:26:15] in a lot of times I mean this was like the wow well this is like 2018 2019 we're going to pay

[00:26:19] for usage back then which is like insane to me and even think that's what we got all these

[00:26:23] so we were all this content and didn't have to pay for it now you would and we would start loading

[00:26:28] up our email and then paid social ads based on this content which was really cool I mean imagine

[00:26:33] having your launch day and you already have all the YouTube cuts and Instagram cuts before

[00:26:39] the products even hit the site so that was a really really amazing way to get a huge volume of

[00:26:44] content to get the creators on board before the product to be launched and then also let some

[00:26:48] of them let some of them drop the explosives so we would say okay we're announcing at 10 a.m.

[00:26:53] of Thursday you can go at 10 o'clock you can go at 10 10 etc so that that would conjure up a lot of

[00:26:59] us like yeah with color pop the email marketing program and the paid program I feel like was so

[00:27:07] carried by an influencer and social it which I think is different for a lot of your audience

[00:27:12] and a lot of the brands that you guys talk to and interview and work with and you know I mean

[00:27:16] both both corners I don't know that that your you're going to market looks like that maybe

[00:27:20] maybe it's as but perhaps it was really about getting the community excited five to six weeks before

[00:27:26] launch and then taking all my content and watching a day out so are they posting then are they

[00:27:30] like sorry you so you said some of these people you're giving exclusive and you're saying

[00:27:34] all right we're launching at 10 a.m. like on our site and to our own channels on you know Friday at 10 a.m.

[00:27:41] are in some of these people are going to like launch right after that and drive that big you

[00:27:46] know traffic blitz to the site that big pop in in sales are some of these people then because

[00:27:51] you are like you're dropping kind of teaser stuff into these communities you're getting some

[00:27:54] buzz going are you also telling some of the influencers and being kind of like hey like this

[00:27:59] batch of influencers we're going to have you post pre-launched this batch we're going to have

[00:28:03] you post after launch and then giving them I know you said you're not being on briefing but

[00:28:06] were you giving them some sort of brief to be like listen it's not going to be live at this point

[00:28:10] but like you can still post and get some buzz to like what how did that look because obviously

[00:28:14] you don't want to post and be like go get it and then it's not live so how are you handling like

[00:28:18] the pre post versus the it's launched and out people are posting yeah so we wouldn't it doesn't

[00:28:24] made a batch of creators we would say okay you're you're allowed to go live with your review three days

[00:28:28] before launch and obviously you know they're just as invested to not send their audience down

[00:28:32] a dead end so this is you know when it's a big whole where it's available etc and then sorry

[00:28:38] what was your second question prior I was just asking how you split the pre-launch versus the post launch

[00:28:43] so it's not you had one you had one batch and you were giving them some sort of guidelines to be like

[00:28:47] all right this is going to be three days before the launch it's not live yet or you're not even doing that

[00:28:51] no yeah we would say you know you have to announce you cannot announce before this date you need

[00:28:56] it announce what's in this time frame and then this is where the availability of the product is

[00:28:59] and that was it and I think that was like so the beauty of the relationship too because it was a

[00:29:03] little nerve-wracking for us so when you think about a Jeffrey star some of these huge YouTube

[00:29:08] births of millions and millions of followers they got that audience because of their honesty

[00:29:12] so there would be times that we would say oh we might get about review like this might go live and

[00:29:16] this person might say hey color pop or Kylie is dropping this I think it sucks yeah

[00:29:23] that's not happened a few times so yeah so no guidelines yeah yeah they're just fun

[00:29:29] they're they're free to just say what they wanted and then in terms of how we picked them

[00:29:35] you know at the end of my time there were so lucky that the demand was so high that we had so much

[00:29:40] inbound I like I want to be the first to announce when you guys do a palette or I want to be the

[00:29:45] first to announce when you do a collaboration with such and such but before that demand was so

[00:29:50] high with all the creators that kind of wanted to announce with us it was really curated of who we

[00:29:55] thought would resonate with each collection and and and when you think about too like having 10 million

[00:30:02] followers we got to a point where we were bigger than a lot of the creators so kind of giving them that

[00:30:07] cloud of allowing them to you know break news or break a launch it didn't I did a lot for

[00:30:13] for their engagement and they're following in their credibility so that was a really nice

[00:30:18] symbiotic relationship as well we did that we did that recently we were working on our

[00:30:26] outreach program so when we're reaching out to new creators like what is our messaging and like one

[00:30:30] of my thoughts was like hey let's just talk about the other people that we've worked with we had a

[00:30:33] general message you're like where ridges this is the mission this is what we do and I was like let's

[00:30:37] let's say we've worked with you know Travis Barker, Mark Kez Brownley, Pewdiepie like we've got

[00:30:41] some of the biggest names in the space and when we were looking at it that point was just response

[00:30:45] rate and it seemed like not only where people were more likely to respond but they were more

[00:30:48] likely to engage just because I think we seem cooler to work with kind of to your point that we are like

[00:30:52] we are of some value to them as well yeah absolutely and it's interesting that you touch on that

[00:30:59] because earlier in our conversation we were talking when Cody was saying like how do you decide

[00:31:02] how much gift and conceiting to do versus paid etc. You know some of the brands that that we take on

[00:31:09] and I do not put rich in this category thank you guys are absolutely the coolest and I was very

[00:31:13] much on the cutting edge of what you do but like a legacy brand that we have some brands that

[00:31:17] have been around for 60 years and made it start investing in influencer and creators until this year

[00:31:22] and can you imagine so they're quite behind and we'll say hey you need those cornerstone people

[00:31:27] to demonstrate that you are cool to the other 99% of the community and we do need to lead with that

[00:31:32] in outreach and include that content so yeah so sometimes I'll you know talk my shit on when

[00:31:38] I see a brand working with Alex Earl because I know what she calls and I'm just like oh my god

[00:31:42] but then there are times where I'm like you do need to got that check to reenter the conversation

[00:31:46] such as to pens. I love the I want to call something out just real quick that you mentioned that

[00:31:51] I I've been really emphasizing with my team and it's thought of lead in time to these product

[00:31:57] it's not just launches in on a product page you shoot out a few emails and like product

[00:32:01] drops over like there's a huge front end to it going live there's a huge back end to it going

[00:32:05] live and all the work you do on the front end should hopefully help build out the funnels and the

[00:32:10] assets that you are putting into your own to operate channels from the day you launch and like

[00:32:15] we're working to like start teasing and dropping to our community it went new with influencers like

[00:32:19] two months ahead of time we're not there yet but we're working towards that and I think that's

[00:32:24] so important for people to take away like these moments of new product drops can be so much bigger

[00:32:29] and can have such a better sustain performance if you tease it out two influencers, two community

[00:32:34] well ahead of time so I think that's something we were not doing very well a year and a half ago

[00:32:40] we're getting better at it we're not there yet and I think that's a really good take away for

[00:32:43] listeners to start thinking like two months out ahead of launch. You say listeners but me too

[00:32:48] that's like I just wanted to know. We talked a little bit about this like get teasing pre launch

[00:32:54] we did it on an episode a couple weeks ago and I took a bunch of notes from Connor but

[00:32:58] actually everything you said I'm like oh yeah we have to be better capitalizing on that we've

[00:33:02] got like semblance of it we did a sweepstakes last year where we give away a Jeep and we did work

[00:33:06] with a handful of creators who like we had the Jeep in their video on the day of launch which was

[00:33:11] like really cool but logistically hard especially in the top of asking about like the weekly launches

[00:33:16] I'm like operationalizing that is is no easy task. No no I'm so recovering I'm getting

[00:33:24] and it's funny our agency as a source I you'd not ask this but it's just a funny anecdote

[00:33:29] so our agency is that original power pop team like happened in there with us and the other half

[00:33:33] were at skins actually comes lineskins and we have trouble recruiting sometimes and getting people on

[00:33:40] board with working in multiple brands when we were crewed from singular brands like if you were

[00:33:45] just making an upcoast as we did with pretty big and cost us and clicked for us we were like oh my god

[00:33:50] where we worked being on like eight brands that all launched every single week there's just a

[00:33:55] level of stamina that I don't think is normal for the afternoon marketer so we're yeah we

[00:34:01] everything about that will actually be so normal to us but every time I share this with somebody outside

[00:34:05] they're like a long-term week across a brand you know yeah along to make a processing just wild

[00:34:11] yeah we feel a little bit better about our our two of them yeah I think the same thing about

[00:34:17] um agency people too I have an agency background I know Connor Roleign does too I always joke like

[00:34:22] agent to people agent dog years and it sounds like that's what was going on at color pop as well

[00:34:26] yeah definitely definitely I mean it was it was the right like time you were almost the right

[00:34:29] it was the right of a lifetime and we learned just so quickly because of that launch cadence so

[00:34:34] I definitely don't take it for granted but I always I always forget when I tell people outside of

[00:34:39] the color pop or world that cadence I'm the reaction never it's a resistive tone is

[00:34:43] alright so I have a question slightly switching gears but not on how you measure like the funnel

[00:34:48] steps of seeding programs you know I think it's fascinating I think sometimes when people

[00:34:54] think about like earn me value and like brand and not performance stuff they don't necessarily

[00:34:58] track it but I feel like you are as data driven if not more you know compared to like most

[00:35:02] growth marketer of steps seems like what do you track in terms of the funnel steps that go into

[00:35:06] that process and why guess what is the process as well yeah okay so what do we track we track

[00:35:16] a number of things so first is that opt-in read so how many people are opting in when you reach out

[00:35:21] to them into your seeding program it's obviously super easy one but it's really interesting

[00:35:25] and it's a funny when I talk to a lot of brands they expect that their opt-in read will be 100%

[00:35:30] it's yeah okay I love the last thank you I'm like well okay so it never is and what are those

[00:35:36] options have in common and then we track so I mean that's dot but what's so cool is you'll test

[00:35:42] things like I remember I saw an inscromanally like you tested an image in ours you'll

[00:35:45] test different copy in different things so it's like you'll be very data driven about even that

[00:35:49] that copy that goes into there well exactly anything that's um it that's really low performance

[00:35:55] marketers are moving them into influencer I love people with an email marketing background so

[00:35:58] they think an email marketing background runs itself so well to this when you think about a funnel

[00:36:02] because that's not that's all it is it's kind of a social think of it as like a social driven

[00:36:07] welcome series if you will like a yeah a social creator first driven welcome series so

[00:36:12] we got you to opt into the program so think of it like an email capture like I got you to sign up for

[00:36:17] email list but he great that's like step one of so much that we have to do and I think that's where

[00:36:23] most programs fall flat is they are like okay someone opt in and they gave them product great

[00:36:28] my community great when they have the product no I'm just gonna sit back and measure it and it is

[00:36:31] not like that at all that's the easiest step so um so yeah someone to how you would you would

[00:36:36] look at a welcome series okay great we got someone to opt in sign up and receive product now what

[00:36:42] what we send or don't send them depends on the actions or in actions that they that they took

[00:36:48] and then what are those actions look like so for instance if I see a creator that opted into

[00:36:54] our seating program and we just get a story of the box that's like things so much

[00:36:57] Jones wrote for the get and then we never hear from them again okay we need to put them in a

[00:37:02] final and decide how we want to I want to treat that conversely if I get another creator that we

[00:37:07] opt into the um seating program and I you know get that story of thank you so much Jones wrote

[00:37:12] and then all this time I get four in feed reels of doing tutorials and talking about how much I love

[00:37:16] that they love the product that's gonna be treated a very different way and go into a very different

[00:37:21] flow so yeah I think that's the easiest way to look at it for those my friends and marketers I just

[00:37:25] clicked for me it's it's an email flow like it's the same exact principles of that acquisition

[00:37:29] and retention and nurturing and um you know categorizing and and that segmenting and personalizing

[00:37:36] but it's just through Instagram DM or email depending on how the brand wants to work

[00:37:40] and with an actual person so it's it's tough to scale like there's so many software services out there

[00:37:46] that say hey you want to get your product to man before thousand people we can do it in a month

[00:37:51] and there's a time in a place for that for sure I definitely use those but I question the

[00:37:55] retention and we um yeah the retention and the quality of the relationship long term

[00:38:01] yeah it's very it feels like SEO a little bit like even just like working with you guys

[00:38:04] words like it's a very slow buildup it's really gradual and six months later you check in and

[00:38:08] you're like oh shit like we're building like this is these these cohorts are compounding

[00:38:13] and they're really stacking on top of each other yeah we are Cody thank you um you're like

[00:38:18] prompt me more on this and like what am I missing this is my life every day so it just seems

[00:38:21] yeah like the back of my hand you know too well as we look at everything at as a cohort right

[00:38:26] to have different cohorts of users and and what do they have in common so we could be working with

[00:38:30] Jones Road and say okay for this cohort of opposition for net new community members we want

[00:38:36] to go after females over 50 that have kids and live in the Midwest so we really want to end

[00:38:41] over index there and we want to break between YouTube, TikTok and Instagram and we'll monitor

[00:38:47] that cohort over time and then if you see that you know cohort A is really um over performing

[00:38:53] all the other cohorts great that's going to inform our opposition strategy going point jump just

[00:38:57] like a growth marker and you know really and I think that is the difference of gate makers we

[00:39:01] have some new growth markers on our team so we take those principles and apply them apply

[00:39:05] them to creators and influencers and I think I mean this is a good topic and I'm really curious

[00:39:09] about all of you guys think about this if influencer and creators should work with grow for brand

[00:39:13] or both like I think that's like the debate with all of our brands right now but when it

[00:39:19] lives with brand I don't think it gets that view on it everyone's really precious about who they

[00:39:24] let do they give product to and who they work with and who they contract and we're not at

[00:39:28] all we follow the data one thing I'll say and then I'll like be quite so yeah I'll talk about this forever

[00:39:35] but um with tribe dynamics they'll show us community sizes for every brand like how many people

[00:39:40] are talking of your community on a monthly basis and then for the year what does that community

[00:39:45] size and where beauty's going to go Mrs Brand I think they have like some times someone's they

[00:39:51] have 6,000 creators mentioning them and that's just what tried to so it's probably much larger

[00:39:56] than that but we think about having 6,000 we think of it as like a as a customer database if you

[00:40:01] had 6,000 purchases and a month how large is your database have to be to do that so

[00:40:08] when I think about 6,000 active users and a month or active community members they probably

[00:40:13] have like only yearly basis like 18,000 I would say 18,000 like you are not going after people

[00:40:19] that are on variant right like they're that's just impossible so when you think about their

[00:40:22] opposition strategy and their retention strategy I think there's a lot of that commitment from that

[00:40:27] just like mic drop just drop like oh that's great we were super excited to talk today

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[00:41:42] you know doing those sequential order and market basket analyses and you can literally build out

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[00:42:09] yeah no kind of just one one they look like like what I love is you not only look at data

[00:42:14] driven like you can forecast like the what got me when you walk through it was like the same way

[00:42:18] I forecast our revenue for the business and we do we look at cohorts and we can say hey in six

[00:42:23] front months from now here is how much revenue I think we're going to get from these people we acquired in

[00:42:27] January you're doing the same thing on an EMB basis you'll say hey we sent out a thousand we had

[00:42:31] this many people to post in six months here's the EMB we get if we keep sending out a thousand every

[00:42:36] month and stacking those on top here's where we think you'll be at any year yeah I just love that

[00:42:42] I think we were pretty pretty spot on with you I remember I remember saying cool I got your

[00:42:47] and your number so looking great yeah we do that with everybody which is really fun and I think

[00:42:52] like prior to the EMBs on a new term that tribe is I don't know maybe 10 years old but I

[00:42:58] don't think it really caught wind and beauty and fashion maybe five or six years ago

[00:43:03] it just quantifies something that's been so hard to quantify so I'm not saying that the

[00:43:06] EMB like how are you were talking about how has it all our figure in front of it one of the

[00:43:09] biggest questions I get is like well the dollar VMD doesn't equal a dollar revenue with your ship I know

[00:43:15] but I don't know on a level playing fields and we can we can track it over time and predict that

[00:43:20] way but Cody have because we are working towards a EMB KPI have you plotted community

[00:43:25] size and EMB with like the business growth and if you see those correlations

[00:43:29] I have not I definitely have not I did see just in prep and for us like going to tribe

[00:43:36] our EMB growth for the year is pretty similar to our revenue growth for the year and again

[00:43:40] that's just like one data point it's it's slightly low so I think our revenue growth is higher

[00:43:44] like I do think we're we're very much paid driven and I think you know can maybe you can

[00:43:49] help me with this but I continue to try to find signs that it that there is a correlation

[00:43:53] and that we should continue to invest more in that and you know because it's obviously you know

[00:43:58] I've seen the data just haven't necessarily founded or taken the time to find the correlations

[00:44:02] for us and our business but want to continue to invest in things and I'll perform all harder to measure

[00:44:08] things for us. Yeah I do want to call out Cody you were talking about how cool it is

[00:44:13] to be able to project the the EMB performance of these cohorts and it's I'm just going to make fun

[00:44:18] of you it's like that's that's really your love like what's to you. I dream about cohort.

[00:44:28] Yeah I just I didn't want that to be ignored I'm like I don't know I think any opportunity

[00:44:34] make fun of me you should. You can like a true like a true consumables CMO cohorts are my love language totally

[00:44:41] well I I show we we dig more into the to the brand versus growth because I think that's a very

[00:44:45] interesting one like I know I think Cody it reports to your brand team for us influencer

[00:44:50] approaching to growth but there's like a very clear dotted line to brand as well so I'm curious

[00:44:56] Ash and like what your thoughts are if you think well the different Ash and it was this is

[00:45:00] the brand team is my one so it really works so I can find it right. Yeah I'm going to get I want

[00:45:08] to guess what your take is and then I want you to get your take so my guess because you see

[00:45:12] you're very data driven everything you're optimizing towards towards a quantitative KPI it's

[00:45:17] not just like how does this feel I'm guessing you think it should should report into growth

[00:45:23] but I'm curious what your thoughts are and what you actually what it where it actually should

[00:45:26] report from your POV. Yeah I think Cody I think we talked about this on Twitter so I don't know

[00:45:34] if this is a fully baked off of all of it with you guys in real time I think that you're marketing

[00:45:40] the leader who whoever it is would be really really burst and creators and influencer and like have

[00:45:47] both sides of the fence of like yeah it doesn't matter how this feels and who we who we pick out

[00:45:51] for those marquee moments but then view community through a grow flens and I think both need to

[00:45:57] report into that person like I hate and I guess like this is where I differ a little bit is um

[00:46:03] I feel like somebody somebody brands say okay I have paid earned an home and were to paid an earned

[00:46:09] an home to up into but I almost look at like earned just like the center of the universe and actually

[00:46:14] revolves around it because it's feeding content it's feeding awareness I mean it's feeding

[00:46:18] paid in an own channels at this point from from my point of view so I I guess I don't have like a

[00:46:26] bye-for-cated answer of one or the other I feel like whoever is sitting at the top has to like live

[00:46:31] and breathe a stuff and understand how it how it services I what services grow in brand

[00:46:37] that makes sense I don't know does that think through resonate for you guys I mean I this is like

[00:46:41] all I think about them talk about all days and the time making sense to the world that time my head

[00:46:45] it spokes it sparks a question for me because I think a lot of people will

[00:46:50] will chalk up influencer to brand because it can often well one it's difficult to measure but two I

[00:46:55] think a lot of people don't feel it is like it is ROI positive on its own like it's not from an

[00:47:01] EMV perspective but literally generating dollars it might not be a profitable program and that's why

[00:47:06] it's like oh it's brand now like we're like you know we're like we're growing awareness yeah we're talking

[00:47:11] about affinity etc etc so there's obviously a way to do profitable influencer when call

[00:47:16] up up to 300 million dollars that's spending a dollar like clearly it is working do you think

[00:47:21] it always has to be profitable and does it could that be a distinction between whether it's growth

[00:47:26] and brand yeah that's a great question no I don't think it always needs to be profitable but

[00:47:33] I guess my like where I have a hard time with this is how are we defining profitable because

[00:47:38] the risk it doesn't like that to be a question right um I just mean like in like from the

[00:47:44] I like the way I'm thinking about it right now is literally just from the highest degree like not

[00:47:48] talking about measuring it just like if you are giving a influencer a dollar or you're giving them

[00:47:54] product like you are in some way over some time period profiting off of that and we don't have to worry

[00:48:00] about attribution or measurement or any so it's really just like the real concept of like let's say

[00:48:04] let's say revenues down right at Jones Road or I would imagine I could have done another place

[00:48:08] I would imagine the CEO is probably going to the head of growth or something like that or

[00:48:12] you know I don't want to conner's like hey what's going on like are we not performing as well

[00:48:15] versus I don't think I am necessarily going to the brand team and going to influence their team

[00:48:19] and say like hey Reven you like I wouldn't be my first place to go and I know that color pop it was

[00:48:23] and I was a thing I don't I don't find at least in in the common direct consumer brand that's

[00:48:28] probably not the typical structure if you give someone a quantitative KPI that they own right

[00:48:33] like RICR OLEED you own conversion rate you know paid medially you own revenue attributed to ads

[00:48:40] and one day click ROAS if you if you're giving the brand team a metric let's say it's EMV or

[00:48:45] let's say it's you know attributed revenue through UTMs or whatever it is maybe it's impressions

[00:48:50] CPMs like I don't want to give that I don't want to give a quantitative KPI necessarily

[00:48:55] to like the brand team I think that should be given to the growth team and like that's how we do it

[00:49:00] and the brand team is still super involved like basically we have like what we call like a monthly

[00:49:04] slush fund that the brand team can use on influencers for any sort of like seasonal activation

[00:49:10] so it's like hey you know we have it's LGBTQ month we're going to go activate with these

[00:49:13] creators we're going to create a big brand moment but we're still making sure they're all the

[00:49:17] the kind of performance paid media driven things but at the end of the day like I want to

[00:49:21] perform its market or owning any sort of quantitative KPI that that their channel owns which is why

[00:49:26] I think it it's probably roll up into the growth team if you are optimizing off of an EMV

[00:49:32] or any sort of metric that you're that you're quantifying. I like that answer a lot I

[00:49:36] feel like that answers my question it doesn't have to be like on an independent basis ROI

[00:49:40] positive but you have to be optimizing towards some quantifiable goal that's what makes it

[00:49:45] growth I think we've reached a good conclusion but I want my brand team to be able to do

[00:49:49] that too like if my brand team like we had SEO in the brand team like we have we have social

[00:49:53] channels like I don't want to just like they're job to be like we have to post on brand stuff like

[00:49:56] they're going to do they're going to do our out of home and like they're going to measure our

[00:49:59] out of home and be able to show it they're going to work with our data team to show it has some

[00:50:02] type of incremental left on our business and I might not always be directly revenue but like

[00:50:07] I do want brand teams to be you know data driven as well. What do your brand team

[00:50:13] is your brand team report on code? What is what are their KPOP? Obviously an EMV but what else do

[00:50:17] you have in report on? Working progress I would say obviously social growth and things like that

[00:50:22] and influence for the main ones we're just now like dipping our toes into doing some serious

[00:50:27] at a home and stuff like that and so like I will work with them to help kind of measure

[00:50:31] some of these things and we're not doing like surveys yet but like you know awareness surveys

[00:50:37] but I think something if you try I would like to so I don't I don't know what the the KPI is

[00:50:41] do you have any recommendations on a non EMV perspective of what of what you would have them do?

[00:50:46] I mean if for me that Chief KPI as community size when it comes to a brand team and

[00:50:51] but I think you can measure that outside of tribe there's a you don't need to be a tribe

[00:50:55] customer to keep tabs on that because like the core pillar for me is do we agree the more people

[00:51:01] talking about you on the internet is a net positive like if we all believe in that then we should be

[00:51:05] measuring that every single month and is it going up or down and are you retaining the people

[00:51:09] that talk about you? I think that should be everybody's KPI by the way not just not just brand

[00:51:14] product development etc but yeah yeah that's a good one that's a good point that's not

[00:51:22] really just an influencer thing like growth team should have do you have more active customers

[00:51:28] you know and have some some type of way to measure active you know versus churn

[00:51:32] and then brand team can be have do you have you know active people talking about you?

[00:51:38] So I have a similar question that's not influencer related but like your retention team

[00:51:44] at color proper any other examples I imagine has a lot of similarities just in terms of like

[00:51:48] how you guys creating content how you keeping people in gates they might not be speaking about

[00:51:52] you online but they're at least interested in hearing whatever the next messages are like

[00:51:55] how would you what was the strategy around retaining that community from a retention perspective?

[00:52:02] Yeah I honestly I think that retention strategy was in the product development strategy

[00:52:08] and so I think something that was really paramount at color pop is that influencer and creators

[00:52:12] where everybody's job not just the marketing team or the influencer and I think that like showed in

[00:52:16] the you know getting to that revenue without Facebook or Google etc but we were so good I mean

[00:52:23] okay let me back up for a second the brand was vertically integrated so when I tell you we could

[00:52:27] concept a product and then bring it to market within six weeks if we really wanted to I mean that

[00:52:31] was an insane competitive advantage normal timeline was like 12 to 15 weeks but we couldn't

[00:52:37] refaster if we needed but we were insane social listeners so when we saw that the community was

[00:52:41] really excited about something or giving feedback saying I love this but I wish it came in this color

[00:52:45] or did you see because color pop was a very budget friendly brand like did you see Tom Ford

[00:52:53] or our money launched XYZ like whereas color pops version of this we would listen and answer in real

[00:52:58] time so I don't think that the retention was like some amazing email marketing program or some

[00:53:04] insane targeting on Facebook when we ultimately did introduce that or even the recruiter

[00:53:11] strategies and I can get into that in a second but I really think it was the product development

[00:53:14] and listen and making the community feel like they drove it with us anything ultimately

[00:53:20] color pops struggles today is from not listening to that community. Yeah so the product itself

[00:53:26] itself was content but what I talk about with my team is like because we don't have a weekly cadence

[00:53:31] we're like maybe closer to to buy monthly something like that so we have to be trying to like

[00:53:35] create a message some form of content that is not product related for email SMS etc whereas you guys are like

[00:53:43] it's so the content is the product that you guys are developing which I think is incredibly

[00:53:47] interesting. Ash, do you have any sense of like one thing I love to do and we'll probably talk

[00:53:53] about this in our later episode like we have this whole angle of like customer experience from

[00:53:57] growth marketers perspective I love using own media channels to bring light some of these amazing

[00:54:02] organic pieces of content and it's something we're trying to do a better job of like making

[00:54:06] sure the influencer team is talking to our retention director to make like I'm looking at this

[00:54:11] video right now this guy made a pancake on a double a hexclad double runner griddle this is through

[00:54:15] through product seeding it's a stuffed pancake with bacon cheese and eggs it's awesome it has you know

[00:54:21] 16 thousand like I don't know how many of you is but it's awesome tons of comments I like we

[00:54:25] should totally promote this to our own meat like we've over a million active engagement majors

[00:54:29] like this is stuff they would love to see maybe they want to try and make it at themselves like

[00:54:33] do you have like any thoughts on what that cadence should look like or like how often you should

[00:54:38] be using your own channels which are generally seen as revenue driving channels to put out what

[00:54:43] I would call like more engaging customer experience driven content. Oh all the time like every day

[00:54:48] that's that was that was the funnel for us and whatever award to create or to be featured everywhere

[00:54:54] at your brand and I feel like you know what right positive reinforcement for that creator to

[00:54:59] keep creating content and how can you like not just put it on the feed but if it can go an email

[00:55:05] etc and have their handle everywhere so you're really promoting them and helping them grow

[00:55:10] but then signaling to the community like pake sick content and you will be featured everywhere

[00:55:16] yeah and I remember they actually that's fashion no but I mean that was fashion no of a strategy

[00:55:19] I'm obsessed with fashion no of that was who I benched when I was in beauty like we we got to a

[00:55:24] point at color pop where we we were doing better than the beauty vertical that there was no one

[00:55:29] really to look at at the time and so we started Benching Fashion Nova and it was wild to me that

[00:55:34] their strategy was seed like crazy and then reward by being featured on their Instagram feed

[00:55:40] and their website and I don't know if you guys remember this time but like 2019 2018 fashion novo

[00:55:47] was like awesome a place for all the rappers to recruit for their music videos and

[00:55:52] like there was like there was a lot going on to be featured on Fashion Nova's grid but it was

[00:55:57] incredible that kind of reward system like make amazing content about our brand and you're

[00:56:01] gonna be on our grid and the people watching our grid and recruiting from our grid is

[00:56:05] like end of an adryke video so that was that was literally yeah it was a fun time

[00:56:10] it's not what they were 16 that's what they were 16

[00:56:16] too soon oh I don't know if you guys been following a Drake Kendrick I said oh they were 16

[00:56:19] on that Cody. So next we're gonna talk about two things customer service and artificial

[00:56:28] intelligence our next sponsor rich panel is a platform that combines the best of AI and humans

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[00:56:50] that your customers and prospects can find the information they need without ever submitting a ticket

[00:56:55] but when they do submit a ticket they have artificial intelligence that learn from your previous

[00:57:00] interactions so it's not a chat GPT wrapper that's just gonna rattle off whatever it thinks is the

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[00:57:21] empathetically if you're interested in rich panel and bringing AI to your customer service teams visit

[00:57:26] richpanel.com I have a few other questions I really want to get to just for interest of time is

[00:57:33] kind of kind of take it there so number one this might be a hot take you've got a few of them what is your

[00:57:38] view on PR in 2024 does it do anything for brands for direct consumer brands if somebody was

[00:57:44] kind of you know go to market or looking for growth is that even anything that people should be

[00:57:48] looking into hiring a press team I hate PR I think it's like talking about yourself for yourself

[00:57:52] to yourself in 2024 but that's just me that's my hot take I can understand the value

[00:57:58] well yeah I mean here's the thing all the publishers are all affiliates now so it's just it just

[00:58:02] doesn't hold the same credibility that it used to like hope that doesn't happen to the creator economy

[00:58:05] because that is gonna be and I don't I don't think it will we're seeing that with TikTok shop

[00:58:09] that's a whole thing and again I think it's talking to yourself for yourself about yourself

[00:58:14] and the only time I could see it may be being beneficial is if you're looking to raise a huge

[00:58:18] round and that's just something that basically is get all caught in your event or back business

[00:58:22] but that's really the only case I can make for a sample size of one I know it's a hot take

[00:58:26] but I don't make it do you guys have hex cloud rates do you guys have press teams at all do you work

[00:58:30] with on own is it a focus we engaged with a PR consultant for the role out of the MKBHD partnership

[00:58:38] so it's just a couple months I liked it I mean ultimately we got like we got a

[00:58:42] couple cool features we wouldn't have otherwise ended up in the information we got like a deep

[00:58:46] in a feature with Forbes and there's like a video with Sean or CEO and Mark has and then

[00:58:51] there was like some follow on press after that for this like flagship partnership I think was totally

[00:58:57] worth it but as an always on strategy I don't see how it is gonna like serve the goals of the business

[00:59:02] to like grow profitably I do totally understand the point of like it feels like it's talking

[00:59:06] about yourself to yourself feels awesome to share internally or with your board or your vcs or

[00:59:12] whatever but at least for us I don't think it's like really moving the needle from a dollar perspective

[00:59:17] how how about how to slide you guys doing any press and we do it or it doesn't report into brand

[00:59:22] the we do a ton of publisher affiliate though and that's been a major major channel for us and what

[00:59:27] I'm finding is that a lot of these publications that were maybe traditionally PR starting to do

[00:59:32] more and more hybrid deals where it's like a flat feed to get featured but then it's a

[00:59:36] a percentage of kickback based on revenue which I love we'll do some like like I was involved

[00:59:42] we just had this Benny Blanco collaboration with custom product and like we did a PR push

[00:59:46] to kind of like drive some more buzz around that that did not we even we did we did add a performance

[00:59:52] uh perspective where we were giving them a URL with a with a UTM attached and we do a lot of PR

[00:59:57] but I'm not as in the know on we don't see a huge a huge revenue kick from it unless it's from

[01:00:03] those like you know hey good housekeeping it's like this flat feed plus a percentage of sales and

[01:00:08] we'll do some of those in like the holiday roundup type type of pushes yeah the best thing we did

[01:00:14] to get like placements in publications is we tripled our affiliate feed so it's like okay yeah it's

[01:00:19] that's where the industry has gone basically um but yeah I think that's interesting I do have a

[01:00:25] question that I want to squeeze in here if that's cool with you Cody yeah go go ahead just because

[01:00:29] I brought up MKBHD we just were a couple months into this like flagship partnership uh he's an equity

[01:00:35] owner he's sitting on the board now hex cloud has Gordon Jonesard has Bobby we definitely pulled

[01:00:40] to mince both from both those people so like Ash and I'd love to hear your experience or like any

[01:00:45] recommendations or ideas on how do we parlay these like these uh like the influx flagship partnerships

[01:00:52] and pull it yeah pull it down the true influencers and pull it down on like a more evergreen

[01:00:56] strategy or how do we use that to pull through seeding or gifting or just general influencers strategies

[01:01:03] how do you pull down those mark keep like how do you lean on those mark keep partnerships

[01:01:06] yeah like I'm asking for rich I'm I'm seeking advice uh like what are what are ways that we can

[01:01:12] further leverage the MKBHD partnership in our influencer marketing yeah um so i think the credibility

[01:01:19] that comes with that and your initial outreach to net new would be huge and then what do you um have

[01:01:25] you uh like co-designed a gifting experience that's unique to that that you can recreate like

[01:01:31] more of their community or people to follow them so yeah so I have a question about that would you

[01:01:37] design a gifting experience for evergreen products or would okay yes so no we haven't done that

[01:01:43] yeah yeah absolutely would um and then and just like give me some um bullet points on like what

[01:01:50] what is included in the partnership that you have with them like what are they on the hook for?

[01:01:54] yeah yeah so it's like it's super deep we have we have a bunch of integration with them throughout

[01:01:59] the year so YouTube integration social posts we get rights to all that content we just launched our first

[01:02:04] collab product so MKBHD branded rich goods we have signature products coming out later this year

[01:02:10] so custom designed like net new silhouettes with marquez so we get all of that um i mentioned

[01:02:16] we have ad rights to all of the content we're gonna be pulling him down into like wholesale displays

[01:02:20] we're launching in Best Buy he's gonna play a key role in that and those are kind of the the

[01:02:27] flagship points um and then it's really up to us to kind of make of that what we will yeah the

[01:02:33] other thing I would say is what um like co-branded experiences can you put together that just money

[01:02:38] could not buy like your community could not have access to that experience and maybe you do for

[01:02:42] those a year and you reward your most engaged community members that are really driving your post-frequency

[01:02:47] or um you can do giveaways on social I mean similar to the Jeep thing that you did but

[01:02:52] that was that was huge for us so we would do when I was in-house we would do collaborations with

[01:02:56] big names and beauty like huge makeup artists like celebrity makeup artists and then we would offer

[01:03:01] you know like Patrick talk you know has his own mind and is killing it at the 4 up or before he

[01:03:06] had his own mind he was a celebrity makeup artist doing everybody could ever imagine and we would

[01:03:11] do master classes with Patrick and in right um like really big influencers because they could not

[01:03:17] even though they had all the money in the world they could not pay for that experience and we

[01:03:20] would provide that experience with him and it was incredible and then the MV we would get from

[01:03:24] all the posting and like thank you so much color pop for putting this together for us it was just

[01:03:28] this insane flywheel and then developing gifting experiences with Patrick we did like one of podcast

[01:03:33] interviews with him going deep into his life on like really personal stuff that he's never spoke

[01:03:37] about I mean we went really really um narrow and deep there just giving our community access to

[01:03:42] him that they never otherwise would have had totally yeah I would love to do some sort of like

[01:03:47] creator conference like the master classes a really cool idea um and Mark has playing a role in that

[01:03:52] I think would be really cool so um Connor and and Hicks-Hud you I mean you guys have Gordon

[01:03:59] like what are some of the ways that you guys are leveraging him across channels yeah I mean

[01:04:03] Gordon's and all of our channels um especially in paid like we lean on him a ton in paid social he is

[01:04:09] like the premier figure like and all like like I said yesterday on the on the podcast you know TV is

[01:04:15] now are our second highest spending top of funnel channel across linear and streaming you know

[01:04:20] our our TV spot that we produced that we've been running um now for like it's honestly been the only

[01:04:26] spot we've ran especially across linear like it's it's hugely featured on Gordon so anyone that

[01:04:30] comes into that top of funnel channel they immediately are getting that Gordon social prove very

[01:04:34] featured in and paid social um you know we get to shoot with him multiple times per year so we're

[01:04:39] constantly getting new content from him which he'll start to you know see popping up for some

[01:04:43] different product categories in the next few months um we're also leveraging him for product drops like

[01:04:48] hey we have this product coming live on this day like we want you to post and use this link to do

[01:04:52] that so we're he's in our own media channels I mean we're featuring him we're featuring very heavily everywhere

[01:04:59] um as a follow-up to that question though I wanted to ask Ashden because we really started

[01:05:03] like scaling our product seeding program, last beginning of last year and now we are like

[01:05:08] to your point of like you see that start to compound over time like we are totally sitting that

[01:05:12] we're all the folks that we've seen it like we have blown our impression goals for through

[01:05:16] product seeding out of the water and a huge reason is because it's starting to compound like

[01:05:20] we already hit our impression goal for the year in the first quarter which is amazing but um

[01:05:25] I so I have this hunch that part of the reason it's not a hunch I know it's a fact but it's hard to quantify

[01:05:30] because I don't have a before garden in an after garden that a major reason that people we have such a good hit rate on

[01:05:36] posting is because people know we work with Gordon and they want to be in Gordon's good grace is in a great

[01:05:40] example of that is we were talking to this creator name Susie Vaval she's only pans on an Instagram

[01:05:48] super engaging page she's awesome and like we were negotiating a brand partnership with her

[01:05:52] awesome and we decided to pass on the brand partnership deal but we ended up like just

[01:05:56] getting her a bunch of product and like I know for a fact she loves Gordon because of she posts about

[01:06:01] it all the time she's like an idiot sandwich like I love Gordon I can't believe I got to meet him

[01:06:04] and now we've got like we haven't paid her we've got to see her with her she's posted about us

[01:06:07] a bunch pure organic seeding um that doesn't happen if we don't work with Gordon I don't think

[01:06:12] do you have a sense asked in of like do you have any before and after is where all right we weren't

[01:06:16] working with our this big creator and this was our hit rate on posting and then we signed this big

[01:06:22] creator and now our hit rate went to this like how much of a lift can having a big brand ambassador

[01:06:27] affect the hit rate on your product seeding program yeah hugely that's that's such a good call

[01:06:32] hugely and it it's all it's so funny I think I was talking my shit on Twitter with Cody about

[01:06:39] just see like a brand that had a successful celebrity partnership and everyone replied saying

[01:06:43] next cloud Gordon Ramsay that's a good example yes absolutely and that's something that we do

[01:06:50] with a lot of our brands it's like okay we're gonna run your gifting and seeding program and we

[01:06:53] run it in a very very quantitative way but we also need to pay some big fish to get all the recipients

[01:06:59] of the gifting and seeding program excited and we have that before and after or conversely gosh

[01:07:06] uh Luxe-Ton is one of our clients Luxe-Ton is like a legacy brand that's been around forever

[01:07:13] and they have this hand cream like just kind of a whatever hand it's a great hand cream but just

[01:07:18] a simple hand cream and we gift it like crazy and it does very well because people love the

[01:07:23] products 60 years doesn't lie but then this hand cream went viral in December and I'm talking

[01:07:28] like 75 million views within a week and we they like completely blue past all of their holiday

[01:07:35] projections the sales were wild but when I tell you the performance of their gifting and seeding

[01:07:41] program like tripled after that and it lasted for like at least 90 days I mean that was so so so

[01:07:45] cool to see so it can be done with a marquee partnership it can be done with a stellar piece of

[01:07:50] content that just goes nuts I mean Cody would be dying to know what your um

[01:07:53] gifting and seeding stats would look like uh backward Meredith went viral with that oh yeah I mean

[01:07:58] everybody wanted it we were getting so much reach out after we went viral so absolutely

[01:08:03] we and actually cornered that would be a question for you is what is your inbound look like

[01:08:06] I'm sure with the Gordon partnership do you get a lot of creators reaching out to using

[01:08:09] hey I want to try this oh my god it's insanity so everyone reaches out to us like hey like we

[01:08:14] want to do this deal with you and then they're like oh our in feed rate is 15k per post and i'm like

[01:08:18] fuck you i'm not paying you that and and then so we we've kind of built out like everyone wants to get

[01:08:23] paid right now it's like we have a whole messaging flow like if someone asks for this we put

[01:08:28] them into product seeding but yeah it's it's insanity the inbox of our influencer directors

[01:08:33] is crazy with all the all the creators and influencers that reach out that's such a good

[01:08:37] that's such a great sign and Cody going back to the uh KPI for the brand team that

[01:08:41] wouldn't you KPI want to try it like that I'm getting to receive products um like that

[01:08:47] uh I'm sorry you have to part I have one more question before I have to go and I know Connor

[01:08:51] asked a good question pick your brand but I got one all right put in you on a spot because you

[01:08:55] work with us you know the ins and outs of our program if you had to recommend one thing on the

[01:08:58] influencer side that we should be doing that you you think this is just like the lowest hanging fruit

[01:09:02] you're like guys why won't why don't you do this what low do they yeah you guys um really need

[01:09:08] and and always on paid strategy it doesn't need to be crazy but I would love to see like you're

[01:09:13] cycling and some paid ambassadors on a monthly and quarterly basis um specifically to see how that

[01:09:18] would affect your gifting and seeding rates similar to what we were just talking about I think you

[01:09:22] guys what you don't you don't um your product is so good in the demand is so there that you're

[01:09:27] not gonna die without it where some of my brands will say you're a little you will literally die if

[01:09:30] you don't do this but I think it would really really turbo charge what you have going yeah you

[01:09:34] think it would be like fuel and we grow a lot faster with it yeah absolutely okay yeah I feel like

[01:09:38] we've been slow to it and just been dipping our toes into slowly so let's do it awesome all right do

[01:09:44] guys have anything else they have a few minutes any other questions for action who is the pre-me

[01:09:49] like stemming off that a little bit who who would maybe you can't say this maybe you want to keep it

[01:09:52] under wraps so none of Cody's competitors uh here this but who would be like the pre-mear person to

[01:09:57] do that do you think for for uh for John's Road oh god um for you guys I would go so hard on

[01:10:04] um areial charnas and Brit Sabia they cost a pretty penny though so we could maybe find people

[01:10:09] that are you're a real charnas canceled long time ago she got un-canceled

[01:10:14] twenty-two minutes ago yeah yeah yeah yeah it was for something silly she liked it

[01:10:18] didn't wear them who is the second one because I'm not familiar with that matter right

[01:10:24] Brit Sabia I love her um but that's something to say that we could have looked like

[01:10:29] probably a really future Brit and arials um but that's who I think would kill it for your brand

[01:10:34] I have a question for you Connor I want us to know you're gifting and seeding program

[01:10:38] do you run it 100% in house? No we don't we we kind of built out the strategy internally and we work

[01:10:45] with an agency called Align Growth that helps execute and facilitate it um Marissa from their team

[01:10:50] is an absolute killer um and she's the one that keeps the keeps the lights on in that side of the house

[01:10:56] so we've kind of like worked with her to build out like the the process like the process like