The questions to ask:
- What’s your purpose for using Trnd?
- What is the expectation you’re setting for your brand ambassadors, affiliates, or influencers?
- How do you communicate your goals and metrics with this community?
If a brand can answer all of these questions, we’re on the right track for getting started.
Defining your purpose for using Trnd
Trnd is the ideal platform for teams that are looking to drive better conversion rates and better experiences for their affiliate, ambassador and influencer commerce programs. Trnd drop links have many different applications from Instagram story shopping to email newsletter conversions.
By using Trnd, a brand advocate can share their favorite products from the brands they work with in a way that feels personal and highly curated. Not only does Trnd make the experience for creators better, but it also allows the company the ability to quantify their program and make it more efficient.
So, when it comes to defining why exactly you’re using Trnd, be clear with your vision. If you already have a creator program with a list of influencers who can optimize how they work, then this is the purpose. You may want to see the analytics more in depth, which Trnd does, so you can justify the costs of your program and prove that it works.
If you’re just getting started with influencer marketing and building your program, then Trnd could be the foundation you’re building it on. You could want to start by product seeding and making it easy for you to onboard new influencers. Trnd does this, too!
Trnd makes it easy to send free or discounted products to creators in your network. It speeds up a usually very manual process by eliminating the need for you to gather a creator’s shipping details, sizes, flavor preferences, or other details needed to ship.
In fact, Trnd allows you to send a gift to a creator in less than 2 minutes! Even when selecting 20 products for a creator to choose from and writing a heartfelt thank you message for being a great ambassador, it still only just takes a few minutes to complete and send.
Keep in mind all of the ways Trnd helps you work smarter, faster and more efficiently. While it can take time to see conversions and ROI out of a new influencer relationship, the speed to value you get from just managing your network and tasks are monumental.
Setting the right expectations with Creators
In addition to knowing your purpose for Trnd, your creators should also be in the loop. Communication is key to any great relationship.
Ok, but honestly, communication with influencers is what either makes or breaks the outcomes. When you start a relationship with a creator with a very clear understanding of what they need to do and how they will be measured, it makes for the best result.
For example, your program may outline the requirement for a creator to post at least three times about your brand in a month. With those posts, they may be required to share their Trnd Drop link and find new sales.
You may be interested in how many new customers this creator gets for you and how many orders are placed in a month from these mentions. Your expectation to set with them could be that they need to have a minimum of 5 new customers a month to continue earning a commission on their sales.
These expectations should be laid out very plainly and your creators should be aware of how you’re measuring them for success.
Not only do you need to continually discuss these metrics with them, but you should ensure they understand how you’re evaluating their success in other ways and recognize them when their achievements exceed expectations.
Remember, this is a partnership. Making sure you appreciate the efforts and applaud a creator’s creativity and commitment will go a long way to solidifying your relationship. A great example of doing this would be by monitoring the number of new customers acquired every month, and rewarding those that exceed their goals with an additional free product (using Trnd’s Gifting feature of course) or a 2%-5% increase in their commission.
Small tokens of appreciation go a long way!
Communicating with your creators effectively
Usually, a good communication plan is tailored to an individual’s needs. More often than not, you need to meet the people where they are.
If you’re trying to manage 500 creators with individual texts and emails, this can be incredibly overwhelming for you and maybe not so efficient. Managing 500 text threads and emails probably means you’re also missing key opportunities to engage them.
On the other hand, if you’re managing 500 creators with a mass email and hoping they will respond, then your engagement rate is likely very low.
Instead, try identifying who responds best to texts, who responds best to emails, and who engages in a larger type of community where you can mass post for them to see it.
You may even need to mix up how you message individuals. This can be a combination of mass email with a text to your top engaged and top performing creators. Identifying who your most dedicated ambassadors are for your program is a start to developing quality relationships that are mutually beneficial and last a long time.
As an example, one brand on Trnd has a very large ambassador network. Their influencers range from nano to Macro, but their top influencers are bringing in $100s of thousands of dollars in revenue every year. They are the influencers who are huge advocates for the brand and have a very close relationship with the brand.
For those that have smaller influencer networks, this is a great opportunity to create close knit relationships from the start. Texts and personalized emails may work great for you. This is also a great opportunity to build face to face relationships and make phone calls to continue building those relationships that can flourish in high earning potential.
Further, it’s not only how you engage, it’s also how often you engage. Going too long between communications can make a creator feel like they don’t really matter to your brand. If you’re only sharing information that’s important for you, and not necessarily offering them value, then they could be well on their way to tuning you out.
Make sure you’re communicating often and in the right ways!
Getting the most out of Trnd
Overall, Trnd can accelerate your influencer program and help you hit your target revenue and sales goals. The tools Trnd offers your company can maximize your influencer program whether its through making your team more efficient or providing your influencers with an opportunity to earn more commissions and beautifully curate their favorite recommendations.
When getting started, there are three important areas to focus on:
- Purpose
- Expectations
- & Communication
Having a clear purpose for adopting new technology will ensure you have the right outcomes for your team and help you stay focused on what’s important. Setting those expectations with your influencers will ensure they know what the goal is and they do the job to get you there. However, none of it works without very clear, well timed, and properly placed communication to your network.
Getting started on Trnd is designed to be super simple. However, it can be even easier when you have the right questions answered ahead of time. Whether you’re thinking about building your program from scratch or you have 1,000 creators ready to amplify, consider these key areas that will lead you to success!
