Partnering with podcasters, bloggers or others
Has anyone partnered with podcasters, bloggers or (shudder) "influencers" for acquiring new customers?
If so, at what stage did you do so, and what kind of commercial arrangement did you come up with? Was it a fixed percentage of customer revenue attributable to discount codes? Fixed time too?
I've never done it myself in any capacity, so I'm interested to hear what's going on in the real world.
Podcasts are bad for direct user acquisition. At least when we tried it for Ahrefs the CPC and CPL were through the roof. But we still sponsor many podcasts in our industry for the sake of branding/exposure, which we don't try tracking ROI for.
Bloggers and influencers usually want to be affiliates. So if you have an affiliate program and your product is awesome, people in your niche would be happy to promote it for you. And if they don't like your product - ask them why, which would end up being good "market research." :)
Interesting you didn't have much luck with podcasts. Any thoughts on why? I'm wondering if the podcast audience simply never enters the funnel to begin with. If my podcasts are all auto-downloaded and I generally listen with my phone in my pocket, it's unlikely that I'd pull my phone out, search for the name of the product, then sign up.
exactly! It's hard to make podcast listeners to take action. People usually listen to podcasts while commuting/driving/working out - all bad times to take action. So the marketing objective is rather familiarise them that the product exist and make them make a mental note about it, rather than expect them to go to your homepage or grab your offer.
Hey Tim, have you ever tried sponsoring newsletters? If yes, what were the results?
yep, we sponsored quite a few in MarTech niche, but the CPC was quite expensive. More expensive than AdWords to be precise :)
So we figured we'd pay for newsletters only in case we need to do a very big announcement. Otherwise Facebook seems to bring the cheapest clicks possible.
PS: we aren't tracking conversions, as most of time we want to promote our content (blog, videos) and our objective is to drive maximum {relevant} eyeballs to it.
Got it! I’d still track conversions but I know that you like unconventional methods 😂
Would love to know this as well. I am trying to help podcasters make videos with my tool https://storycreatorapp.com/demo and could learn something here.
I've done it with a lot of them and usually on an affiliate model. Also, the few times when we tried the pay per post model, it didn't really work out all that well.
Interesting also wanted to try this out.
Well partnering with people in my niche, it just seems like there are so many people so surely we can help each other grow.
I will keep an eye out in the comments here.
You can start partnering with "influencers" as soon as your are ready to bill your customers.
But should you ?
TL;DR : No (according to me)
Paying influencers can be a great and quick way to drive traffic to your app, website, etc. But unless you are already sure it is effective you shouldn't.
Why ?
Because if you earn more money than what the partnership cost you : congratulation, you have an potential infinite income since you can partner again and again and you will multiply your profit.
On the other hand, if your product isn't good enough to actually make people pay you will just loose money.
The answer : Read the article of the NN Group that suggest you to improve your product with rounds of 5 testers.
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/why-you-only-need-to-test-with-5-users/
Once your product is ready and your landing page is proven effective : Go for it !
Concerning the commercial arrangement and the time, it depends on the platform.
For instagram you might negotiate one post and x stories (for 24hours), but maybe it's not the best option (know where are your customers).
I would advice you to offer the influencer a percentage of your sales as an incentive for him / her to actively promote your product and create value for both of you.
Don't hesitate to reply if you have any questions ;)
Have you actually ever done this?
Not personally, I prefer the "organic" growth which I do on my projects.
I based my answers on discussions with close friends that launched several "DropShipping" websites, and that's basically what their advice is.
I just spoke for them ;)