“Right now… we’re tracking all of our reach and impressions and then also the quality of the social posts… Because all of that together is ultimately going to be the best measure of success for us to have the long-term impact on the business. – Bridget Sullivan, Gainful

The Gainful brand team no longer looks at influencers simply as sales generators. Rather they assess social KPIs, like reach and impressions, as well as quality of the content and engagement, and tweak the program for success. They also measure ROI through the cost savings of having a pool of influencers who are creating amazing content without the added costs of production. Through lots of testing and learning from the past, the brand has built a vibrant community of brand ambassadors who are spreading the word about Gainful products and helping drive conversions and retention across the board.

“We’re always looking to partner with the types of influencers that are truly active every single day and that really fit the personas of a Gainful customer.” – Bridget Sullivan, Gainful

Breakdown of the GRIN Gets Real Podcast Interview with Gainful

“When you’re first starting out… you want to see immediate returns from sales or content or whatever your goals are. You want all that immediately because it’s so glitzy and something that proves value. But the value really comes in sitting with everything, learning from it and then seeing it scale.” – Taylor Nulk, Gainful

Taylor Nulk, the Influencer and Partnerships Manager at Gainful, had to learn patience when building out the Gainful brand’s influencer marketing strategy. But her patience, attention to metrics, and willingness to shift and try new things has paid off in big ways for the personalized nutrition brand. Now they boast of a completely ROI positive influencer program and a community of influencers who are excited about Gainful and enjoy working together.

Gainful was featured in GRIN’s Brands Talking Influencers Fireside Chat on January 26th, 2022.  Attendees submitted an unprecedented amount of questions during the webinar, but the guests didn’t have time to answer them all! In this follow up episode of the GRIN Gets Real Podcast, Katya from GRIN sits down with Taylor Nulk and Bridget Sullivan, both from Gainful’s brand team, to answer questions about their influencer marketing program. Questions range from how they built their influencer program, transitioning from the affiliate model to the ambassador model, how they find the right creators, what their onboarding and workflows look like, as well as how they measure success. 

Bridget and Taylor give in depth, thoughtful answers on many significant topics including:

• How to find aligned creators at scale.
• What it took to transform a program of affiliates into their current ambassador program.
• How they measure ROI in an awareness focused influencer campaign.
• Which KPIs they focus on when measuring the success of their different types of creators.
• The size of their internal team and what it takes to manage their program of 350 influencers.
• Tips and ideas for getting high quality content from all types of creators.
• What they do to encourage and build community amongst their Team Gainful ambassadors.
• Hey they leverage paid strategies and creator content to increase sales across different platforms.

… and why TikTok is their main focus for finding new creators and content in 2022!

“Don’t compare yourself to somebody else. Compare yourself to the version of you [from] last week, last month, or last quarter. Because the goal is to see the chart go up.” – Katya Allison, GRIN

Gainful has continued to see positive ROI coming out of their influencer program because they spend the time testing out different methods and dialing in exactly what works best for their brand. They use the GRIN software to consolidate all of their influencer related tasks in one place. Their relatively small team efficiently manages a large group of influencers, keeps them engaged, and slowly but surely they’ve seen the quality of their creator content rise to new levels that surprise even Bridget and Taylor daily!

“It’s really just by working with the right types of individuals that are seeing the results that they’re looking for and then [they’re] able to speak in a really authentic manner and that’s where the credibility is going to come in.”  – Bridget Sullivan, Gainful

If you have questions about how a successful influencer marketing program is run, how it can be built from scratch (in under a year!), exactly how a platform like GRIN works, or how brands can take failures and turn them into success, this episode is a must listen. You’ll find answers to your own burning question, as well as some you didn’t even know you had! 

Grab your headphones (and a pen and paper), and listen to the podcast now!

Quotes from this Episode

“Organic messages that they are sharing [like], ‘Gainful is part of my routine.’ ‘It’s part of my day to day.’ It’s not just that one-off paid post and then next month [they’re] talking about a competitor.” – Taylor Nulk, Gainful

“We have really warm close relationships and they’re excited to be a part of it and share every time that they’re coming across our brands.”  – Taylor Nulk, Gainful

“We  can really engage this core group of ambassadors with additional earning opportunities… They have an engaged community and we’re already starting to see sales tick upwards because now they have an additional opportunity even though that’s not the primary goal.”  – Taylor Nulk, Gainful

“It started organically and then we quickly found that we needed to have a tool to really help us manage all of this because we are a lean team and we needed to have as much efficiency as possible.” – Bridget Sullivan, Gainful

“Being a subscription business. It does allow us to have monthly touch points with our ambassadors in ways that other brands have to make sure that they’re sending product directly.”  – Bridget Sullivan, Gainful“

Consumers and followers are looking at the influencer content to really see if this is something that they want to try or if it’s something that they need to consider for a while before they actually invest.”  – Bridget Sullivan, Gainful