In the coming weeks we’re going to hold a magnifying glass up to each individual rule, adding further detail, additional insights, and real-world examples taken from the work we help execute every day from our New Rules for Influencer Marketing

In the first New Rule deep dive, we talked about how the variability of performance on social media and the dominance of the algorithm has pushed us as marketers to pivot to more entertaining content to hold consumers' attention. But the impacts of that change reach further which leads us to these two rules.

RULE 02: YOU NEED BOTH TEST AND TRUST PARTNERS

To tackle that variability, we’ve recently been changing the way we run ambassador programs for our clients and introducing the idea of Trust vs Test partners.

We recommend brands constantly work with new partners (test) while also reinvesting in those who perform (trust).
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Those delineations also inform your strategy. Need an influencer to host an event for you? Trust partner. Trying to break into a new community? Test partner. Done effectively over time, you are building out a bench of high performing partners who you trust and who understand the brand while constantly trying out new partners and new communities to build out the depth of that bench.  

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TEST PARTNERS 

New-to-you creators your brand hasn't worked with before

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May stray from your typical creator archetype, content style, or brand safety guidelines

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Typically need to be more prescriptive with creative briefing to ensure you're getting content that works for both the brand and the creator

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TRUST PARTNERS 

Tried-and-true creators you've worked with before
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Proven partners: content performed well, are great communicators and meet deadlines

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Trusted to be tapped for tight turn around campaigns, or to be given more creative freedom than a Test Partner

RULE 04: KEY TAKEAWAY IS THE NEW KEY MESSAGE

When it comes to holding consumers attention, key message bloat is likely killing your sponsored content’s performance. Take a look at the graph below, it shows that when you go from one key message to two, consumers are 35% less likely to remember either message; if you go to four key messages those percentages fall below 50%. Marketers are spending countless hours trying to build and execute effective campaigns only to obliterate their performance by overstuffing them with key messaging.

There is this classic Steve Jobs video of him talking about marketing (watch it here) and he says,

‍“To me, marketing is about values. This is a very complicated world; it’s a very noisy world. And we’re not going to get a chance to get people to remember much about us. No company is. And so we have to be really clear on what we want them to know about us.”

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‍The world is even noisier and busier than when Steve gave this talk and attention is even more strained. Cut through that noise by being really clear about what key takeaway you want an audience to walk away with after seeing your branded content.

Instead of sending creators a laundry list of key messages — High-quality fall essentials are great for the whole family / available now with curbside pickup / 20% off if you purchase over $100! — brief creators on the most important key takeaways. What do we want the person seeing this post to feel? What do we want them to believe about a product?

Cheers,

James Nord
FOUNDER & CEO