Full Funnel Creator Strategies For 2024: 5 Takeaways From Our Webinar With Digiday

Did you catch our Digiday webinar? 

Featuring Collective Voice GM Lindsay Jerutis, VP of Growth Marketing at Saks Fifth Avenue Cathy Chen, and Creator and CEO of The Mom Edit Shana Draugelis, the webinar was an enlightening conversation that touched on full funnel Creator Marketing strategies for the current digital climate.

If you weren’t able to make it, don’t fret—you can watch the whole webinar below. For the TL;DR, keep scrolling for the biggest learnings and takeaways.

1. The marketing funnel is no longer linear.

As it turns out, the marketing funnel is no longer funnel-shaped. Traditionally, the marketing funnel was a linear journey from awareness to consideration to purchase. 

However, with the evolution of digital media, consumer pathways have become more intricate and constantly need to be reevaluated based on strategic needs and emerging platforms. “It’s become much more important for all of us—at the platforms, at the brands, and even the Creators—to understand how emerging platforms can really affect our strategic plans,” explains Jerutis. 

Today, the integrated customer journey is more of a cyclical pattern. “We think of the customer journey as an infinity loop,” Jerutis says, as consumers enter the journey at various stages and engage with brands across multiple touchpoints and channels.

2. Authenticity is everything.

Unlike traditional brand messaging, Creators have the power to establish authentic connections with their audiences through more informal word-of-mouth messaging. 

“The kind of marketing that’s most impactful…come[s] from getting influenced from people that you know,” suggests Jerutis. “And the connection that Creators have with their audiences make them really feel like friends. They feel like they know them, they understand their lives. That’s why we’re seeing nine in 10 consumers relying on Creators for product recommendations.” 

Draugelis agrees, stating, “influencers are seen as friends, and that is something that is not lost on me as someone who is an influencer. We take that responsibility very seriously….The trust of our readers, quite frankly, is the whole point of this business…so that has to come first.” For Draugelis, that trust is crucial to establish from the get-go, and dictates how she approaches business and content decisions. “Taking collaborations and working with brand partners, the most important order of the day for us is whether we genuinely like that brand partner,” she says. 

Prioritizing trust and authenticity at every touchpoint allows brands to borrow cultural equity from Creators and access their communities to build a new type of integrated customer journey focused on engagement. 

3. Brands should integrate Creators into every stage of the Marketing journey.

To adapt their marketing strategies to changing consumer behavior and digital media, Saks Fifth Avenue looked to Creator Marketing as a way to tap into all parts of the aforementioned infinity loop. “Traditionally, we were more focused at Saks on investing towards the bottom of the funnel. And as the customer journey has evolved, we’ve really evolved to be much more focused on the full marketing funnel and addressing every point in that infinity loop,” says Chen 

Integrating Creators into all parts of the marketing journey has enabled Saks Fifth Avenue to leverage high performance influencer content from awareness to conversion. 

“Even within the Creator Marketing space, we used to be much more focused on concentrating our campaigns towards driving immediate conversion,” says Chen. Recently however, they’ve looked beyond immediate sales results to focus on the bigger picture. “[Conversion is] still important…but we are starting to invest more into that mid, upper funnel approach working with Creators who are particularly good at storytelling, because we really want to be moving the needle when it comes to brand consideration at Saks,” Chen explains.

By strategically aligning with Creators who excel in amplifying reach and driving conversions, brands can optimize each stage of the marketing funnel for better performance and results. 

4. Focus on the long game. 

Of course, Marketers and brands will always want immediate results and a strong ROI from their Creator campaigns. But sometimes, zooming out to look at the long-term picture can tell a clearer story.

For one, a long-term partnership can provide brands with a halo effect, which is the extended value beyond immediate sales or clicks that a Creator activation can generate. “We know influencers and Creators are able to drive brand advocacy and loyalty much beyond the last click,” explains Jerutis. While Creators may only get credit for an immediate sale, Creators are priming audiences and piquing their interest in brands and products, planting the seeds of purchase in their heads. “They’re driving touchpoints at multiple places, so it’s very plausible (and even probably) that they have influenced a purchase and not necessarily have been that last click,” she explains. 

It often takes multiple interactions with brands and products before consumers make a purchasing decision, which is why Jerutis believes long-term partnerships are even more critical. “Because you’re going to need multiple touchpoints over multiple months when you’re thinking of a purchase…you want to make sure you’re investing in Creators over time so that brands can leverage their evolving influence and their evolving audience to maintain continuity in their marketing efforts,” she explains.

Building long-term relationships with Creators creates advocacy that benefits brands over time. When brands empower Creators, nurture long-term relationships, and integrate them strategically into their marketing efforts, they amplify the voices of Creators authentically, resulting in stronger partnerships and heightened brand awareness.

5. Lean into your data, but look beyond it for measuring success.

Harnessing the power of data and analytics to meticulously analyze Creator campaigns enables brands to uncover deeper insights and optimize their campaigns accordingly. However, attribution isn’t always easy, and data doesn’t always accurately measure the word-of-mouth impact of Creators. As the marketing funnel evolves, investing in holistic metrics is crucial for understanding the extent of a campaign’s success. 

“One of the big ways that we have been able to start tackling this is partnering with Collective Voice on brand lift studies,” explains Chen. “These brand lift studies allow us to look at these upper funnel KPIs that really help us understand, are we moving the needle when it comes to brand perception and brand consideration?” For Chen and Saks, these brand lift studies have allowed them to dig deeper into long-term brand affinity. “With this recent study, we learned that our campaigns with CV last year helped us drive a 10-point increase in brand consideration with new customers, which is huge. And also a three-point increase in brand perception overall,” Chen says. 

By investing in a comprehensive measurement framework like these brand lift studies, Marketers can see the impact of their Creator campaigns on all parts of the consumer journey.