Influencers across social platforms like Instagram, TikTok and YouTube are reaching cult-like status. And their influence over their dedicated tribes presents marketers with interesting ways of reaching their customers. Zip Co’s Global Chief Marketing Officer, and ADMA Advisory Board Member, Steve Brennen shares five things you need to do to boost your influencer marketing game.

For the past 14 years, Steve Brennen has been at the helm of disruption. Leading marketing for brands like PayPal, Ebay, Uber and now Zip he is in his element when he can drive maximal growth in minimal time.

“I'm really passionate about how I can help companies scale,” Steve says. “So, I spend a lot of time helping companies who've achieved product market fit go to mass adoption. I joined Zip with just over a million customers in 2019 and now we’re on 10 million globally.”

ADMA students got a chance to learn about social influencer marketing from Steve during the March cohort of ADMA’s iconic Digital Marketing Certificate. As part of the 10-week certificate course, students get the opportunity to learn first-hand from the country’s top marketing leaders, like Steve, through a series of online lectures.

In his session, Steve shared some case studies from his roles at Zip and Uber and walked students through the critical considerations when working with influencers. Here are his top tips.

1. Ask the right questions

While you may be all over Emily Skye’s insta feed, your colleague might have no idea who she is. Before you invest all your time, energy and budget on trying to secure her for your next campaign, make sure you address the most important questions, Steve says.

“One of the biggest challenges with social influencers is that tribes know them really well, but mass audiences don't. So, ask yourself things like: are they relevant? Are they on-brand? Who is their audience? How do people see them? What is their real recognition? How much do they charge?”

This will help you make sure you get the right influencer(s) – and run more successful campaigns.

2. Don't put your influencers in one basket

Steve also recommends using more than one influencer in your campaigns, with a mix of high profile and lesser-known influencers.

“Having a mix [of influencers] is critical because they all play super different roles,” he says.

For their Can I Zip it campaign, Zip used six social influencers, ranging from a big name like Nick Kyrgios to cult-favourite Flex Mami.

“We were launching around the time of Wimbledon, so we thought if Nick does well, that’ll be brilliant. Flex was heading into the Big Brother house, so she was going to get high recognition.”

3. Build relationships

Building a relationship with your influencers is really important, Steve says.

“The best work will happen when you have a great relationship with them – and the worst will happen when you just pay them and hope they come through.”

When it came to booking Nick, Zip took their time to not only develop a close relationship with the tennis star, but also to get him passionate about the brand.

“We talked a lot to Nick about our mission, our purpose and our goal to create a next generation that is debt free. Larry one of our founders and CEO is very passionate about this and he often gets involved with building these relationships,” Steve explains.

When your influencers believe in what you’re trying to achieve, they give you better, more authentic content.

4. Use insights to work out how and where you buy media

One of the key insights for Uber’s ‘Tonight I’ll be eating…’ campaign was that people have a sense of voyeurism around what celebrities each at home.

“When reporters asked Prince William and Kate whether they cook when they’re at Buckingham Palace, William said, ‘Hey, we actually enjoy curry’. That night curry orders went through the roof on UberEATS in the UK. William told the world he gets curry takeaway in Buckingham Palace, and everyone just thinks, oh, I’ll have a curry tonight.”

And although Uber’s budgets are by no accounts small, booking big names like Kim Kardashian wouldn’t come cheap. So they had to be smart about how and where they bought media.

“Research showed that more than 50% of people in Australia don't know what they are having for dinner by 5pm. So we actually have a sales opportunity every night. We bought every single piece of media we possibly could leading into the 5pm to 10pm spot.”

5. Worry less about ratios and more about your goals

One of the big challenges for marketers is working out how much to spend on media, on production and the number of ads to shoot. Steve says in the new world, you need to focus less on ratios and more on what you’re trying to achieve.

“Get rid of any ratio and just look at what is the job you need to do and what's the most effective way to do it. For Uber’s campaign, a significant proportion of the budget went on Kim K and the media spend was limited – for a good reason. Kim’s audience is over 300 million, so when she posts something about your brand on insta 10 million people are instantly aware of it.”

Although the world of influencers and social can be tricky to navigate, Steve urges marketers never to give up on good ideas.

“Great work never comes easily, so sometimes you just have to persevere and find your way through. It’ll be worth it in the end.”