Collaborations, Content & Consistency with Katie Lamb

Marketing on a budget is made easy as you master one simple thing.. RELATIONSHIPS. 

"It's not WHAT you know, it's WHO you know."

Influencer marketing has been around well before anyone ever coined a fancy phrase for it. As businesses and brands have grown accustomed to this rising form of marketing, strategic collaborations have emerged and enabled entrepreneurs to think outside traditional cut throat marketing approaches. We see more and more collaborative alliances amongst brands eager to share their similar audiences and grow in unison.

Influencer marketing and brand collaborations seem like a no brainer. But like most things it can be done well and not so well.. 

• (05:29) A lot of business owners especially in the beginning are "yes" people. We want everyone to like us. We want everyone to be smiling every time we walk in a room. We want to appeal to everyone. We want everyone to be a client. But I've learned that "no" is much more powerful than "yes" in business. Learning to say "no", really defining my brand and knowing I don't want to reach everybody, I want to reach my ideal clients. The ability to filter through the noise is key. Is this helping with longterm goals? Is this really what I want? Or is it just kind of flashy and in the moment?
• (06:35) Being on social media and putting so much out there caused me to really create boundaries for our personal life. I'm very intentional about what I'm putting out there. I don't put my kids on there very much. We are in a new generation of letting our kids grow up in social media and we haven't seen the lifelong effects it's going to have in our children. They're little right now, but these are real humans. So intentionality is huge for me, and making sure everything has a purpose.

"Attract the best, repel the rest!"

We cannot please everybody. And if you are trying, you will likely burn yourself out. It's a lesson every entrepreneur must learn. Overcoming that "yes girl" crisis.

As collaboration opportunities arise, there are three main ways to work with influencer marketing:

1. Affiliate marketing. This is where the influencer is linking products and getting a commission.
2. Direct collaborations. Some businesses/brands may opt to reach out directly. The two parties construct a "deal" which can include compensation for content and posts, or simple trades for product depending on the scale and interest of the influencer. 
3. Working with an Agency. Agencies offer influencer networks and act as the middleman pairing up businesses/brands and influencers to work together. 

• (10:41) I've done it all. As far as actually working with the brands, that's where you're making the majority of your income, and affiliate marketing. Some bloggers make crazy amounts of money in affiliate marketing, but affiliate marketing for me is bonus income.
• (11:11) If you're doing it right, most people aren't just taking any gig. It needs to be consistent with your brand and with all of the efforts that you do in your business and in your personal brand. So you have to be a little choosy to make sure that the collaboration works both ways and that you're not willing to do anything to make a buck.  
• (12:18) For me it's all about intentionality. It has to match my brand.
• (12:31) Your follower number does not matter as much as you think it does. I only have 15,000 but my income could be just as much from influencer campaigns as people with 500,000 because my 15,000 are a very high buying audience and they're trusting because I'm only putting out stuff that matters to them.
• (15:43) I don't necessarily think there's a time to monetize and a time not to, I think if you're going to do it, do it well and be intentional. Learn to say no. I say no to 99% of the collaborations that come in my inbox and only say yes to the 1%. Don't chase the money. It'll come if you're consistent and you're intentional, but don't chase because people quickly see through it and don't want to be a part of it.
• (16:31) I don't want to seek fake-ness. I'm me to anyone who meets me. Now that being said, my business is built around intentionality, so I'm not getting on and recording in the middle of an emotional breakdown. I want to be a tip giver. I want to be intentional about why I'm getting on. 
• (18:10) My whole method is the serve, serve, serve, serve, serve, sell method. I never want to come across as buy this, buy this.. it's always serving them well, giving them the free stuff so it builds trust for whenever I am ready to sell.

No matter how many people are in our sphere who may be "competitors", we know there's one thing that can never be copied because it's authentic to who we are, and that's the way we treat and serve people. The serve, serve, serve, serve, serve, serve, sell method works for all modes of business regardless of what industry you're in. You can adopt a "service model" into your company and it becomes more authentic, you become more trustworthy, your customers, your clients and your fans become more loyal.

• (20:11) The aesthetics of my feed is extremely important. If a potential client were to pop on over to my feed and they only see it for two seconds, do they walk away knowing exactly what I'm about? That's their first impression. So my feed is so important. However I want the engagement as well. Instead of posting a picture and that's it, tell a story behind it, ask question. You can still have a great image, but you can use the caption to really push engagement further.

In order to breathe life into your business, it's essential to establish a business "persona" or "personality". If your brand were a person, what would she sound like? What would she look like? Oftentimes what happens when we're not doing this intentionally is we can project our own personality onto the brand unknowingly. As a brand, and as a branded personality, who are you? Regardless of your industry, whether you're selling food or fashion or photography, it really doesn't matter. Your brand needs to be consistent in order to create that brand recognition and that flow. So take a moment to step back and identify the personality behind what you've created because that will provide guardrails for when you make those future decisions.

• (25:10) I have multiple different sections of my brand all under one umbrella. So for someone to come to my feed, if they see photography and then a kitchen remodel, it typically wouldn't work, but I feel like it does because the images and branding is all the same.