How to Utilize Creators in Marketing

Your companies bureaucracy is limiting your creator communities performance and killing your bottom line. Most DTC brands only capture 1/3 of the value by only focusing on affiliate revenue. But creator communities drive full funnel performance, support brand goals, and performance goals. When you have 300+ pieces of content being posted monthly from your community: - New TOF channel that is getting your brand in front of new audiences at $2-$5 CPM - 50+ UGC/whitelisting ads you can test to scale paid media - Incremental revenue from affiliates - Halo effect, you'll see a 15% bump in amazon revenue + 70% more revenue thats captured on DTC outside of your last click attribution window. - Improved peak moments/ campaigns by having an army of creators posting about your biggest promos and marketing moments. Is your organizational structure killing your creator ROI? Creator initiatives often underperform when trapped in silos. Affiliate teams focus solely on revenue, brand teams on creative/awareness, and growth teams on conversion. This fragmented approach limits the true potential of creator partnerships. The solution? Reposition creator communities as a cross-functional asset that delivers value across multiple marketing objectives and departments. Our Process: 1. Map community benefits to key stakeholder objectives. Get everyone in a room and educate the team on the cross-functional value they are sitting on. Align creator activities with goals for brand, growth, and performance teams. 2. Establish clear measurement benchmarks. Do deep discovery on what metrics matter most to each team. Ex: New customer revenue, brand lift, CPM, impressions/engagement, and Meta CAC/ROAS. 3. Create cross-functional workflows Develop systems to leverage creator content across channels, from social media, and paid ads. This maximizes the impact of each piece of content. This can be as simple as a spreadsheet that's shared with media buying teams with links to organic creative that can be run as an ad. 4. Report on holistic ROI and share it with all teams. Make each department the hero by providing them a report on performance that supports their goals. By breaking down silos and repositioning creator communities as a value add for the entire business, brands can unlock significantly higher ROI from their partnerships. It's time to stop limiting creators to a single department and start leveraging their full potential across your organization.

A few months ago I was on call with the CMO of a $25M+ brand. They had just wrapped up a 100 person influencer campaign. Guess how many were ROI positive? Seven. Just seven. This wasn't a failure of the other 93 creators. This was a clear indication something was fundamentally broken in how they did influencer marketing. We went through a simple 5-step checklist to that could be applied immediately. If you're a brand in a similar situation, here's how to go from "influencer marketing doesn't work" to "we need more creators!" 1. Introduce New Data Most brands model off of CPMs, never looking at actual performance. Use social commerce platforms to include actual conversion performance. Display it all against rates to sort by projections we actually care about: CPA, CPC, etc... 2. Measure Alignment Use this data to now measure actual alignment with your brand. Things like AOV, content relevance, messaging... The surface level connection is not enough. 3. Focus on Audience A creator's demographic matters less than their audience demographics. Look at the age, gender, geography of their audience. Plenty of creators that fit your demographic but have an entirely different audience demographic and vice versa. 4. Generate Creative Outlines from Creators Bring creators into the planning stages, letting them shape your creative outline. The right messaging and style is more likely to come from them than you. Then turn this into a content brief that provides direction but is not a script. Let creators do what they do best. 5. Treat Content as the Asset The reach you get from a creator is valuable, but the content they've created is far more valuable when used correctly. Setup whitelisting, repurposing to your own socials - get the most utilization out of every single video. -- Creator marketing works. But it's not 2017 anymore - sending product and seeing what happens is not a strategy. Dig in. Build the right strategy. Find the right creators. Let them do their thing. Maximize their content.

If I were the CMO of a brand hiring creators right now, half the budget would be gone tomorrow...and here’s why: Most brands rent attention. I’d invest in relationships that build equity. Here’s how I’d fix it: • Hire creators who can explain, not just post: If they can’t pitch your product in 30 seconds, they’re not selling—it’s noise. • Use creators as educators: They should teach, simplify, and convert—not just entertain. • Stop bragging about reach: If the funnel didn’t move, the campaign failed. Build a post-click plan: No lead capture? No retargeting? No nurture? No results. • Repurpose what performs: A viral post should fuel ads, emails, landing pages—not die on the timeline. • Boost with paid media: Turn creator content into high-performing ad creative. Extend its shelf life. Amplify what works. • Make creators part of the brand: Use their face, voice, and style across campaigns. Think landing pages, promo videos, and testimonials. • Go beyond the post: Webinars, social takeovers, event coverage, newsletter features—build momentum, not one-offs. • Split the budget smart: 50% into trusted creators who connect. 50% into amplification that keeps them converting. Most creator campaigns are short-term plays. The smart ones turn creators into strategic partners across the funnel.