🪱 Creator can of worms: Why businesses can't ignore it anymore🪱

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What’s crackin’, Inbox Hackers. Glad to be with you. 

Today’s Feature Story gets into why businesses should shift some marketing and advertising resources to influencers / creators. Lots of insights showing this shift is unavoidable. But affordable thanks to micro- and nano-influencers

After that, nibble on the following sections: 

• The Knowledge Base  

• Self Help (do it anyway)

• Facts & Stats (2nd screens)

• Get Hacking (hidden swipes)

Ok, let’s pop the top on today’s Feature Story…

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Feature Story

Why Should Businesses Partner with Influencers & Creators?

The creator economy is set to boom from $250B currently to $500B by 2027.

Impressive. But why should “regular” businesses care?

Simple. Change is also booming in advertising and marketing.

Reaching consumers is way different (and harder) now.

Some of that’s due to the rise of influencers peddling products to loyal followers.

Some of it’s a natural shift. Caused by the open web revealing the constant dirty deeds of large corporations and the underbelly of the advertising world. Consumers got jaded and bitter.

And younger consumers? They bounced outta the womb jaded toward big companies and anything too polished. 

So, here we are. Facing legit challenges to selling stuff. 

Luckily, nearly any sized brand can leverage the trustworthiness creators bring to the table. 

From mega-influencers like Mr. Beast and Charli D’Amelio to nano-influencers you and I’ve never heard of…

Consumers are willing to listen to these creators’ product pitches. Good news for businesses.

Traditional Marketing Channels Lost Their Edge

I could sling a pile of stats at ya about how ineffective traditional marketing channels have gotten. I’ll spare you. Just know that:

• TV viewership looks nothing like it did just 10 years ago

• Younger generations don’t stare at TV during commercials, they’re on a 2nd screen

• Ad blockers are widely used

• Ad banner blindness is a real thing

Plus, the “holy” marketing funnel has been melted down into a gooey mess.

Hard to tell where the customer journey begins or ends these days. And phrases like “customer journey” send Gen Zers to the ER with toxic levels of cringe!

How Polished Marketing Got Derailed

A couple things come to mind that hurt traditional marketing.

1. Every tech start-up claimed their mission was to “make the world a better place.” Come to find out, the mission is the same as the 70s or 80s companies… “make money.”

2. Companies play pretend with social issues to impress consumers. Then “the suits” show their true colors when virtue signaling hurts sales.

The flip side of that is influencers. 

None of them are perfect. All of them (with any sense) want to make money. 

The difference is they don’t try to be something they’re not. (Some do, but their success can’t last. That open web I mentioned will find them out.)

Creators also blur the lines between entertainment, education, and selling. Plus, they have a speed advantage over traditional campaigns. 

No committee approval’s needed when Coffeezilla wants to promote a new sponsor. Or…

…To do a fundraising campaign. Like this Australian influencer did out of the blue. Raised over $206k from 6,300 donors.

Can you imagine even six people donating to help the CEO of a big company who got into financial trouble? Nope.

Niches & Silos

Oh, another huge reason creators have an advantage for reaching consumers is how the web helps everyone put themselves in a silo.

No one is forced to watch the same TV shows as their parents or co-workers. Same with music. Same with t-shirt brands. You name the “consumption category” and there are endless options that cater to specific people.

The Super Bowl is one of the last events that is anti-silo. It brings in EVERYONE at one time.

Everything else is scattered. We all pick our preferences. And tune out everything else.

That’s helped fuel the creator economy that’s set to double in size by 2027. 

There’s a niche for any person willing to share (and overshare) with strangers on the web. To try and turn them into loyal followers.

Need concrete evidence any sized business can grow their business by partnering with creators and influencers? Coming up below.

Small Businesses and Influencer Case Studies

Chicago Gym: Offered nano-influencers (1000-10000 followers) free membership for content. The nano-influencers brought their following along, and the gym saw a nice rise in sign-ups.

Trade Coffee: Coffee subscription service, sent free samples to nano-influencers with 2,000–5,000 coffee addicted followers. They posted reviews. And the campaign saw a huge increase in subscriptions — at a fraction of the cost of a macro-influencer campaign.

(above source: Usecrafted)

Kietoparao: Small start-up in the children’s entertainment world, was looking to raise $20K on Kickstarter. Two groups of mom influencers (5-10K followers and 10-40K followers) were recruited to promote the game kits and shared links in their Instagram stories. 

The campaign resulted in steady organic growth. Keitoparao’s follower count soared from 9.3K to 20.4K. Legit interest in their products help them hit their funding goal of $20,000.

(source: Influencer Marketing Hub)

Now’s the Time

Hard to imagine the creator economy ever shrinking.

Maybe you can, though? Let me know what you think would lead to that.

To me, the can of worms has been ripped open. No going back to the old days.

There’s too much money available for individuals to earn by creating content…

• Easily

• With tiny overhead

• No employees if they don’t want any

• And not working in a corporate cubicle from 9 to 5

Plus, all consumers (everyone on Earth is a consumer) have gotten used to getting the exact content they want. They / we no longer have to settle for the only two talk radio shows our car radio can pick up.

Cable TV gave us 100 channels. YouTube gave us 114 million!

And to put a fine point on how scattered audiences are… Only 8.86% of YouTube Channels have over 1k subscribers (source: Indiy).

Now's the time to consider and test using influencers to reach your ideal audience. Otherwise, those potential customers may become too scattered to ever round up on your own.

Got all that? Good. On to The Knowledge Base below…

Self-Help

I have to remind myself of this. Maybe you need the reminder too.

After certain activities, I never ever say — “That wasn’t worth doing.”

Strangely, though, there’s tangible resistance to doing those activities beforehand.

Odd that something pushes us to avoid good / healthy activities.

Jot that reminder down if you’ve felt it too.

Facts & Stats

Bonus:  Podcast advertisements have the potential to boost brand awareness by ___ percentage points (Nielsen 2023)?  Answer at end of email.

Get Hacking

A specific strategy to implement today

The more marketing you look at, the more ideas you can swipe.

Look at random stuff you normally don’t care about. Just to see different tactics.

Even videos, newsletters, and Facebook ads you think are “beneath you.”

There might be a gold nugget in there. I found this out last week. Looking at a pretty successful newsletter that was doing the opposite of many email best practices.

The nugget in that newsletter was a “fortune cookie” game — brilliant in its simplicity. Was apparently one of the most engaging parts of the newsletter.

ALT Hack: Test AI shopping experiences yourself. Use Claude or GPT or Perplexity. Write notes on how you search for products you want with these tools. That testing helps you understand how your AI-savvy customers will be shopping (or already are).

Thanks for reading Inbox Hacking. Please share it with your peeps - it’s sugar-free but stings a bit.

Shane McLendon - Copy Kingpin

Bonus answer from Facts & Stats section: Podcast advertisements have the potential to boost brand awareness by 13 percentage points (Nielsen 2023).

“AI is never the answer. It’s a tool”~Mark Cuban