Today’s podcast is with Daphne Robertson, the VP of Customer Experience and Operations at #paid, a creator marketplace where brands and creators connect, collaborate and measure their creator marketing campaigns. Daphne joins me today to talk about influencer marketing, its growth and influence on customer experience and engagement, how to get it right and the impact of generative AI tools on this space.

This interview follows on from my recent interview – An eight-step discovery process to help master the customer experience – Interview with Edwin Margulies of Nextiva – and is number 526 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.

Here are the highlights of my chats with Daphne:

• Recent Adobe research suggests that between 15-20% of online lead generation and revenue can be attributed to what they call affiliate marketing, a large part of which is related to the use of influencer marketing.
• The influencer marketing industry is set to grow to approximately 24 billion by the end of 2024.
• Influencer marketing drives increased levels of trust and connection as well as extended reach.
• A creator’s take on a product or service often includes their own perspective, their own creative twist, which makes it more memorable and authentic than some of the more traditional ads that we might see that are created kind of in a room with people who may or may not actually use that product or service.
• Influencer marketing is not just a B2C thing. It’s impact extends to B2B too.
• It’s not just a digital thing either. It’s not just limited to the digital/social format but could really extend throughout the whole marketing funnel.
• We generally define an influencer as folks who are primarily focused on building and leveraging their influence, while a creator is more focused on producing original high quality content with a primary focus on storytelling and artistry.
• Influencer marketing could also include terms like, “brand ambassadors” or “thought leaders” or “key opinion leaders” or “content partners”.
• There is actually a lot of studies coming out which are finding that many brands are leaning more into nano/micro influencers.
• My take on virality is it’s a really interesting aspect of influencer marketing. It’s a powerful outcome, but I haven’t really seen there be a real formula to achieve it.
• On virality, I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s all luck, but a large component is unpredictable.
• Much of the content that goes viral either has this huge emotional connection or it’s really, really funny and memorable or it could be a combination of both.
• Example: Gold Peak, a tea brand, created the Golden Hour Peak Filter campaign. The campaign leveraged creators to share content, but there was a custom-made filter that mimicked the warm kind of nostalgic hues of golden hour lighting. It resulted in 90 million plus impressions and an unheard of nearly 100 % positive social sentiment.
• Some advice for getting it right:
  • Trust your creators and let them have autonomy to craft authentic content that resonates with their audience because they know their audience the best.
  • Leverage cultural moments i.e. align campaigns, where possible, with events or trends.
  • Remember, like many other things, when you try something for the first time, it might not work. But, it might be hugely successful as well. But it’s gonna be less likely to be a success if you try and micromanage it.
• The cool thing about influencer marketing is the ability to test at a smaller scale.
• A report by Influencer Marketing Hub finds:
  • 63% of brands plan to use AI in executing their campaigns.
  • 5% of these brands will use AI for influencer identification.
  • 60% of the respondents see budgets for influencer marketing increasing over 2024.
• Daphne’s best advice: So I’m in customer experience, but I always start with people experience, because I view that as the root of how our customer experience is designed and received by our customers. If your people are happy and engaged, they will provide great customer experiences because experience, values, and meaning, to me starts on the inside and goes outward. So with that, my best advice would be to improve employee experience. And I know this is very difficult because everyone is at different stages of growth, but it’s about getting really good at identifying what the problems are. You can’t make impactful improvements without having a deep understanding of the problems and their root causes. So, deep discovery of what the true problems are and solving for the root causes will result in long-lasting improvements to customer and employee experience.
• Daphne’s Punk CX brand: Patagonia

About Daphne

Daphne Robertson is the VP of Customer Experience and Operations at #paid, where she has played a pivotal role in scaling the company into a marketplace leader since joining in 2016. Known for her high-output management style, Daphne has led impact across many functions including Finance, Revenue Operations, Customer Experience, and Operations.

Daphne’s non-linear career spans roles in asset management, procurement, and early-stage startup growth. A mentor, life coach, and advisor, she’s passionate about fostering environments where people and businesses thrive.

Check out #paid, say Hi to them on X (Twitter) @hashtagpaid and feel free to connect with Daphne on LinkedIn here.

Image credit: Photo by Elijah Macleod on Unsplash