🥗 Does Size Matter?

Hey there, 

Welcome back to another bite to chew on.

If you’re like most DTC founders, you probably dream of that viral moment. You know the one, where some big-time influencer shares your product with their millions of fans. 

Search volume goes up. Your traffic spikes. Orders pour in.  

It’s not impossible. But - 

That’s usually more fantasy than reality. In our experience, a truly effective influencer marketing program is all about thinking smaller.

Here’s why…

Bigger isn’t always better

Mega influencers are the apex celebrities of the creator economy. They have big audiences and cultural clout.

But they also have big asks when it comes to working with them.

✅ Talent agents. 

✅ Licensing fees. 

✅ Huge price tags.

That’s if they’re willing to work with you at all.  

Unless they happen to share your product organically, it’s going to cost you a pretty penny to target the “whale” influencers in your category.  

And even then your placement may not resonate. 

Because audience volume ≠ equal audience density. If there isn’t a strong alignment between your product and the influencer’s brand…

Then what you’ve got is closer to a traditional ad. A celebrity endorsement. Not really “influencer marketing”.  

Never mind all that. Let’s say you get in and it works. You’ve landed a mega influencer. They share your stuff. 

Their audience loves it. 

Bang. You’re flooded with attention. 

Now what? How long does the spike last?  

You can ride the wave, but it’s probably going to be fleeting.

It’s never a bad thing to grab the spotlight for a while, but that’s not necessarily what long-lasting success is made of. 

Think small. Micro, even.

Forget Goliath. Create an army of Davids instead. 

We’re talking about micro-influencers. Creators with less than 100,000 followers. There’s way more of them out there. And they rarely have talent agents…

It doesn’t seem as “sexy”, but there are tons of benefits to working with micro-influencers. 

They are always passionate about their topic. 

Their audience finds them trustworthy and credible.

They are always happy to work with brands they like. And they will be genuinely interested in your offering if they think it’s a match.

They don’t demand an arm and a leg. Often some free product is enough.

And you can forge an ongoing relationship with them if the fit is good.

Micros often have a more intimate relationship with their fans. They may not have audience volume, but they have density. Not wide, but deep.

Think about this Venn diagram when it comes to micro-influencer seeding - genuine interest + high credibility/trust + alignment with your target audience. 

Hit that sweet spot in the middle and you have a winner. 

Let’s talk about influencer management for a second

The one big challenge when it comes to working with micro-influencers is you don’t want just one, or two, or five engagements. It should be ongoing and with more than a handful. You’re trying to create an army, remember? 

But product seeding and influencer management can be really challenging. 

So apply what we do:

1️⃣ Search for your brand name or hashtags associated with your niche on key social channels like TikTok, Instagram, and Youtube

2️⃣ Create a list of influencers based on their follower counts, engagement rates, content quality, and fit with your product

3️⃣ Find ways to reach out to pitch working together

4️⃣ Make sure to have a template for outreach that is easy to tailor so you don’t spend all day on messaging

5️⃣ Aim to work on a product for review basis, rather than shelling out money immediately. See if there is a fit first.

6️⃣ Have a licensing agreement or framework in mind in case you’d like to option the content for ads or usage down the road.

7️⃣ Follow up with interested influencers. Arrange for product shipment and try to settle on a rough delivery schedule for the content.

Now, if that sounds like a lot of work, you might be interested in a tool we’ve been hearing a lot of buzz about called Minisocial 

We’ve seen some of the biggest brands in the space partnered with them - like Native, Magic Spoon, Super Coffee, and Topicals. 

But what caught our attention in these conversations were the 3 recurring pros: project management, price, and creator pool 

Project Management: Unlike other platforms where you end up doing most (or all) the work, they handle the booking and management of your project. 

You just submit your brief, approve your creators, and watch as the posts go live and new content rolls in. It’s all the control without any of the busy work.

Cost-Effective: They’re structured on a pay-per-project basis. Plus, you get fully licensed content to use across ALL marketing channels

(We recommend ads!)

Creator pool: you get 2 things here — a network of micro influencers with proven engagement and social proof + a little break from AI with creators being matched to you by industry experts.

Listen…

It's always been clear that what works for one brand might not work for another.

But we’ve always joined tools who have recommendations coming from people we trust

So if that’s us for you + if UGC is a major part of your creative strategy…

Minisocial is definitely worth considering as a valuable tool for sourcing your ad creatives & influencers.

Finally…It’s not all about conversions

Seriously. 

We know, every dollar you spend should instantly return five back to you. But the DTC game is more nuanced than that. 

A wide variety of influencer content is the true gold in the goldmine. 

It’s not even just about the stuff that might go viral. And it’s not just the stuff you can license and re-purpose into paid ads.

It’s the opportunity to get different people with different perspectives testing new creative angles and hooks for you, at a scale that would be difficult to do internally. 

PLUS working with an army of micro-influencers can give your brand the sense of “being everywhere”.  

Rather than the one “big wave” of the celebrity endorsement, 

You get a drip, drip, drip of mentions that eventually build into an ocean of social proof.

So yeah…sales are always the ultimate goal. But a well-tuned influencer marketing program should be designed to create relationships, test creative, generate paid assets, and develop a swell of brand hype. 

Look…

We’re not saying don’t work with the big influencers. If you get the chance and if you have the money, go for it. 

It’s just that a true influencer marketing program is about more than a big follower count these days. 

Hungry For More?

Speaking of sales, we’re convening a panel of experts on how to take your AOV to new heights at our Fireside Chat on June 24th.

Join us as we host Dhruv Patel (CEO of Aftersell) and Nick Shackelford (Co-founder and Head of Retention for Brez) to talk about how network offers can be leveraged to build effortless, incremental revenue in your post-purchase flows.

We’ll go through common challenges, misunderstandings, and the best optimization strategies so that you can consistently drive up that LTV.

All the Best, 

Ron and Ash