E108: Chlöe Gibbions

Richard Hill:
Hi, and welcome to another episode of eCom@One. Today's guest, Chloe Gibbions, director of Ours Agency. How are you doing, Chloe?

Chloe Gibbions:
I'm good. Thanks, Richard. How are you?

Richard Hill:
I am very well. I am very, very good. Very good. Well, thank you so much for agreeing to come on the podcast. Really looking forward to this one. Influencer marketing, a topic that we do get asked about quite a lot in our agencies. So I'm really excited to jump into this one. So I think it'd be good... Kick off, introduce yourself, and let us know how you really got into influencer marketing.

Chloe Gibbions:
Yeah, of course. My background is actually arts. I did an art degree at university. But when I left, I decided that social media was something I really wanted to get into. So I had a bit of a general marketing role where I did a bit of social media and things like that.

Chloe Gibbions:
But then I started posting outfit pictures on Instagram. I actually created an Instagram blog as well where I wrote fashion advice and things like that. I was really lucky actually. Someone got in contact with me about a role in influencer marketing for a small fashion brand. And they were looking for someone to take content pictures for them and also sit within their influencer marketing team as well.

Chloe Gibbions:
So that's kind of how I got into the industry. And yeah, I just took off from there, really. Yeah. So since then, I was in In The Style. I was in Simply Be as well. And then, obviously, this year I founded Ours Agency as well.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. It's an interesting journey. I think we hear a lot where you start in a particular strand of digital. Obviously, that's very much what you've done there. You've done various things in social but then found influencer marketing and then set up your own agency.

Richard Hill:
Obviously, our listeners, e-commerce stores, e-comm store owners. Should every e-comm store... What would you say e-comm stores that are listening in, first of all, why should they be thinking about running influencer marketing campaigns?

Chloe Gibbions:
Yeah. First and foremost, working with influencers just really opens doors to either new audiences or your existing customers as well. So what you can do, you can target influencers that have an audience that matches your ideal customer essentially.

Chloe Gibbions:
What you can also do is, for example, say if your customers tend to be around the 35 to 40-year-old bracket, but you want to open doors to a younger market, you can go out and work with influencers whose followers are part of that market. Maybe it's millennials, Gen Z. So yeah, it's all about exposure, I guess, and building trust as well because people buy from people at the end of the day. That's why it's so effective.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. No, I hear you. It's quite simple, I think, when you think about, ultimately, what is marketing? What are you trying to achieve as an e-comm store or any business listening to the podcast? Ultimately, you're trying to get your brand in front of people. But ultimately, you're trying to get your brand in front of the right people, which is the key to marketing, isn't it?

Richard Hill:
And then those people then having conversations or thoughts about that particular brand. And what you're saying is, as a brand that sells, I don't know, barbecues, whatever it may be, whether it's barbecues or clothes, two very different things, there's a specific, potentially, a demographic or two where those potential perfect customers fit into.

Richard Hill:
And we can then target those demographics based on different social media profiles that, obviously, their listeners, their fans are potentially interested in the products that you as a listener actually sell. So what's the best way to find profiles? What's the best way to find companies to work with then that really align with those demographics and those brand values potentially of an e-comm store?

Chloe Gibbions:
Yeah. Essentially, one of the first things people like to do is look inwards and look at the people that are already following you on social and engaging with your accounts as well. These are your brand advocates essentially.

Chloe Gibbions:
And a lot of the time, they've got small followings as well. So they might be nano-influencers or micro-influencers. So that's one method.

Chloe Gibbions:
There are tools out there. There is software that you can use that are a bit like search engines. And you can define what kind of influencer you want to work with, in what niche, what their audience looks like. So things like HypeAuditor or Scope.

Chloe Gibbions:
I think really, my biggest tip is just being active in your community, engaging with these accounts yourself, following these people. Look at what content they're posting. That's how you'll find the best influencers essentially. It's really delving in and being a part of that niche.

Richard Hill:
So a couple of options there, really. Ideally, looking at your own customer base and profiling them. Or, obviously, if you ultimately like what a potential influencer or somebody on social is doing and you like what they stand for, the content they've been posting regularly, and their, obviously, follower counts and things like that, then is it a case of just reaching out to them then and saying, "Right. We would like to work with you?"

Richard Hill:
If that's the case, what would that sort of outreach look like? What sort of things would you... Maybe costs and things like that, how would that work?

Chloe Gibbions:
Yeah. With influencers, costs vary depending on following. The bigger the following, the bigger the fee. And different channels tend to be more expensive as well. So YouTube is a more expensive platform. TikTok is cheaper.

Chloe Gibbions:
It can be a bit of a minefield, to be honest. But there are certain strategies and tiers that you can put in place to make sure that you're not spending too much or influencers. But yeah, it really is a case of just contacting them, usually by email. I always suggest by email.

Chloe Gibbions:
Introducing your business and basically offering them a collaboration, and finding out what they would like to do and their insights as well. So you want to get a good idea of their audience just to make sure it is the right fit for you as well.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. So, email, reach out with email. Also, on the DM side of things as well or more you'd say emails, would you?

Chloe Gibbions:
I like to go for email. Back in the day, I think influencers used to respond a bit more on DMs. But it has definitely become a more professional marketing channel now. And I think a lot of people have agencies as well. So email is your best bet.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. So you refer to those guys more as maybe nano-influencers. Is there an official definition of that, like under 10,000 followers?

Chloe Gibbions:
Yeah, exactly. So, nano-influencers are 1,000 followers to about 15,000. The next step-up is micro, so that would be 15 to 50. And then from that, it would be mid-tier, which might be 50 to around 250K. And then above 250K is macro. And then more than a million is mega.

Richard Hill:
Mega.

Chloe Gibbions:
Yeah. They aren't Bible.

Richard Hill:
It's a good gauge. Yeah. And, obviously, as you move through the tiers, probably expectations or more so the costs are obviously going to go higher and higher. But am I right in thinking you could get started for potentially next to nothing because you could potentially liaise with that influencer around a product, and potentially exchange a product or offer a product for a review or to obviously build into some...

Richard Hill:
Because I assume there's two parts, really. Because you obviously can get an influencer to create content for you that you would then use on your channel. So that's maybe option one.

Richard Hill:
There's also getting them to use that content or creating content on their channel, which is probably more so what you want to do because then you're getting, obviously, the reach of that potential, whether it's 10 or 10,000 or 100,000 followers. So there's a couple of options, I guess. And depending on the options, I guess, different costs depending on what deal you decide to do.

Chloe Gibbions:
Yeah. A lot of businesses use gifting as an option. So that's essentially when you gift a product in return for a post or a review or something like that. And you tend to see this more with nano and micro-influencers.

Richard Hill:
Yeah.

Chloe Gibbions:
Anything above 20,000 followers, most people would like a contract and some sort of exchange as well. It tends to be smaller influencers that will take these gifted collaborations, but they're still very effective. It's not so much the performance side of things. It's definitely more about building up brand awareness in small communities.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. And then you mentioned a couple of tools that can obviously help that heavy lifting. Maybe if you're looking to scale or you're looking to find very, very specific people that maybe you've just not spotted in your own following. You mentioned a couple of tools. Any preferences on the tools?

Chloe Gibbions:
Yeah. I think for e-commerce brands, Scope is a really good option. It's essentially a CRM platform and an influencer discovery tool as well. There's also a free version of HypeAuditor if you've got a smaller team or a smaller budget. It's a little bit more clunky, but it does the job definitely.

Richard Hill:
Yep. No, we'll have to check that out as well. Brilliant. So, obviously, you've worked on a lot of different campaigns when you were working in-house and, obviously, now in your agency. What are some of the biggest mistakes that you see people making time and time again maybe? What are some of the clangers?

Chloe Gibbions:
I think a big mistake is only working on one-off campaigns or not building influencer marketing into a longer-term strategy. In my experience, the more you work with influencers and the more you collaborate with specific influencers, the better your results will be.

Chloe Gibbions:
It's more exposure with their audience and it just builds that trust as well. You might see great results from a one-off campaign, but you know what? It's more about that longer-term story, definitely.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. And I would say, with you saying that, obviously, that's more appealing to an influencer as well. If you say to them, "Look, we're looking to do one thing," it's like, well, okay. It's not that appealing.

Richard Hill:
Whereas if you say, "Look, we're looking to do something over the next month where we do three or four projects maybe, or three or four products, or three or four different things," obviously, commercially, that's going to be better for them. But also, you're committing more... you're getting more of a connection with their followers because they're not just doing almost like a hit-and-run type effect. Yeah. That makes sense. Really makes sense. Yeah. It's interesting.

Chloe Gibbions:
It's a win-win really because as well, there are things you can do like you can negotiate a little bit more on price. If you're booking in six months' worth of work with an influencer, they might give you a bigger package deal, which means they'll discount it a little bit. Your return on investment will be better. So yeah, it's just a win-win in every case.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. No, that definitely makes sense. That's something that rings true, something we're working on internally. Obviously, from both sides, you're not having to do that whole negotiation four or five times to four or five campaigns. You're doing it once. That might be four or five things on both sides no matter whoever...

Richard Hill:
If you're the e-comm store owner negotiating this or the agency, you're not doing it three, four, five... Obviously, you may do so many every year, but we're doing one. You're building a stronger connection with the audience, with the influencer.

Richard Hill:
And ultimately, you should be getting a better bang for your book if you've chosen the right influencer to work with, I guess. Yeah. So tell us about some very specific campaigns then that you've worked on that you're very proud of.

Chloe Gibbions:
Okay. So one of my favorite campaigns that I worked on was probably when I was back at Simply Be, and it was when I'd just started there. And we ran a campaign called the No Stress Dress. Very catchy. I was very proud of that tagline.

Chloe Gibbions:
But it was essentially... It was a multifunctional dress that could be styled in all sorts of different ways. And it fit women between sizes... We had sizes 8 to 32. So it was all about showing the diversity of how good this dress was.

Chloe Gibbions:
And we worked with 40 creators. And they all posted on the same day at the same time. And it was just a real big explosion on social media. It was like the dress of the year. The results were great. I think the ROI was about 250%.

Chloe Gibbions:
I think it just really put Simply Be on the map. Actually, for the influencers as well, it was something really fun and exciting to be a part of. I loved that campaign.

Richard Hill:
That sounds amazing. Coordinating 40 different influencers.

Chloe Gibbions:
Yeah. Yeah.

Richard Hill:
Agreeing 40 different deals, I guess. Obviously, they may well be similar, depending on, obviously, if the influencers are a similar size. But ultimately, a very similar deal.

Richard Hill:
But coordinating 40 different people and 40 creatives and 40 of everything, that's a pretty major job. So did you do that on your own, or was there a team working with you on that?

Chloe Gibbions:
Yeah. It was a team. So there was myself, and I believe there was just one other colleague as well that worked on it at that point. But after that, we started hiring quite rapidly.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. Wow.

Chloe Gibbions:
Influencer marketing just really took off for Simply Be after that.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. I like that idea. I really like that idea of five, six, 10, in this case, 40 people, 40 influencers. I think I've seen a few examples of that over the years where obviously getting different influencers on board, but then a very timely, strategic blitz certain industry. In this case, dresses. Yeah. Brilliant. Brilliant.

Richard Hill:
You mentioned there, obviously, an amazing ROI. And I think ROI is something that we talk about a lot or, obviously, return on investment, et cetera, whether it's ROAS or however we measure it. But in terms of influencer marketing, how do you or how can our listeners really measure some of the best ways to measure success and effectiveness?

Chloe Gibbions:
So how to actually measure it, you want to be using track-UTM links with every influencer you work with and then measuring this on Google Analytics afterwards.

Richard Hill:
Yeah.

Chloe Gibbions:
Essentially, the way that I measure ROI is just making sure that we're getting back a lot more than what we actually spend on talent. Another way to do this is by using discount codes. So each influencer gets given a unique discount code. And from that, you can measure how many orders have been made using that as well.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. No, that makes perfect sense. In your case of 40 influencers, potentially 40 UTM tags or 40 discount codes, depending on which works best for your business, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. And then obviously follow that through over... Obviously, you're going to get that immediate spurt, I guess, when you do the campaign for that day or week or that month.

Richard Hill:
But then, obviously, that will trickle through for many, many weeks, I would imagine. So you've got the sides of that tracking where you've now bought, in that case, probably thousands of customers that you've acquired. It's that lifetime value of those customers as well, I would imagine. You've got that UTM tag on that particular address in that example. But then those 1,000 customers are now potentially buying three, four, five times a year, which, obviously, that's very much worth looking at. Brilliant.

Richard Hill:
Okay. So it all sounds brilliant. And I think, right, everyone, let's start hiring these influencers and see how we... Obviously, ultimately, we've got to get a return. But if all of our listeners had to go now and focus on one thing to get started or to scale, what would that one thing be, do you think?

Richard Hill:
Because I think a lot of people are thinking this all sounds great. Do I go and sign up to... Obviously, do I go and check out Chloe, what she's doing, and hire Chloe? Do we go and buy and test some of the software that you've mentioned? But what would be a good starting point to get going? And what would also be a good way to then scale?

Chloe Gibbions:
I think a starting point is to really delve into the influencer's audience that you're going to be working with. Stop measuring an influencer on the aesthetic of their feed or the amount of followers they have, and really try and find people whose audience match your customer because that is where you'll get the best success at the end of the day.

Chloe Gibbions:
But how to scale, I would start treating your influencer channel as a performance channel. It's measurable. It's targeted. It's scalable. It's a digital channel at the end of the day.

Chloe Gibbions:
And I think throughout the past few years, we've definitely seen a big switch in this. Influencer marketing used to be a lot more around PR and brand awareness. But nowadays, there are incredible examples of companies that are doing this really, really well. So, LOOKFANTASTIC and Farfetch have really robust-performance influencer marketing teams. Yeah. I think if you are looking to scale, treating it as a digital channel, definitely.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. That really does make sense. Yeah. Absolutely. Crystal ball time. We're sat here in maybe 12 months' time. I think we can't say five years' time in this game because, obviously, things move so quick.

Richard Hill:
In 12 months' time, what would you say we'll be talking about? What are some of the future trends? What are some of the things that we should be looking out for if our listeners want to get ahead of the curve on influencer marketing?

Chloe Gibbions:
I think one of the biggest trends that we're seeing at the minute in the influencer space is influencers actually becoming business owners as well. So they're no longer just on social media. They've taken their audience off social media and they're building brands as well.

Chloe Gibbions:
For example, Grace Beverley, who was a fitness influencer, TALA, a really successful, sustainable activewear brand. And she's doing incredible things with that. You've got the controversial topic of Molly-Mae becoming director of PrettyLittleThing.

Richard Hill:
Yeah.

Chloe Gibbions:
Influencers are really moving out of social and becoming either business owners or integral parts of other companies as well.

Richard Hill:
That's brilliant. Yeah. Brilliant. Yeah. Some cracking journeys there. I think we're going to reach out to Grace soon, actually, and get her on the podcast. Very, very, very interesting story. Yeah.

Richard Hill:
Well, thank you so much for being on the show. It's been an absolute pleasure to have you on. I think just maybe what I'm quite also intrigued about is also, obviously, you've gone from working in agencies or working in-house should I say, to obviously setting up your own agency. How did you find that transition? How has that been?

Chloe Gibbions:
Yeah. It's definitely challenging. I've gone from focusing solely on influencer marketing and running influencer campaigns to now spinning a million different plates. When you're a business owner, you're an accountant, you're a social media manager, personal branding, you're in sales.

Chloe Gibbions:
Yeah. It's a lot more than what you originally think, but it's super fun. And yeah, I think when you work for yourself, you don't mind doing it, do you?

Richard Hill:
Yeah. Yeah. Right. Well, we like to finish every episode, Chloe, with a book recommendation. Do you have a book that you'd recommend to our listeners?

Chloe Gibbions:
I do. And actually, it's going back to what we've just spoken about. It's Grace Beverley's book. It's Working Hard, Hardly Working. It's basically a book for entrepreneurs, business owners that want practical tips and strategies on how to manage their time more effectively.

Richard Hill:
Yeah.

Chloe Gibbions:
And she does some really great hints and tips in there as well that she uses. There's also quite a lot of information there about how to rest and actually take time away. Really be... What's the word? Considerate of your time.

Richard Hill:
Being brutal with what you agree to, don't agree to. Obviously, making sure you get that downtime. Yeah.

Chloe Gibbions:
Exactly.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. No, that sounds like a fantastic read. Well, thank you, Chloe, for being on the show. For those that would like to reach out to you, find out more about what you guys do at the agency, what's the best way to do that?

Chloe Gibbions:
Either message me on LinkedIn, which is Chloe Gibbions, or you can get in touch with me on email, and that's chloe@oursagency.co.uk.

Richard Hill:
Fantastic. Well, thanks, Chloe. It's been a pleasure. I'll speak to you again soon.

Chloe Gibbions:
Thanks so much, Richard.

Richard Hill:
Thank you. Bye-bye. Thank you for listening to the eCom@One e-commerce podcast. If you enjoyed today's show, please hit "subscribe." And don't forget to sign up to our e-commerce newsletter and leave a review on iTunes. This podcast has been brought to you by our team here at eComOne, the eCommerce Marketing Agency.