Episode 51 - What's Better for your Bank or CU a Brand Ambassador or Influencer?

Hi there. I'm Meredith Olmstead, CEO and founder of FI GROW Solutions. And we are an inbound marketing and sales agency, and we work exclusively with banks and credit unions. And I am here with one of our inbound marketing specialists, but she's also our social media guru for many of our clients. Her name is Sophia Bawany. Say hi, Sophie.

Hi guys.

So Sophie and I were just having a chat about a weird topic that has come up recently around a couple of different clients, and also it came up after a conference that I went to for MAC, the Marketing Association of Credit Unions here in North America. And it's about the difference between brand ambassadors and social media influencers, or brand influencers. So we've been talking about this because we have some clients that are using brand ambassadors, but we also have some clients who are in more interested in looking at relationships with influencers. And I was like, "Wait, what's the difference?" So Sophie was explaining this to me and I was like, "Wait a minute, let's hit record and talk about this for our audience." So Sophie, in a nutshell, what's the difference between a brand ambassador like that a credit union or a bank would use versus a brand influencer or a social media influencer that a credit union might use?

Yeah, so it gets confusing. So we do like to distinguish between the two. A brand ambassador, think of them as an extension of the brand that they're working with. They might be with internal. They're basically going out there representing whatever brand they're working with, building their name, their trust, and they're working for that brand. A brand influencer is someone who is a brand on their own. So when they work with a credit union or a bank, they're coming in as a partner for a short-term campaign giving you deliverables, and then they kind of move on.

Okay. So the idea here then is that a brand ambassador might be like a full-time employee or like a few full-time employees. I've seen where they might use a few different team members as brand ambassadors or a mortgage lender who's really established in the community, might be a kind of mortgage brand ambassador, if you will, versus an influencer who might not be connected officially in any employment capacity with the institution. But has an existing audience that they've cultivated and built trust with basically. So why would you maybe need both or want a relationship with either of these kinds of people?

There's a space in the market for both. There's a value that both bring to the table. A brand ambassador is absolutely wonderful for building brand loyalty, getting out in the community. They're your cheerleader and they're doing it because they genuinely love and have used your products. So when they give a message, it's a message of authenticity and they're part of the community. An influencer, you want to use an influencer when you want to get out there to a million people. They have their loyalty, they have their tribe, and you're accessing their following. So they might not have ever used your product, but because you want their target market or their inbuilt loyalty, you will partner with them and then they'll get familiar with your product either through demonstration or webinars. We've discussed this before. And then they do your deliverable, but they're not necessarily going to be the most diehard, loyal, long-term fan. It's a contract for them, it's employment. Once it's done, you can extend or move on. Whereas an ambassador is invested a little more.

And the funny thing about this is that the brand ambassador people might be a little bit less trusting of them in some ways because they know they're officially probably employed by your institution, your brand. But a influencer might actually come in with a little more trust built in their audience because they're audience has voluntarily followed them because they're funny or they're interesting or they give great advice or they are good at investing or whatever it is. And then they can say, "Hey, you guys, you trust me because I give you great advice about a lot of things. Check out this financial institution." And they can tell a story around applying for an auto loan or transferring some high interest debt to a lower interest personal loan or credit card or something like that. So it's weird how you think of that, but really the influencers sometimes almost have a little more influence because of that. All right, cool. So if you're going to try to have one or both of these, because we've seen... we have a number of clients who have brand ambassadors.

So let's talk about brand ambassadors. These are in full-time employees who are out there on social and in the community acting on behalf of the brand. What are some of the things that you need to include from a contract standpoint or just an expectation standpoint with that kind of a relationship?

So I really love that you said that they might not have as big of a reach because they're a little more local. They're a little more homegrown. So I think going in and managing your expectations and understanding your brand ambassador loves your brand and that's great. But they might not have that net that you might get with an influencer. So understanding that your reach might not be as great. Also, first and foremost, making sure you own your content. There's nothing worse than having a brand ambassador that does a fabulous job and then they move on, or they change companies and now they've taken all of that hard earned collateral and all those deliverables with them. So please make sure any financial institution in your contract, all of the deliverables, the images, videos, you own it so that you can use it. 'Cause it's evergreen content. If it's good, well-made content, you can use it for a long time.

Yeah. And honestly, if it's useful and formative, trustworthy, even if that brand ambassador moves on down the road, and they probably will because most employees do, you can still repurpose that content. That content still should be able to stand alone. So however, you structure what they're doing, what they're sharing, make sure you have it in a way that is independent from their personal name. If you're going to start, so for example, if you want a brand ambassador who's going to try to reach out to a young people, maybe they were went to a university locally and now they're working for your institution and you want them to have their own Instagram, that's fine. But don't put their name on that Instagram, name it something that the banker credit union can then hold on to into the future.

Even if you bring other brand ambassadors into the mix. Yeah, lifetime, right? For content, make sure you really have a detailed list of what they're going to do for you and how long that's going to last, or the regularity of some of that posting. And that's the same with influencers. So how does a contract with an influencer work or how's it different from a brand ambassador?

So it depends on how big your influencer is. Most credit unions will have micro influencers to medium-sized. They're not going for Kris Jenner or Kim Kardashian. Because each post would cost you a million dollars and that post... so an influencer will have terms, if they've done this before, they'll tell you how long the post will live on their profile page. It might not be there forever. And they'll charge you based on if they're doing a reel, if they're doing stories, whatever are deliverables in their contract. It's basically an itemized list of cost. And then we can tell them, it just needs to live on your Instagram or your social media for a certain amount of time. Once that time expires, they're allowed to archive the content. We can also write into a contract the rights to that information. Whereas, if we have the rights, the credit union can then repost it on their personal page-

On their social. Yeah.

... and take it off of the influencers. You can also put non-competes for a certain amount of time if you want them to not partner with another credit union, or if you're promoting a credit card, maybe you don't want them doing another credit card. So you can add all of that in. Just know that with an influencer, everything comes at a cost. There's a price tag attached to all these finite details depending on how big they are. Also, another thing that a lot of people need to understand is influencers don't say yes to everything. A good influencer will say no if something doesn't align with their brand. So please don't think that an influencer isn't going to be invested in your... you're not just a product for them. They need to believe in it and it needs to resonate with their audience because they will say no. We've had influencers say, "Yeah, we're going to pass. This doesn't suit." 'Cause they're also a brand. So they're going to look at building. Whereas a brand ambassador is a little more... they're more open to doing things because they're already invested.

So the last thing then is, how do you show success? How do you measure the... I mean, this is really kind of out their stuff. Somebody's talking about you guys and trying to influence people to go to a website or go to an application or what, consider a complicated financial product or service. So how do you measure the success? So let's talk about first a brand ambassador internally. Over time, what would you like to see happening to measure success of that role?

Conventionally brand ambassadors, the easiest way is to see sales generated. Because when they're going out in the community, normally there's a coupon or there's something that they're giving whoever they're interacting with, and that we're able to track that. So that's kind of the easiest, most basic way. And then-

So like a QR code or trackable link of some kind that really drives in new leads, new applications, new accounts kind of thing?

Yes.

Okay.

And so the good thing is with influencers, now, most platforms have links that you can add. So if you create an affiliate marketing link, even if you're not selling something, that can also work as a trackable, clickable CTA, where we can see how many people clicked on it, how many people went through the process. But traditionally for influencers, they're normally working with, if they're it's makeup or something, then there's an affiliate marketing link.

Got you.

And they're able to track how many people clicked and went through the sale with that link.

So in some circumstances, you can track conversions really clearly with an influencer, but with more complicated products like financial products and services, you also want to make sure that it's not your... the purpose of your work with the influencer isn't just solely around conversions, but it's also around awareness of your brand. So you want to be pushing out into their new audience. You want to be driving some increased impressions, new traffic to your website, all those kinds of things because it's not like you're buying a lip gloss, you might be getting an auto loan. And that is much more complicated than buying an $8 lip gloss with an affiliate link. So absolutely, I think it's important to make sure you adjust your expectations and recognize what some things you can easily track. And others you might not be able to see a straight line from A to Z to start to finish because there's so many other places they have to go. But some brand awareness around that influencer.

All right, cool. Well, it's so funny. I would've never thought there was so much difference between the two, but this makes a lot of sense. I'm glad that we have this conversation. Thank you so much, Sophie. I appreciate your time. If you guys want to learn more about social media or any other kind of digital marketing, please visit us at figrow.com. We have lots of great podcasts and blogs. We have eBooks, and we actually just added a couple of webinars to our website, so lots of great information there. But in the meantime, let's just all get out there and make it happen.