This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Today's caller is launching her own skincare line. It's always fun to hear from listeners out there starting different projects in different stages, whether it's the idea stage or actually implementing, trying to market, trying to get more customers. And in this case, well, in a lot of cases, actually people are stuck on that point of, okay, I've made a lot of progress, but how can I actually reach my ideal customers? That's what today's caller is wondering about. And she's got a specific idea.
She's gonna tell you more about it, but the short version is that it involves paying influencers to post. It might be on Instagram, might be on another platform. Is this a good idea? And beyond just whether it's a good idea, if you're gonna go down this road, what do you need to know in advance? What might make it more successful versus less successful?
Because a lot of people do waste a lot of money doing this. So I'm gonna talk about that and perhaps give our listener a couple of tips. The question is, should I hire influencers to market my skincare products? The question and my answer, coming up in just 30 seconds. [Music]
Hello, Chris, this is Leslie from Seattle.
And I've been listening to the show for a couple of years. I'm launching a skincare line or at least one skincare product to start with. I've spent a lot of time on research and finding the right manufacturer that doesn't use ingredients tested on animals. But I don't have a lot of followers. In fact, I don't really have followers at all.
I saw there are agencies you can pay who will hire influencers on your behalf. Do you think this is worth it? I do have some money I'm willing to spend because I wanna give this idea every chance of success, but I also don't wanna waste it. So if there's a better way to spend it, I'd rather do that. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.
Thanks. - Leslie, congratulations on your skincare line. That sounds exciting. And let's talk about how someone might go about hiring influencers from agencies and also why that might not be the greatest idea. So the way these agencies work, somebody who wants to be an influencer or has a lot of followers, contracts with the agency, they go out and try to find business.
They're essentially a matchmaker for them. And they give contracts to the influencers, the influencers post about various products and such. And the challenge is, why might it not be a great idea to do this? Mostly because it might be a big waste of money. So Leslie doesn't wanna waste money.
She's okay with experimenting a bit. There's certainly nothing wrong with experimenting, but here's how I would do it if I had some money to spend and wanted to experiment in the world of influencer marketing. I would recommend you focus on finding people and you can do this through the agencies they usually list on their websites, everybody that they represent, or you can spend a bit more time and do it directly. And you'll probably save money by doing it and also build more direct relationships. But I'd focus on finding people who have a good number of followers, but not a huge number.
And what that is could range depending on the industry, but someone who has 30 to 50,000 followers, let's say, that's a good network, but it's not huge. And this is because generally speaking, the people who are in that mid range, they're more likely to be motivated to do a good job. And their followers are also more likely to be active and not just a bunch of bots, which is unfortunately something you see a lot with social media. And of course, the rates will be lower as well, since the rates to hire these people for the posts, the product representation, placement, et cetera, they're usually based on the influencer's estimated reach. One more tip here, actually two, first one is if you're looking at specific people, look at the engagement on their posts.
Don't just look at the number of followers. Because of those bots, and just because of how Instagram works and a lot of different factors, sometimes someone could have a lot of followers, but they're actually not really reaching most of those people through their posts. So that's kind of where the money is wasted. You're paying a premium rate for someone who looks like they have a ton of influence, but they're actually not showing that content to most of their followers, or their followers are not that connected with them. So the endorsement doesn't mean a lot.
So I mentioned briefly trying to build direct relationships with those people, instead of going through agencies, that does take more work, but with these agency relationships, sometimes the clients are allowed to delete their post, after 24 hours or some other short period of time. So that's not great. Like you would rather have a relationship with someone who wanted to post about your product because they liked it, even if they're being paid for it in some way, which they should disclose. Hopefully they're not just gonna post something and then remove it a day or two later, because that's not gonna really help you in the long term. So that's what I think about that.
There could be some other methods, but I wouldn't go and spend a bunch of money with one of these agencies. That's the short version. And of course, we went into some detail there as well. All right, listeners, if you've got a question, if you've got comments about this or any other topic, if you've got an idea, if you're trying to go to market with your idea, let me know what you're working on, sidehustleschool.com/questions. And of course, I hope you will subscribe or follow, come back every day, new episode every single day.
My name is Chris Guillebeau, this is Side Hustle School. [Music]
- From the Onward Project.
