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Advantages of Using an Influencer Marketing Agency

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Influencer marketing is a discipline that’s continuing to grow and attract brands’ attention: More than half of marketers recently surveyed have reportedly increased their budgets for influencer marketing in 2016.

This comes as no surprise, as we know that influencer marketing is one of the most effective ways to seed authentic, searchable content that drives purchase over time. The Motherhood found that 80 percent of consumers are more likely to purchase from brands they’ve read about from a trusted blogger, and additional industry data reveals that marketers who implemented an influencer marketing campaign earned an average of $6.85 in media value for every $1 they spent on paid media.

As influencer campaigns are on the rise, many brands are exploring the most effective and efficient ways to incorporate a sponsored content strategy into their overall marketing plans. One of the most critical decisions is whether a brand will manage influencer marketing in-house or through an agency. As evidenced by Google’s search history for the term “Influencer Marketing Agency,” brands are exploring their options at a record high rate.

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The Motherhood team is made up of professionals who have worked at the world’s top PR agencies, so we have a unique, first-hand understanding on how these decisions are made by brands at the firms that represent them. As a social media marketing agency that specializes in influencer marketing, we understand the power and perks of leveraging a specialty network to act as an extension of a brand’s team.

Three advantages of using an influencer marketing agency

1. Gain an expanded circle of trust. Hiring an influencer marketing agency requires that the marketer allow the agency to act as a steward of their brand — and leap of faith requires a great deal of trust. The Motherhood understands this — we’ve been on the other side! However, marketers should feel confident that hiring a credible, long-standing influencer marketing agency will offer a level of expertise and reliability that expands far beyond the four walls of a brand’s headquarters.

While many agencies tout their large networks of influencers, it’s imperative to know that the agency you’re engaging has a unique understanding of each individual influencer’s preferences, strengths and specialities. For marketers who want to create mutually beneficial partnerships built on a foundation of trust, pride in the brand and investment in creating exceptional work together, quality — rather than quantity — should be weighted heavily.

2. Save time, save money. A partnership with an influencer marketing agency allows brands and their PR agencies to work more efficiently by eliminating the time internally that’s required to research, identify, vet and manage a group of bloggers. A survey found that 75 percent of professionals consider identifying the right influencers to be the biggest challenge of a sponsored content campaign. Influencer marketing agencies have the right institutional knowledge and infrastructure in place, offering a better and more efficient way to manage relationships with influencers.

Using our proprietary database, The Mometer, The Motherhood makes it our business to provide the most strategic, targeted partnership recommendations between our bloggers and the brands who trust us to help represent them.

3. Offload details. When you hire an agency that specializes in influencer marketing, you’re gaining a partner with a deep, fine-tuned understanding of how to run a successful sponsored content campaign. Brands can weigh in on the aspects of the campaign that are most relevant to their direct role: key messaging, coverage pacing and key performance indicators, for example. However, turning over the reins to an experienced influencer marketing agency means that someone else will handle minute but important details such as blogger negotiations, product shipping, giveaway rules, managing bloggers’ adherence to the coverage deadline, disclosure compliance and hashtag use — just to name a few. When using an agency, these details are not the responsibility of the brand; rather, the agency is on-call for all related program management and implementation.

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If you are interested in teaming up with The Motherhood on an influencer marketing campaign, please email contact@themotherhood.com.

 

Summer DIY Never Looked So Good with Olympic Paints and Stains

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For many of us, we kick off the summer with a list of projects we want to finish before the fall. By July, we may have lost our motivation to make it through the whole list. Most often, these projects include things we’ve been thinking about since spring, if not longer, so what we really need is a little inspiration just to get us started!

Earlier this year, we partnered with some incredibly creative, DIY-inspiring bloggers on behalf of Olympic Paints and Stains and challenged them to put their project ideas into action through beautiful, thoughtful mood boards that reflected projects they hoped to complete. We then armed them with their favorite Olympic Paints and asked them to document the process.

The results are AMAZING. 

OFFICE, LAUNDRY ROOM AND BATHROOM MAKEOVERS

Kenda of Remaking June blew us away with her office makeover, taking a standard-looking home office and turning it into a dreamy, chic, streamlined space that we all want to work in!

Olympic Paints

Katie of Mom’s Favorites also revamped her office space with a modern accent wall that’s so beautiful it could double as art.

Olympic Paints

 

Christy of Thrifty and Thriving transformed her laundry room into a space where we want to hang out (and maybe even do some laundry)!

Olympic Paints

Vanessa of See Vanessa Craft lived up to her crafty name and reputation with a striking before-and-after.

Olympic Paints

DIY Furniture

Jenn of Jenn’s Blah Blah Blog turned four simple wood crates into a rustic yet polished-looking coffee table that would easily be a focal point of any room.

Olympic Paints

Sia of Thrifty Northwest Mom delivered this hugely impressive transformation of a simple bookshelf when she incorporated candelabras from her wedding and brought the whole thing together with a fresh coat of paint. We’re in love!

Olympic Paints

 

Olympic Paint understands the thought process and the preparation that goes into home projects, and it’s with this in mind that they designed and launched the new Olympic Paints and Stains Color Center at Lowe’s, which each of our bloggers visited and utilized as they planned out their projects.

The Center allows people to browse paints and stains in one place, where colors are organized to make finding and comparing shades easier than ever. You can shop in three different ways, depending on what works for your creative style, whether it’s by color (through the chips), lifestyle (through the lifestyle brochures) or project (using room and project brochures). If you want to see how a paint color will look before you head to Lowe’s, you can upload a photo of your room to the Olympic Paint Visualizer Tool.

The Motherhood worked with these bloggers as part of a sponsored campaign on behalf of Olympic Paints and Stains.

Three Ways to Get the Most Happiness for Your Dollar

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If you found $20 on the ground what would you spend it on and why? (Get creative.)

Yesterday, members of The Motherhood team were asked this question during an event hosted by the Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence, featuring Michael Norton, an associate professor of business administration at the Harvard Business School. Norton is a widely recognized expert on the behavioral economics of investment: how investing time, money and labor can influence the way people come to value things from products to personal relationships.

Norton shared surprising data on the many ways prosocial spending – or spending money on others, rather than yourself – can help you get the most happiness for your dollar, create happier employees and provide “happier” products for your customers.

Our favorite quote by Michael Norton from the event was: “Rather than collecting people, spend time connecting with people.”

Norton expanded on these concepts and how they can easily be applied in daily life, corporate HR and marketing campaigns:

Buy experiences, not things.

Experiences increase in value over time as we cherish the associated memories. When we personally make things, they become a source of happiness in our lives. This can be applied to marketing tactics as well – creating a great consumer experience leads to a higher perceived value. Norton drove this point home when he said, “It’s easy to compare stuff. It’s not easy to compare experiences. Therefore, with experiences, everybody wins.”

Do not underestimate the value of time.

Often, we value our time even more than money. Using time as currency, such as giving time back to employees as a bonus, can be just as valuable, create big rewards, and improve corporate morale.

Invest in others and in turn you are investing in yourself. 

Prosocial spending leads to a a higher perceived value of a dollar. Designate a set amount of money for employees/customers to donate to a charity of their choice on the company’s behalf, rather than the company designating a single blanket donation. This creates a higher sense of philanthropy spread throughout the entire organization.

There has been a shift in purchasing behavior as consumers focus on fulfillment through experiences, not things. In the marketing world, leveraging advertising campaigns to create experiences around products and brands is key in connecting with modern day consumers, which includes more than just millennials.

What are some ways you get more happiness for your dollar?

How To Build Online Consumer Trust [Infographic]

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Trust is the foundation on which brand perception is built. In fact, 76 percent of consumers develop opinions about a brand long before they reach the point of purchase, and those opinions can affect your bottom line.

Information about brands is more readily available than ever before, with the advent of online reviews and social media word-of-mouth platforms, all accessible in minutes with a few clicks of the mouse. Consumers turn to friends, family and online reviews for advice prior to purchase, and specifically, more than 63 percent of moms ask other moms for advice and consider them the most credible experts when they have questions.

Consumer trust, or confidence in a product or brand, is a huge factor in sparking conversations, influencing consumer purchasing decisions and building advocacy. To help build online consumer trust and generate positive conversations around your brand online, you need an online presence and a share of voice. The most successful online marketing strategies develop that presence to build awareness and trust with key target demographics.

Read on for The Motherhood’s ideas and suggestions on successful tactics for building trust among consumers online:

  1. Have a Plan

Develop a strategic plan that identifies who you want to reach and why, along with the specific messages you want to communicate. To get started, try “dipping a toe in,” testing small programs on a variety of platforms to identify where and how certain approaches, messaging and outreach resonate with your audience.

Your brand voice should be consistent over time across social platforms, but content on each social platform should be unique. All efforts should support your overarching communications messages and goals, too, as this content will live on the digital bookshelf for years to come.

  1. Add Value

People pay attention to content that matters to them and makes a difference in their lives. Foster a deep connection with your audience by sharing thoughtful, helpful and entertaining content that resonates with your key demographics.

It’s also critical to engage consumers in a two-way dialogue rather than dominating the conversation with promotions and advertising. Consumers trust each other’s opinions more than twice as much as online ads, so your most powerful social “advertising” will be interacting with your influential advocates and sharing the good things others are saying about you.

  1. Engage Target-Right Consumers as Advocates

Brands and influencers each have a story to tell and insights to contribute to the conversation. There’s great potential for good when brands and influencers share interests and goals.

Consumers are more likely to seek information from and trust influencers who share their core values. Identify and engage with people online who influence and inform your target audiences, who share their love for your brand and who encourage word of mouth. Engage with these individuals to create authentic content and effectively leverage this content.

  1. Be Responsive

Effective, authentic interaction begins with listening to what consumers have to say. Connect customer service to the company social platforms, and determine how to handle questions and complaints quickly and transparently online. Be quick to reply and personable with consumers, so they feel you are right there with them.

Even if you do not know the answer, show consumers you care about their problem by responding in a positive manner. This will help build trust and increase the likelihood that they become a return customer.

  1. Stay Focused

Select a few top-performing social platforms where your consumers are most active and engaging, based on the strategic testing you did while developing your social media plan. Be active and attentive there, rather than spreading your resources too thin and trying to be everywhere.

As you create an editorial calendar and share content, remember that what works well on Twitter doesn’t necessarily translate on Instagram. Differentiate content between platforms and focus on approaches you’ve found work well based on analysis of past programs.

Building consumer trust through social media takes time but can have a huge impact on brand perception and your bottom line. Sharing compelling content gives you an opportunity to educate your most important target audiences, organically sparking conversation and action.

 

How To Build Trust Online Infographic

The Motherhood helps moms connect with brands on a deeply personal level to drive engagement, increase sales, build reputations, provide insights, generate rich, searchable online content and spark deep loyalty among your most important constituency: moms. Visit www.themotherhood.com or contact us at contact@themotherhood.com to learn more.

Are you building trust authentically with key demographics online?

Social Media Updates: Social Buying, Business Pages and Dislike Button

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With the holiday shopping season on the horizon, there have been several social media updates focused on social buying and businesses. Coincidence? We think not!

Recently, Twitter opened up buyable tweets to everyone, thanks to a partnership with Stripe. Now anyone can sell products via tweets powered by Stripe’s new API, Relay, which enables instant purchases and a streamlined payment process in third-party mobile apps (like Twitter). Here’s how in-tweet purchases work. If you want to tweet buy buttons, you’ll need to follow these steps!

Social Media Updates
Image Source: Mashable

Twitter is not the only one following in the footsteps of Pinterest; other social media giants are also getting in on the social shopping action.

Facebook is giving businesses a simple digital storefront, optimized for mobile devices, through a partnership with Shopify. Merchants will be able to integrate a shop section on their Facebook page where users can browse and purchase directly within the mobile app, and can even get notified when their favorite stores add new products. The Buy Button can show up in Facebook page posts and promoted post ads run by Shopify merchants, as well.

Social Media Updates
Image Source: Tech Crunch

This move is in line with Facebook’s push for the platform to become the go-to mobile solution for businesses. A variety of updates will make business pages more like websites. Social media updates include customizable sections, prominent call-to-action buttons and improved messaging features for better customer service. We’ve noticed company Facebook pages rank in Google search almost as high as company websites, which begs the question: will Facebook pages become the go-to destination for company searches?

Social Media Updates
Image Source: Marketing Land

There has also been a ton of buzz around Facebook’s plans to launch a “dislike button.” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg emphasized the complication of integrating this option and his hopes that it will become a feature to show empathy, rather than creating negativity voting up or down on a post. So, where do you stand: do you like the “dislike” button?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments!

How to Reach Influential Moms Online

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Moms rule social media. It’s that simple.

So, how do brands reach moms on these various platforms? Through other moms, of course!

According to a study conducted by The Motherhood, in partnership with University of Pittsburgh Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence and the University of Pittsburgh Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business, more than half (56 percent) of moms view social networks as a good source of information, and 42 percent make purchases based on recommendations from social networks.

With that in mind, it’s never been more critical for brands to connect directly with influential moms in order to tap this broad consumer audience of fellow moms who are making the majority of household purchases.

A few tips to get you started:

1. Focus on a personalized pitch

Bloggers are always being contacted by brands and agencies looking to work with them. As we recently reported, bloggers also dislike being referred to by marketers as mommy bloggers, so your pitch should be careful not to pigeonhole moms with this term. It’s also important to know about a blogger’s lifestyle, interests and preferences before you ask them to write content for your brand. Bloggers are often turned off by generic, impersonal pitches that don’t speak to their blog’s overarching theme, topic or tone. Before you reach out to an influential mom online, take some time to get to know her blog to see if your brand and/or similar brands have been discussed previously. Take note of the writing style and language a blogger uses and make sure it is aligned with your product or brand messaging. Finding a personal connection between your brand and a blogger is a great way to cultivate a new relationship, and in turn, can create authentic, meaningful dialogue for your brand among moms online.

2.  Pay attention to social media

Moms are an active and savvy group on social media. It’s important to know what is being said on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram before you approach a blogger to represent your brand or organization. See if the blogger has mentioned your brand on social and don’t be afraid to engage with them in a genuine, two-way conversation. You can also use social media to understand what type of brand work a blogger is comfortable with, because many may specialize in a particular social channel. Do they regularly participate as co-hosts in Twitter parties for brands? Do they host Facebook or Pinterest contests and giveaways? Do they have experience as brand ambassadors? Navigating through social media activity is a great way to find influential moms online who are the right bloggers for your brand.

3. Contact a blogger network

Social media marketing companies with strong blogger networks like The Motherhood provide a huge advantage for brands and companies looking to find influential moms online to represent them and reach their target audiences. The Motherhood has created hundreds of meaningful opportunities for brands, organizations and influencers to develop relationships and exceptional online content that make a difference. High-touch, strategic blogger campaigns can help drive engagement, increase sales, build reputations, provide insights, generate rich, searchable online content that lives on and spark deep loyalty among your most important constituency – moms. The Motherhood’s proprietary database is filled with top bloggers in all areas of expertise – moms, food, fashion, tech, DIY, millennials, you name it – and we have the ability to narrow in and customize the most influential and meaningful campaign for your brand.

Interested in learning more? Check out TheMotherhood.com or contact us here.