Leveraging influencer Marketing to build Authentic Content That Fuels Brand Growth with Magda Houalla on Episode #0210

Magda Houalla [0:00]
Hi, my name is Magda Houalla, I am the Director of Marketing Strategy at Aspire IQ and you are listening to EA Interviews.

Intro [0:06]
EA interviews, Episode 210, inspiration, transformation, success stories and the Imperfect Action Round seven days a week. Join Mario Fachini for today’s Expert Authority Effect Interview.

Mario Fachini [0:17]
Do you want to do more with business? Have you tried doing, you know, online stuff and offline stuff? And it’s just not giving you the result you’re looking for? How about influencer marketing? It’s something new and it’s what a lot of people are going towards as of late and there’s very unique ways you can do it. And that’s why I’m excited to have Magda Houalla, on today’s episode today, because that’s what we’re going to be talking about bridging that gap and creating a human connection through storytelling with influencer marketing. I’m going to bring her up right after we thank our sponsor.

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Mario Fachini [0:17]
Here she is, ladies and gentlemen, the lovely Magda Houalla, how’re you doing today Magda?

Magda Houalla [1:16]
I’m doing just great, how are you?

Mario Fachini [1:19]
I’m feeling awesome, and tonight, I’m excited to ask you some questions about Influencer Marketing, because I know it’s a new earth thing, and not everyone might know about it. But what would you say are the top benefits of Influencer Marketing?

Magda Houalla [1:35]
Yeah, totally. So, Influencer marketing, you’re right, it is definitely new, or it’s probably been around in the capacity as it is today for the past maybe eight years. But Influencer Marketing essentially is just when brands are connecting with anyone who has influenced, whether that’s on Social Media, whether that’s being an Influencer, in your own community, think subject matter experts, Skincare Experts, you know, Fashion, he says people that really are thought leaders in their space. Even you know, really avid brand fans could be thought of as an influencer for business. But when you think about the benefits of Influencer Marketing, essentially, the biggest one, is that you are creating a community driven message about your brand. so, instead of you as a brand, telling people, this is what we stand for, this is who we are, this is how our products work, you essentially have third party advocates saying that story on your behalf. So, this can get tricky, because obviously with Influencer Marketing, like any other marketing, you are paying us people to talk about you. So, you want to be mindful of having that transparency, asking Influencers to tell the story and also be very candid about the nature of their partnership with you as a brand. But we can talk more about that as the conversation goes on. But yeah, I do this top benefit is one, just authenticity through storytelling, two is generating really high-quality assets. So, Influencers they are Content Creators, by trade, they create beautiful photos, videos, etc. that are optimized for Social, and I know that brands always the more content influencers are able to provide tons of really high-quality assets that a brand can then use across their entire marketing stack, whether it’s for paid Social Ads, Website, Product Pages, Email Marketing, basically, wherever you need, Content Influencers can help fill that need. And then lastly, as you think about lower federal initiatives, influencers also are great at driving sales, people make purchasing decisions based on what they see on Social Media, based on recommendations for influencers. I know, myself, personally, I make a lot of purchases based of what I’m seeing influencers and, you know, verticals I’m interested in talk about. so, they are able to really move the needle on the bottom line. And there’s lots of different ways to track that from unique links to coupon codes to more robust, you know, things like Google Analytics tracking. But yeah, to kind of break it down would say storytelling, content and sales are really the top benefits of a really strong Influencer Marketing Program.

Mario Fachini [4:02]
So, would you say that this is very akin to the Celebrity endorsements that have been around forever? It’s just that now we have a wider pool of people who are Influencers and Micro Celebrities, depending on the platform?

Magda Houalla [4:17]
Totally. Yeah, it’s kind of two-fold, one is you have a wider pool of individuals and two, you have individuals that people trust more. So, even in the influencer space, we’ve seen a shift from these Macro Creators that had Millions of followers to more of a Micro Career, think of people that maybe have 100,000 followers or less, but when you think about the traditional Celebrity Endorsement, that’s very polished, very, you know, there’s a lot of production value there. You think about commercials in in studio shots, and there’s certainly a time and a place for that. But I think the benefit of working with influencers specifically is you can get a more real take on a promotion for your brand. So, instead of just having one celebrity that you’re, you know, paying quite a bit of money to, you can diversify that spend and get a bunch of different stories from a bunch of different individuals while still getting the reach that you’re looking for. I think that, yeah, get in the influencer space, we’ve definitely seen a shift from more of like Kardashian Jenner level sponsorship to, you know, more regular everyday people that are just super big fans of any specific brand. And the return that we’re seeing on the more micro nano side is really promising, and I think that that’s where a lot of brands should be and are spending their influencer budget.

Mario Fachini [5:32]
I want to make a joke about something but also bring the severity to it, because you’re just very casually saying, you know, the Micro and Nano Celebrities and the Micronesian, all this and you’re just like, yeah, the small people with 100,000 people in their audience. I just want to make a point of that, because there are so many businesses around the country, that if they have 1000,5000, 10,000, in their following for a local business, or even a midsize business, because I know of a lot of large companies that just never really jumped on the social train, if you will. So, they’re huge companies, you know, seven and eight figure businesses plus, but they might only have 8000 people, because they never really built it up. And it was all just natural, and this that the other thing, but the reality is, there are people with 100,000, 500,000 300,000 in their audience, and they are considered small, if you will, compared to the large ones. But that’s still a killer audience. If we equate that to the Superbowl commercial, a TV ad, or Radio ad or anything. I mean, let’s talk about the results with some of this. If someone were to say, I want to send out 10,000 direct mail pieces, versus an Influencer with 10,000 people, what would you say the results are going to be?

Magda Houalla [6:59]
Yeah, that’s a really good question. so, I think that that’s where attribution is everything, and I think that since Influencer Marketing is relatively new, and sometimes it’s a little bit obscure, specifically to some of those more Enterprise companies that you were talking about earlier, I think that you have to figure out who you’re getting in front of, and if it’s the most appropriate audience. so, to give us the mailer example, mailers are kind of a tried-and-true strategy that absolutely worked for a number of brands. so, I have no way what to say, you know, completely stop any traditional marketing efforts that you have. But you need to think about an influencer post, essentially, as an Online Billboard, if you will. so, there’s retail space that they’re taking up on someone’s feed, you’re seeing the brand, without having to check your mail, you’re seeing the brand without having to have cable TV to see a commercial. It’s just matching the more modern approach in which people are learning about brands in which people are consuming media. So, personally, of course, I’m biased given the field that I’m in. But I would say that working with influencers to get that reach would ultimately be a more effective strategy. Because again, not only are you getting the reach, but you are getting those assets, that content that you can then use for your other Marketing Channels. so, if direct mailers are something that’s a priority for you that has performed well, you could always request rights to influence your content, use that content in your mailers and have a more modern approach to a marketing tactic that is more tried and truer.

Mario Fachini [8:28]
That is awesome to hear, because there’s still a lot of companies that I feel just don’t get it, and I’m thinking back years ago to my very first client when I started my business again. And we were talking about mailers, and the reason I came up with the 10,000 is because he flat out said they send out 10,000 mailers every five weeks, all year long. And I was trying to tell him how Facebook was going to be taking off. I mean, this is going back some time.

Magda Houalla [9:05]
Yeah, we’re going back.

Mario Fachini [9:07]
And, I knew where it was going, and I knew what was going on with it, there wasn’t really Influencers and this and that it was very early days, but I was just running the numbers because you know, for increasing profit, it’s really not that hard. you look at the numbers and say you’re spending $50,000 doing this, you can do it for 10. That’s a $40,000 profit on just the cost of the goods alone, the printing and all of that, and now you have this tangible asset because he had no one on an email list either. so, now it’s just like you’re making the Company rich and it’s like he put more of that money in your pocket, but the point you brought up is you can reuse that another Social. I love that, and the other thing is, you have that trust, how important would you say the trust is of you know, if you can have some referral or I give someone a referral versus just, you know, John Q Public sending out yet another thing?

Magda Houalla [10:08]
Yeah, so Brand Trust is one that comes up a lot. so, right now, consumer trust and brands and all time low, and consumers have more options than ever before when it comes to where they want to spend their money, there’s so many Cosmetic Companies, so many Athletic Wear companies, you really do have your pick it a lot. so, it comes down to what brands you trust and what brands have a message that resonates. so, that’s where influencer marketing needs to be looked at, very tactically, you don’t want to just give anyone and everyone who has some semblance of a following your product and ask them to promote it. really the tactic that I favor is Brand Partnering with specific influencers, again, people that could have hundreds of 1000s of followers all the way down to people that are just loud on Social Media, maybe have a couple 100 followers that have been a fan of your brand for years, you want to identify those people that are actually going to be champions for your brand, that are going to do a great job of telling your story over a set amount of time, you don’t want to just have like this one and done approach where you work with someone one time they post about you, and then, they never talked about the brand again, consumers can see right through that, and that’s where their trust goes down. But, by building up a program where you have, basically you know, a group of people that are consistently talking about you on a regular basis and telling their own personal story through your brand narrative and through your brand lens, that’s when you really do build up that trust, and that’s where Influencer Marketing can be incredibly powerful and quite a bit more powerful than more passive forms of advertising, like a TV commercial or a Billboard or things where I just, you know, oh, cool, that’s a product, It exists, Awesome. Instead, I’m seeing people that I personally, enjoy or stories that really resonate with me as an individual, that’s really what’s going to stick out in the minds of consumers.

Mario Fachini [11:53]
How many times would you say someone should have a Campaign running? You said don’t do a one time? Should they do a minimum of eight over a month? Eight over two months? 20? over a quarter?

Magda Houalla [12:04]
Yeah, so this is an answer that nobody likes, but it definitely depends on the brand, the product value, the vertical, there’s lots of different factors at play, what I do generally say is work with influencers for at least I would say, three posts on Social, three static posts and think about Instagram or Instagram stories. And if you have the resources work with an influencer for three months, give it like a three-month trial period test different platform, there’s highly experimental platforms out there like TikTok, you know, Pinterest has a lot more shoppable capabilities, but work with them for three months. If it’s a partnership, it doesn’t make sense. you can part ways at that point. But it’s been really beneficial, lock them in for a year, you’re going to be able to lock in rates at a much lower cost, as these influencers are continuing to grow, you’ll essentially grow with them with rates that are kind of preset in a lot of cases. so, it is beneficial to the brand and beneficial to the influencer because they want to have consistent work. But in terms of touch points, generally, I would say at least three touch points with any given influencer about a brand for it to really come across as a partnership that’s genuine versus just a cash grab.

Mario Fachini [13:17]
And you’re saying a minimum of three months for those three posts?

Magda Houalla [13:21]
I would say yeah, like I wouldn’t say to do three posts in one month, I think that could come across as a little too much, again, it really does depend.

Mario Fachini [13:31]
It’s going to depend on what you’re doing, who it is, and this and that, but you’re just saying don’t do one time one and done. or once every six months where it’s like, they forget about you.

Magda Houalla [13:43]
Exactly, yeah, you want to have some sort of consistency and cadence. So, you would want to have X number of posts every quarter, whether that’s three posts, whether that six posts, to give you an example, a brand in the Skincare space, they can get away with quite a bit more posts from an influencer on Social, because you can tell a story around consistency of use, you’re using the product every night, you can follow along with that. Whereas if you’re, let’s say a Mattress company might not seem as natural the post about your mattress and how much you love it, you know, three times a month, you might want to be a little bit more strategic about facing that content out and actually telling the story that really makes a ton of sense.

Mario Fachini [14:18]
And that does make sense, people have reached out for Sponsorships on this show, we have similar questions. we have similar conversations as far as what the frequency should be, because you don’t want to be doing once every two months, no one’s going to remember you however, how many times can you hear it before you’re like okay, I’m tired of it, you know, there’s a fine line and depends on the business and everything. so, what would you say is the biggest transformation you’ve been able to give someone that didn’t do influencer marketing before came on board, and then they were like, so happy that after the fact, what did that look like?

Magda Houalla [14:55]
Yeah, so, I’ll give you two examples, I’ll give you one of the more Enterprise quote unquote legacy, tight brand, I can’t say the brand names, But, we worked with a brand that is in the Fitness Space and essentially wanted to modernize their marketing approach they wanted to you know, did a lot of more traditional marketing tactics, TV spots, Mailers, everything and anything, but didn’t have a super strong social presence, and we’re noticing that some newer companies were popping up that did have a super strong social presence, and they wanted to get ahead. so, we worked with them with kind of a twofold approach. One is telling the story about why this brand is tried and true, why this brand is the one that should be trusted through influencers voices, so have influencers basically speak to the legacy of this brand, it’s been around for years for a reason, worked through all the kinks, etc. And also bring the content into the modern day. so, a lot of the content, one of their pain points was that it lacks diversity, it was really, you know, super fit people that were, you know, very polished buttoned up content that they were using on their Website, TV commercials, etc. they wanted content that seemed a bit more human authentic, would really resonate with the consumer of today. so, we worked with them on both of those fronts, where they were able to; one sees success from storytelling, they saw an uptick in Social followers by the hundreds of 1000s over the course of the time that we work together. And also, were able to see really positive return from the content that they were creating, they use that content for their paid Social ads, for their Website on their product description page, and actually, were able to see tangible results in increased click through rate on paid ads and increased excuse me time on site for product description pages, and ultimately was kind of a goldmine for them, they saw this content as something that was key in their transition as a business. so, that was really exciting.

Mario Fachini [15:10]
Did you have them working with a single Influencer or multiple for this campaign?

Magda Houalla [16:55]
Multiple Influencers, always, you want to make sure that your sample size essentially is large enough, if you just work with one, even if you’re just working with ten influencers, you might not find that group of people that you really love. so, I believe that they worked with, you know, well over 50 Influencers, and then found out that they wanted, found people that they wanted to work with on a longer-term basis, continue to nurture those relationships, and essentially have those people become Ambassadors for the brand.

Mario Fachini [17:23]
And I kind of get that would also add more legitimate legitimacy also, because if you just have one, two or three people, and I know when you’re talking on Instagram and different networks, it says, it’s a paid promotion, or whatever. But, at the same point, when you get 10,20,30, 40,50, 100, different people all saying the same thing, it’s pretty much like, I do realize that the influencers have the right to refuse, and they’re not going to work with just everyone just for no reason. So, by having dozens of Endorsements are across the board, I mean, who wouldn’t want that?

Magda Houalla [18:04]
Exactly, and that’s for transparency is critical. So, these Influencers can say, I am being paid by this brand. But I do want to speak about how this brand was critical in my fitness journey, and those are the types of stories that we were telling with this brand, and ultimately, what was incredibly game changing for them as a business.

Mario Fachini [18:23]
So, I want to ask about the storytelling aspect of this too, because you don’t want to just be doing boilerplate, whatever, you don’t want to do repetitive stuff. And you want to use that storytelling. So, do you actively go out and get the influencers? Or do a lot of them come to you? Or do they say, I’m already using this product? Is there a way I can promote it, what does that look like?

Magda Houalla [18:51]
Sure, both to answer shortly, you have people that are going to reach out to a brand very interested and excited and wanting to work with them, you have brands reaching out to Influencers that they’re really excited about. So, I work at Aspire IQ, and we’re a Software Company. So, essentially, we have full capabilities where brands can promote themselves and their campaigns in our Marketplace and get inbound interest, but also, they can actively seek out people that they want to work with, and invite them to their campaigns. But brands across the board are seeing that, once consumers try a product, if they have a following, they are very eager to get involved with the brand in a more intimate way. so, even if it’s not a traditional Influence or Sponsorship even if they just have the capability or the opportunity, I should say to give things like product feedback or you know get first access to a new product before it launches. The consumers in general are craving that participation between brand and consumer, and the influencer is really just one piece of that but something that is super exciting, and a huge opportunity for brands because these people are so motivated, you connect with brands that they care about.

Mario Fachini [20:01]
Are there any specific steps that someone should take, if someone’s not doing Influencer Marketing right now and they want to, what would you say is the first couple of steps they should take?

Magda Houalla [20:13]
Yes. so, I would say the first step, which is the most critical is identifying your goal. you don’t want to just do anything for the sake of doing it, and Influencer Marketing is no exception to that rule. so, think about ultimately what you’re trying to achieve. are you trying to grow your Social following and your Social presence? Are you trying to increase share of waste? are you simply trying to do better than your competitor? you see, your competitor gets 500 posts a week about from Influencers and you want to get 501, you want to drive direct sales, identifying your goals is the perfect first step, and that will help inform what Social Strategy and Influencer Strategy makes sense? If it is sales heavy, you want to lean towards content that allows for click through, for example, YouTube, it’s really easy to click through from the link in the bio, whereas on an Instagram Post, it’s a little bit trickier, Instagram Stories has the solution, and so on and so forth. so, you want to understand what your goals are, so, you can figure out what platform and what media makes the most sense, and then I think, you know, it depends upon scale, I would say a good first step is even using your own Social Channels as a brand to start recruiting people say, Hey, we’re looking for people that are interested in working with us, we’d love to see if there’s any inbound interest, that’s a very easy first step. Miners, you know, I guess, setback is that you could get a ton of interest and have to sort through. but starting there, or just reaching out to influencers on your own people that you may follow, as a brand, I think it’s always important to follow different Influencers in your verticals, you can see what they’re talking about, how they position their Sponsorships with other brands. so, you know, you can kind of get a feel for what you like, what you don’t like, and then starting with, a three-month proof of concept campaign, where you’re working with a group of Influencers, having them promote your brand, a handful of times, having them generate, you know, quite a bit of content for you at the end of that three months, you can see, did we move towards the goal that we had initially outlined? is this content of value to us as a business? and ultimately, were the stories that were told about our brand on Social Media ones, that we can stand behind that kind of align with our brand value.

Mario Fachini [22:24]
So, if you’re taking the more direct approach, you might have a set goal for the CTR. But if you’re trying to grow the followers, you might say I want to increase this 5%,10%, 20%.

Magda Houalla [22:36]
Absolutely, yeah, and usually, you want to use the first three months to set a baseline for yourself around what’s realistic, I know that way back in the day, when I was a Social Media Manager, an Influencer Manager myself, I was able to set hard metrics for Social Media growth based on what I was able to do. so, basically, I was able to prove out in the first three months by working with 100 Influencers, we grew by 10 X, I now can use that as informed data to help me to say to my boss, I’m going to now grow by 20 x, I’ll need X amount more budget, etc. so, you’ll want to set some baseline metrics yourself and understand that it is a highly iterative process and your program could change and shift, but ultimately, the goals are critical for a successful program.

Mario Fachini [23:23]
If we’re talking about the CTR,do you have a set goal across the board that we don’t want it to be any less than, let’s say 1%? Again, I’m thinking of the direct mail example, and I know you’re sending out 10,000 direct mails. I will never forget hearing, yeah, we got 156 back and I’m like out of 10,000, and I’m thinking that’s horrible. but yeah, he was thrilled because that’s 1.56%.

Magda Houalla [23:53]
So again, not a great answer, but it’s not the same as some of those more Traditional Advertising Channels where you would have like a set, Click Through Rate across the board. I think each brand has their own idea of what success looks like. But ultimately, an Influencer Marketing is inherently a top of the funnel metric where you’re really working on things like building brand awareness, increasing Share of Voice. so, more often than not, you’re thinking about different goals throughout the funnel. so, some of your awareness goals could be, we know that through direct mailers, we can get in front of 10,000 people we want to make sure that we get in front of 100,000 people with Influencer Marketing. that’s an easy metric to track around impressions and reach. for more consideration, you want to see how many people are actually getting you know more interested in our products, for that you might track click through rate from a Blog Post, a YouTube video, a swipe up on Instagram Stories, and then ultimately sales. This is where you can do things like leverage the influencer content for your paid ads, leverage the Influencer Content on your checkout page, product description page and see is this content actually generating a higher purchase order value is someone who clicks through a link from an influencer spending more time on site, and that’s where you can really prove out bottom funnel metrics. But ultimately, you’re going to want to look at the full funnel to get a really clear understanding of exactly how this program is impacting, you know, multiple areas of your business.

Mario Fachini [25:22]
And that’s a good point, because, if someone already has a Million followers, half a percent of that is still pretty big jump, versus if you only have 11,786, roughly. And you’re getting one and a half to 2%. I mean, shoot, you could get five or 10%. And it’s still a smaller number overall, then, you know, dealing with a Million or 2 Million and I know there’s people with five and 10 million.

Magda Houalla [25:51]
Absolutely, we’re dealing with really big numbers when you get to some more of these Macro, even mature Influencers. So, it’s about setting those expectations up correctly, in your own mind that it is top of the funnel, but then also putting all of the appropriate tracking methods in place that you can see the impact across the funnel, and that’s really been the key. for some of our top clients in terms of unlocking budget, they need to prove to their higher ups that this is an effective strategy, not just from a growing Social Media perspective. but what is a larger following on Social Media ultimately lead to, you can track things like the Click Through Rate on the link in your own Social Media bio, you can look at things like turning on Social Commerce and seeing how many sales are driven directly through platforms like Pinterest, and Instagram, lots of different ways to get creative, and that’s probably my favorite part about the job is working through this with our clients and understanding, you know, what they need to show in order to prove success, and what different ways we can get there.

Mario Fachini [26:49]
Yeah, there’s so many ways, what one of the things I like is the end cards on YouTube, I mean, people are going to click it or they not?

Magda Houalla [26:55]
Oh, yeah.

Mario Fachini [26:58]
All right. Well, now it’s time for the little surprise you didn’t see real quick earlier, but this is The Wheel of Whatever, and thank you for giving me the question to ask you within the first few minutes.

Magda Houalla [27:13]
What was that?

Mario Fachini [27:15]
Your question is, who is your favorite influencer, you’ve worked with already? And who is one you’d love to work with in the future?

Magda Houalla [27:25]
Oh, this is a really good question, I personally work on the brand side. so, I helped to facilitate relationships between brands and influencers, but actually can speak to one of them. so, one relationship that I helped to facilitate was with an Influencer by the name of Lauren Bosworth, she actually has a company of her own Love Wellness. and, you know, grew up in the same hometown as me. so, I was really excited to get the opportunity to help facilitate a partnership for her and she is just lovely. She was so sweet, really clever with the content she created for this specific brand, really put her own spin on it, and you could tell that she took the time to really make it her own and do the research into the brand, but also bring her own unique spin to it. so, I absolutely loved being able to facilitate that relationship and also kind of have a nod to my hometown, by bringing her into the partnership. I forgot the second half of your question though.

Mario Fachini [28:25]
The second half is who was the one you haven’t worked with but would love to?

Magda Houalla [28:31]
Who have I not worked with but would love to? I mean, there are so many that I’d be really interested in, there’s this new influencer on YouTube who has absolutely blown up in the past several months named Hyram, he has an account called Skincare by Hyram, where he talks all about skincare ingredients in a super easy to follow way, and I just absolutely adore his authentic approach to sponsorships. Every brand that he works with, he makes it very clear upfront that he is going to be completely honest about what products he doesn’t like and, he will start the video with the products from that brand that he hates and end with the products from that brand that he absolutely love. And he is just incredibly intelligent and I spend hours watching his videos so, if I ever got the opportunity to work with him if one of my clients ever worked with him, I would just be thrilled. so, fingers crossed, Hyram notice me, I would love to work with you.

Mario Fachini [29:26]
And what’s Hyram’s last name?

Magda Houalla [29:29]
I just know Skincare by Hyram, I just know his handle actually, I’m not sure Hyram, but yeah, he is huge on YouTube, huge on Tik Tok, there is now a whole movement towards people asking whether or not skincare is Hyram Approved or not. so, if you look at the hashtag, Hyram Approved, you’ll see tons of

Mario Fachini [29:51]
This is fantastic. well, thank you so much for that. We’re going to thank our sponsor and come back for the Imperfect Action Round.

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Mario Fachini [31:28]
And we are back with the Imperfect Action Round, Magda, are you ready to take Imperfect Action?

Magda Houalla [31:35]
Yes, I am, I don’t know what that means, but I’m ready.

Mario Fachini [31:38]
Alright, so this is a fun 60 second answer section, and the first question is what is the fastest path to the profits?

Magda Houalla [31:47]
The fastest path to profit?

Mario Fachini [31:49]
Yes.

Magda Houalla [31:51]
Influencer Marketing or in Life?

Mario Fachini [31:55]
Whatever.

Magda Houalla [31:56]
Okay, fastest path to the profit. I’m going to say it’s the lens of Influencer Marketing, and I’m not sure if I’m understanding the question correctly. But I would say fastest path to profits is radical transparency and honesty. I think that especially in the line of work that I do, you see, so many consumers that can quickly turn on a brand. The second they sniff out and authenticity or the second they feel like a brand is holding back, is not being transparent around ingredients, around manufacturing, whatever it may be, and that can very much damage and impact and brands bottom line. So, if you want to be profitable in the long term, and also get there quickly, I think having a brand built on radical transparency and a brand built on taking consistent feedback from their community and putting it into place as they grow their brand and build their product. I think that ultimately is going to be the key to unlocking profits and unlocking it quickly.

Mario Fachini [32:53]
That’s a great answer, and that’s true with business, and I’ll tell you, it’s true with Podcast too. because there’s people that are like, I love show XYZ. Hopefully it’s EA Interviews., and there’s other people who are like I absolutely despise other ones. And there’s a there’s big difference. actually, it’s not a big difference, It’s a small difference, and that’s it right there.

Magda Houalla [33:16]
Awesome, I’m glad I got some work,

Mario Fachini [33:19]
You understand it, you got it, so, the second question is, what is the biggest problem your prospects are making and the fastest way for them to fix it?

Magda Houalla [33:28]
The biggest problem that prospects are making, I would say the biggest problem that prospects are making, would probably be not testing different approaches to things like Community Building and Influencer Marketing before calling it off. So, this is specifically something that we see with more Enterprise larger companies as they look at Influencer Marketing as something that they’re going to test for maybe a couple weeks, couple months one campaign, they’re going to think about community interaction and community involvement as something that’s more of a nice to have, not a need to have, and ultimately, I think that these things are critical to any business’s success, you want to have the voice of Influencers, and you want to have that group of people that are consistently telling your brand story, and you need to have a strong community behind your brand that is involved with decision making and processes and everything like that, and a lot of brands we see, do this for a couple weeks realize, you know, maybe it’s not for us and go back to traditional forms of marketing. so, I would say stick it out a little bit longer ,test different strategies, and I think ultimately points incredibly worthwhile.

Mario Fachini [34:38]
Very good point, that long term mindset is key, and again, I can equate it to Podcasting. there are people that are like, I’ve done 10 episodes, why, don’t they have a million dollars a month?

Mario Fachini [34:49]
Maybe, do 10 more.

Magda Houalla [34:51]
You got to wait it out, it’s a long game

Mario Fachini [34:54]
Number three, what is the best way to maximize customer lifetime value?

Magda Houalla [34:59]
Yes, easy answer on my end, I think that is nurturing relationships with your customers and making them feel involved and heard. so, we see that right now, customer LTV, there’s kind of this new LTV. It’s not just how much any individual customer purchases from you, but it’s how much that customer can influence the people around them to purchase. so, myself as a customer, I have no Social Media following whatsoever. But for the brands that I love, I’m going to be loud about that, I’m going to tell my friends and family so my value to that brand is exponentially higher. And how do you get there, you get there through incredible customer service, you get there by nurturing relationships with customers by being mindful about what they’re purchasing, about how you can reward them for their loyalty. so, it really is about understanding who your top customers are, what they care about, and how you can provide them with a community that will ultimately give them value beyond just your product or service. That’s what’s going to lock someone into the customer really, for life.

Mario Fachini [35:57]
I love hearing that, because it couldn’t be true, all right, I got some questions about books, what are some books you could recommend Expert Authority World that have helped you?

Magda Houalla [36:08]
That is a really good question. so, one book that I really love is this book called Good to Great, I cannot remember the author for the life of me, and I feel awful for saying that. but yes, exactly. I first was introduced to this book, years ago, it was required reading at my dad’s company, which was funny, very small company. But I really just like the delineation between brands that can very easily be good, and be fine being good. But what you need to do to achieve greatness, I think, is something that I’ve kept in the forefront of pretty much, you know, every decision I’ve made over the past several years, from, college work beyond, is what do you need to do to differentiate there. so, that’s absolutely one of my favorite ones. Also, this is just one that I think really speaks to grit in general, but racing, The Lean Startup, personally working at a Startup, but I think everyone should read The Lean Startup to understand what it means to really operate with this scrappy mindset. I think that also helps me understand, certain business, business decisions that were being made. And ultimately, I think that when you think of an Influencer program, it’s kind of can be viewed in a similar way as you view a startup, you have these people that you know, you’re working with for the first time. It’s kind of a small program, it’s not fully built out. so, what can you do to figure out the best place to get value from it? so, I love that book as well.

Mario Fachini [37:32]
Great recommendations. I appreciate that, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this, where would you like people to learn more?

Magda Houalla [37:39]
Yes, I actually have a link, so, to learn a little bit more about, aspire to you about, Influencer Strategy, Community Strategy any and all the above, you can go to AspireIq.com/expertauthority. So, spireIq.com/expertauthority.

Mario Fachini [37:58]
Excellent. Well, thank you again, Magda. It’s been a pleasure.

Magda Houalla [38:02]
Thank you so much for having me.

Mario Fachini [38:04]
Well, Expert Authority World we have another great episode here today. I’ll see you tomorrow. Have a great day. And God bless.

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www.EAInterviews.com [38:46]
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