Creators now have the potential to impact all levels of marketing (from paid, to organic, to owned content, and beyond). And the key to unlocking that power? Strong creator relations.
A few weeks ago, we invited esteemed brand and creator speakers to speak on the topic of creator relations, and all that it involves from individual relationships, to marketing strategies, to broad business impact, at Traackr’s IMPACT London event.
In the panel discussion with Holly Dale, UKI Head of Advocacy & Content at L’Oréal, and Traackr’s CEO and Founder, Pierre-Loic Assayag, Holly shared her point of view on the three strategic elements that have enabled L’Oréal brands to successfully leverage creator partnerships.
Strong Creator Partnerships Start with You Trusting Them
“Brands are facing a trust issue because consumers are more and more skeptical about traditional brand messaging. It really comes down to the creators who have authentic and powerful voices that cut through the noise on social and really connect with consumers. That’s why at L’Oréal we are really trying to integrate our advocacy and influencer marketing across all of our channels.” - Holly Dale, UKI Head of Advocacy & Content at L’Oréal
As one of the most sophisticated influencer marketing programs at scale, Holly attributes L’Oréal’s success to the following,
- Focusing on the right relationships: Their team has worked hard to find the right creators to work with and maintain deep relationships with those creators.
- Creative bravery: Holly emphasizes the success L’Oréal has had with letting their creators own the content creative. She encouraged the audience to trust their creator partners in order to minimize brand amends and edits where possible.
- Real top-down commitment: Holly shared that within the L’Oréal organization, there is a strong commitment from the top to invest in influencer marketing. In L’Oréal’s case, this is because it’s been proven time and time again that it’s a reputable channel for the business. For brands and businesses that are still at the beginning of their journey with influencer marketing, getting executive buy-in should be a priority!
That being said, Holly shared that with the increased investment in influencer marketing, there does come more challenges and questions like:
- How can you scale these programs but maintain authenticity?
- How can you maintain the same relationships and processes across all the brand portfolios?
- How do you remain creator-centric and ensure you’re building those deeper relationships with creators?
The teams at L’Oréal are now focusing their efforts on these questions because they know it is the future of the industry.
“There’s one thing in marketing that has become a truth – advocacy, trust and authenticity are the new currency within marketing. This means we need to think much more long-term when we approach creator relationships and open up a two-way conversation with our creators.” - Holly Dale, UKI Head of Advocacy & Content at L’Oréal
Strong Creator Partnerships Need Creative Freedom
“Knowing how much creative freedom to provide creators is something that we all grapple with, but when we find that balance of creative freedom with brand consistency, that is where the magic happens.” - Holly Dale, UKI Head of Advocacy & Content at L’Oréal
While we all know that providing more creative freedom to creator partners is the right decision, it’s easier said than done.
According to Holly, a few years back, the L’Oréal sign-off process required four or five people, making it incredibly frustrating to the creator. Now, L’Oréal takes a different approach and focuses on these three key pillars:
- Empower your influencer managers: Instead of there needing to be 4-5 people to sign off on content, Holly advised that brands allow their influencer managers to be able to sign off on the content and have direct feedback conversations with their creators.
- Communicate, communicate, communicate: Holly emphasized the need to put more time into the initial creator brief. She shared how critical it is to make sure you’ve provided your objectives for the campaign, and tell them exactly what you want, with clear deliverables. And the end of the day, said Holly, giving them a clearer mind of what you are envisioning will allow them to put their own creative spin on the content while maintaining the core objective of your campaign.
- Trust, trust, trust: Now this might be the most difficult pillar but it’s objectively the most important. Holly remarked that the more we are able to listen and trust to creator partners, the better the content will be. There are, of course, processes for building tangible trust between brands and creators… something that was shared later in the day from other panelists.
Strong Creator Partnerships Relies on Data
“If we want to make our hard-earned pounds go further, it’s absolutely imperative that we use data to drive our decisions.” - Holly Dale, UKI Head of Advocacy & Content at L’Oréal
Through data and technology provided by partners like Traackr, Holly shared that the L’Oréal team is able to accomplish three main objectives:
- Find the right creators using KPIs: It’s no secret that one of the most difficult parts about influencer marketing is simply finding and retaining the right creator partnerships. Holly shared that what has worked best for L’Oréal is implementing a process of finding and vetting creator partners with layers of data — mainly performance metrics, target audience demographics, and brand safety keyword terms. This process has been critical in L’Oréal’s ability to build creator partnerships that actually make an impact for their brand.
- Understand what works and what doesn’t: According to Holly, this applies to everything from campaign management to the trends you're tapping into. She shared that having the correct data and technology has helped L’Oréal answer tough questions like: “Who should we partner with again?” or “What trend are creators talking about right now?”
- Measure ROI: As Holly shared earlier — as influencer marketing investment increases, so does the pressure to prove its impact. As a brand that has a longstanding history of investing in influencer marketing, L’Oréal has spent dedicated time and resources figuring out how to truly measure influencer marketing ROI. Some of the advice that Holly shared? Spend efficiency and cost equivalency metrics are crucial in understanding campaign and program performance.
What was the biggest learning that you took away from Holly’s session? Go let her know by dropping a comment in her LinkedIn post.
Pro Tip: Traackr’s new Creator Lifecycle feature allows you to see which influencers are consistently mentioning your brand, so you have a guide of which creators you should be deepening the relationship with.