In a groundbreaking alliance, Amazon and Hyundai have joined forces to reshape the automotive landscape, promising a revolutionary shift in how we buy, drive, and experience cars.

Imagine browsing for your dream car on Amazon, with the option to seamlessly purchase, pick up, or have it delivered—all within the familiar confines of the world’s largest online marketplace. Buckle up as we explore the potential impact of this monumental partnership and the transformation it heralds for the future of auto retail.

Driving Change Through Amazon’s Auto Revolution

Consider “Josh”, a tech-savvy professional with an affinity for efficiency. Faced with the tedious process of purchasing a new car, he stumbled upon Amazon’s automotive section. Intrigued by the prospect of a one-stop shopping experience, Josh decided to explore the Amazon-Hyundai collaboration.

The result?

A hassle-free online car purchase, personalized to his preferences, and delivered to his doorstep. Josh’s story is just a glimpse into the real-world impact of this game-changing partnership.

Bridging the Gap Between Convenience and Complexity

Traditional car buying is often marred by complexities, from navigating dealership lots to negotiating prices. The disconnect between the convenience consumers seek and the cumbersome process they endure has long been a pain point in the automotive industry. The need for a streamlined, customer-centric solution has never been more pressing.

Ecommerce Partnership Reshaping Auto Retail Dynamics

Enter Amazon and Hyundai’s new strategic partnership coming in 2024—an innovative solution poised to redefine the car-buying experience. The trio of key developments—Amazon becoming a virtual showroom, Hyundai embracing AWS for a digital makeover, and the integration of Alexa into next-gen vehicles—addresses the pain points with a holistic approach.

In 2024, auto dealers for the first time will be able to sell vehicles in Amazon’s U.S. store, and Hyundai will be the first brand available for customers to purchase.

Amazon and Hyundai launch a broad, strategic partnership—including vehicle sales on Amazon.com in 2024 – Amazon Staff

This collaboration promises not just a transaction but a transformation in the way customers interact with, purchase, and engage with their vehicles.

Pedal to the Metal

Seamless Online Purchase:

• Complete the entire transaction within the trusted Amazon platform.
• Utilize familiar payment and financing options.
• Opt for convenient pick-up or doorstep delivery.

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Hyundai’s Cloud-First Transformation:

• Experience a data-driven organization powered by AWS.
• Benefit from enhanced production optimization, cost reduction, and improved security.

Alexa Integration in Next-Gen Vehicles:

• Enjoy a hands-free, voice-controlled experience in Hyundai vehicles.
• Access music, podcasts, reminders, and smart home controls effortlessly.
• Stay connected with up-to-date traffic and weather information.

Driving into the Future

The Amazon-Hyundai collaboration is not just a partnership; it’s a revolution in motion. As we witness the fusion of e-commerce giant Amazon with automotive prowess of Hyundai, the potential impact on customer behavior is staggering.

The age-old challenges of car buying are met with a forward-thinking, customer-centric solution, paving the way for a new era in auto retail. From the comfort of your home to the driver’s seat, this partnership is set to redefine every step of the journey, promising a future where buying a car is as easy as ordering a package online.

Embrace the change, and witness the evolution of auto retail unfold before your eyes.

The post Revolutionizing Auto Retail: The Game-Changing Partnership Between Amazon and Hyundai appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Imagine spending 3, 5, 7, 10 years creating content about topics you love out of pure passion. Working through decision fatigue on what to create, what platform to focus on building, and not knowing the latest marketing monetization strategies to actually make money. Only creating from a place of inspiration because you care and have a message to share for years before making a dime. The dedication and consistency is what builds audiences that LOVE your media channels, listening, watching, liking, and sharing your content on a regular basis. That’s what majority of influencers have done to build their channels. 

So why work with influencers to create content for you: 

Reason #1: Audience  

If you are looking to break into a new audience and build brand awareness working with an influencer is a good path to explore. An influencer knows it’s audience better than any SEO search so they know what content to create that will motivate, inspire, and trigger to get a response. They’ve built trust through years of content creation and testing out new ideas to engage their audience.    

Reason #2: Creative 

When you find the right influencer to work with they can be an extension to your business adding to the creative content department. Creative content is a pain point in a lot businesses and why organizations for years have paid big buck to marketing agencies to take this off their hands to make the commercial, promo video, and ads. When you have someone who’s outside of the organization, who’s built an audience, and can play in their strength it will be an added value to any brand and business.  

Reason #3: Dynamic 

It’s not just any content that’s being created from influencers, it’s dynamic! Ideally, working with an influencer they are coming to the table with ideas for videos, social media, and ad content that will seamlessly incorporate the brand into their audience. Since they know their audience best let them lead this conversation and find a common working ground to let them move forward on their ideas. This type of content is the win-win-win for the brand, the audience, and the influencer’s media channels. 

Reason #4: Consistency 

Consistent content with any media channel is key to creating brand awareness for a business. When you have an influencer who’s outside of the organization not distracted by the day to day operations of a company, leaving them to create consistent dynamic content is something most brands didn’t even know they needed. 

Reason #5: Strategic 

It’s a strategic move for an organization to outsource content creation to an influencer who’s put in the creative work to build an audience. It’s an immediate traffic source to tap into and create brand awareness. There’s an opportunity to put paid marketing dollars behind the content and boost it’s engagement creating more opportunity for a brand. 

On average it takes a person 5-7 impressions to link a brand’s logo to the company. Add in another 7 impressions for them to remember it in the abyss of brands that are being marketed to them daily. When you work with an influencer to create dynamic consistent content you’re increasing your odds of your brand being recognized faster and identified by a trusted source. Good luck on your road to content creation with influencers!   

Valerie Viramontes

Valerie Viramontes is a purpose-driven entrepreneur, women’s and girls empowerment leader, conscious marketing expert, media strategist, and founder of V2 Solutions & Girl Hacks.

Valerie created her boutique agency specializing in product launches and sponsorships for health conscious podcasters, influencers, and wellness companies. She uses her experience to create win-win-win deals for her clients, brands, and audiences. This has put her behind launches of companies and products with sales into the millions working with brands like Spartan Races, Barbell Shurgged, The Strong Coach, Complete Human and so many more! 

In Valerie’s free time she is a catalyst to remind young women of their inherent wisdom, intuition and power, and guide them to access the confidence within to make healthy choices in their lives. Add in hiking, dancing, reading, exploring new places to eat and she’s in her happy place!

• Link
• Link

The post 5 Reasons You Should Start Using Influencers to Create Content for You appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

The allure of influencer marketing is STRONG for brands.

When you take inventory of an influencer’s channels, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitch, TikTok, LinkedIn, Clubhouse, Pinterest, you realize somebody else has spent hours cultivating a relationship with your customer avatar. They put in years of algorithms, photoshoots, and videos. And they’re happy to share their connection with this niche of people with your brand.

This always leads to brands dreaming up the *perfect* scenario.

“If this campaign converts at 2% for their 3 million person following with a $20 product—I’ll be a millionaire!”.

That’s the allure of influencer marketing. And that’s why you see so many huge brands, like Dunkin, leaning right into this strategy. Dunkin works closely with Charli D’Amelio, one of the biggest influencers in the world (she has 130+ million followers on TikTok).

They’re sharing their hospitality brand with her massive Gen Z audience. I’d venture to guess the partnership cost them a pretty penny…and it was worth it. Dunkin and Charli have been working together since 2020, and we continue to see their relationship grow as they add a Charli-inspired drink to the menu and feature her image in their stores.

For Dunkin, a partnership with Charli was clear (because as a New Englander, she was a huge fan of their brand). But, that doesn’t mean Dunkin could hop right into a partnership with Charli.

First, they had to go through 5 prerequisites to make sure they understood what they were looking for from their campaign, they had to know how to approach Charli’s team with the idea, and they had to confidently go into a contract with the influencer superstar.

Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at what goes into influencer marketing so you can get started with your first campaign.

Step #1: The 5 Prerequisites for Influencer Marketing

Before you reach out to any Influencer there are 5 questions you need to answer: 

1. What is your current Customer Acquisition Cost?   
2. What is your budget for the promotion?
3. What’s the offer/ask?
4. Are KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) in place for that product or service?
5. What is your overall goal in teaming up with an Influencer? 

The more you know your numbers the more you can make data-driven decisions for your business when teaming up with influencers. If you’re new to data and analytics, check out the DigitalMarketer Data & Analytics Certification to get a step-by-step plan for building a powerful analytics dashboard.

These five answers will set you apart from all the companies reaching out to these influencers. Unlike the companies who are reaching out asking for a partnership, but not having worked through the details, you’ll be the one who knows what they’re looking for.

• You’ll know if this influencer is a right fit based on their responses to your questions.
• You’ll cut down on back and forth communication because you already know what you’re looking for.
• And, you’ll have benchmarks to measure performance to know if you want to continue working with them.

TIP: If you’re launching a new product or service you’re going to want to know questions 2, 3 & 5 before you reach out.

Once you’ve answered these questions, it’s time to reach out to influencers in your niche.

Step #2: Your First Influencer Outreach Campaign

Before you reach out to influencers, you need a list of the people you’ll be reaching out to. Make a list of 10-20 influencers with an audience of your customer avatar. Look for their email address in their bio or Linktree. If you can’t find it, see if their website has a “Contact Me” page or slide into their DMs.

Your outreach should have 3 things:

1. Introduction to yourself.
2. Link to your product/service.
3. Request for them to share their media kit.

Usually, there’s someone managing outreach for bigger influencers. You’ll hear back from someone on their team within the week, if not sooner. When you get their media kit, here are the KPI’s you’re looking for:

1. Number of downloads
2. Engagement 
3. Audience demographics
4. Reach 

This gives you a picture of if you want to take the conversation further.

Your biggest consideration is if this investment will get you the ROI you’re looking for. If your goal is brand awareness and presence, then influencer paid marketing is your path. Influencers have cultivated a relationship with your target audience—and that relationship speaks volumes in engagement and conversions.

Step #3: Contracting with Your First Influencers

There’s only one more step to creating your first influencer marketing campaign. Getting the official yes from the influencer to work together! This comes after they’ve checked all the boxes that you’re looking for.

Here’s what happens next:

#1: If you’re interested in working together, you’ll schedule a call with the influencer or their team member to get clear on the offer, discuss the budget, and goals of the promotion. Pricing may have already been disclosed in the media kit or it will be disclosed on the call once you’ve both decided it’s a good fit to move forward and what content you’re looking for them to create.

#2: From here, you’ll map out a scope of work for each platform available for advertising and deliverables.

#3: You’ll agree on pricing, signed off on agreements, and send payments.

Now, you’re off to the content creation races!

Influencer Marketing is All About Creation

The beautiful part of paid advertising with influencers is it’s all up for creation!

You can create new types of content, content for different channels, and have a new marketing arm that’s a direct line of communication with your customer avatar (what could be better?). As influencers post content to nurture the relationship they have with your audience, you can focus on your other campaigns, products, offers, and the logistics of running a business.

When you’re ready to have them promote another campaign, influencers have a content-hungry audience completely interested in what they’re up to.

It’s the ultimate symbiotic relationship, between brand and influencer.

If you find an influencer gem to work with, they’ll bring ideas for content to the table based on what they feel their audience will love (they do know their audience best so trust them in that process.) You want them to promote your product or service as authentic as possible.

That’s what makes influencer marketing a win-win-win for all.

Valerie Viramontes

Valerie Viramontes is a purpose-driven entrepreneur, women’s and girls empowerment leader, conscious marketing expert, media strategist, and founder of V2 Solutions & Girl Hacks.

Valerie created her boutique agency specializing in product launches and sponsorships for health conscious podcasters, influencers, and wellness companies. She uses her experience to create win-win-win deals for her clients, brands, and audiences. This has put her behind launches of companies and products with sales into the millions working with brands like Spartan Races, Barbell Shurgged, The Strong Coach, Complete Human and so many more! 

In Valerie’s free time she is a catalyst to remind young women of their inherent wisdom, intuition and power, and guide them to access the confidence within to make healthy choices in their lives. Add in hiking, dancing, reading, exploring new places to eat and she’s in her happy place!

• Link
• Link

The post The Quick Guide to Influencer Marketing appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

And that led you to LinkedIn.

Being a LinkedIn influencer doesn’t mean you have to share your nighttime skincare routine. You won’t have to showcase your grocery haul or do a fashion show after you go shopping.

You get to talk about what you love to do to an audience of people…who also love that topic.

Becoming a LinkedIn influencer takes 3 steps:

1. Optimizing your profile for the Know, Like, and Trust Factor
2. Choosing your content pillars to brand yourself
3. Engaging with your community for added exposure

Just promise to remember us when you’re rich and famous.

Step 1: Optimize Your Profile for B2B Appearance

Before you can become an influencer, you have to clean up your room. No, we’re not trying to be your parent. We’re just telling you how it is. You can’t invite your friends over if they have nowhere to sit.

The same applies to your LinkedIn profile.

If you’re creating *incredible* content (see the section below on how to do that), but your profile is sloppy…you’ll confuse your audience. They’ll go to your profile, not know what to read or how to contact you, and then metaphorically walk around in that weird little circle your dog does before they go to the bathroom. 

You need someone to go from:

“Wow, that post was insightful. Let me click on their profile to see who they are and what they do.” to “I know exactly who this person is and what they do.”

That can’t happen if they click on your profile to find a black and white profile photo, a headline that doesn’t tell them what you can do for them, and just the name of your role under the Experience section.

Even the former CEO and now Executive Chairman of LinkedIn, Jeff Weiner, has optimized his profile. Considering he increased the company value from $78 million to $7.9 BILLION, we feel comfortable advising you to write something.

Optimize these 5 parts of your profile:

1. Profile photo
2. Headline
3. Contact information
4. Summary
5. Experience

The goal is to make your profile speak volumes about your experience in your field. This is for the Know, Like, and Trust factor that all influencers must successfully ace before succeeding online. Your profile will help your audience get to know what you do, learn something about you that makes them like you, and trust you to give them advice through your past experience.

Once your profile is optimized…you can work on your content.

Step 2: Choose Your Content Pillars

Before you hit post, you need to have a content strategy. That’s the marketer in us telling you that if you just randomly post content, you’ll miss out on engagement, followers, and conversions. That’s because people want to put you in a box…and it’s okay to let them.

When someone comes across your LinkedIn content or profile, you want them to categorize you. By labeling you as a marketer for ecommerce businesses, you’ve just branded yourself in their mind. When their friend asks them if they know anybody that can help market their ecommerce brand…who will come to mind?

You. 

That’s where content pillars come in. We want your audience to know what to expect from you so they can easily persuade themselves to hit the follow button to see more. 

If you already have a personal brand across your other marketing channels, you can use the same content pillars on LinkedIn. If you don’t, you’ll figure out 3-5 topics that you constantly talk about.

For example, you can talk about:

1. Ecommerce Marketing
2. Human psychology (as it pertains to marketing strategies)
3. The future of ecommerce 

Because you stick to these content topics—and don’t randomly veer off to give dog training advice or teach people how to build their front porch—you’ll get branded for being an expert in these topics.

People will know what you do, what your personal philosophy is, and what your content will teach them.

With these 3 topics, you can create a 3x per week posting schedule. Each week, you’ll cover each of these topics.

Here’s an example of what you can talk about:

• Ecommerce Marketing: A recent client win showing social proof of how great you are at your job!
• Human Psychology: Why consumers are buying more goods post-pandemic
• The Future of Ecommerce: How shoppable Reels will change ecommerce marketing

With your content strategy optimized, you’re ready to get more eyes on it.

Step 3: Engage the Community

Social media is a two-way street. If you’re just posting content and hoping everybody else will like, comment, and share it—keep dreaming. That’s not the point of social media.

The point of social media is to be social.

Part of becoming a LinkedIn B2B influencer requires you to engage your community. You need to actively engage with other people on the platform through comments on their posts, likes, shares, and DMs.

Every week you should be:

#1: Commenting on Popular Posts in Your Community

Your community is your niche. For example, if you’re a fractional CMO at your company—marketing is your community.

Bethany Cowan, Programming Manager at Clarion Events, and part of the epic team that helps us with our annual Traffic & Conversion Summit engages with the marketing community by commenting on a post by CEO of Customer Camp Katelyn Bourgoin:

Be like Bethany. By engaging with the marketing community, Bethany can connect with more marketers and get the community involved in the content she’s posting. 

#2: Tagging Experts to Engage with Your Post

Social media can feel like a black hole sometimes. It feels like even more of a black hole when you’re just hitting publish and hoping for people to interact with your posts. That’s where tagging experts comes into play.

Here are a few ways to tag experts in your posts:

1. Quote an expert in your industry, give your take on what they said, and tag them
2. Share articles, repurposed tweets, or graphics from experts and tag them in your post
3. Tag a few experts to give you feedback on content you’re creating for them

Emma Siemasko, founder and writer of Stories by Us, used her network of experts to 1) ask for feedback on her upcoming podcast episodes but 2) get more eyes on her post as each of those expert’s followers see that they were tagged in her post.

The goal of your engagement strategy is for anyone in your niche to think, “Wow, they’re everywhere.” You want your audience to see that not only can you post incredibly valuable content—but you’re integrated into your community. That’s crucial social proof that can lead to more opportunities (like speaking gigs, freelancing projects, and full-time roles).

Remember Us When You’re Rich and Famous

We’ll remember this moment. The moment we saw that spark in your eye that would lead to optimizing your LinkedIn profile, hitting publish, and becoming part of your community. The moment right before your fame hit.

When you were just a reader with a dream—a dream that took 3 steps to accomplish:

Just remember us when you’re rich and famous, gracing the hallways of LinkedIn as a guest speaker.

And especially remember us if you’re ever flying anywhere tropical from Austin on your private jet. We’ll totally hitch a ride.

The post How to Become a LinkedIn B2B Influencer appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

It’s one of the most effective marketing tactics out there, and it’s only growing.

Plus, it can be really easy, especially if you do your homework first (but we’ll get more into that later). All you have to do is find the right person, get them the right resources, and you just sit back and watch the money roll in.

But we know that that’s easier said than done, especially in a time where it seems like everyone is an influencer, but nobody is quite the right fit for your business or product.

In fact, more than 60% of marketers agree that it’s difficult to find the right influencers for a campaign.

But it doesn’t have to be.

We’ve talked before about why creating strategic partnerships with certain influencers can be really beneficial for both them and you. Not only can finding the right person mean you often don’t have to pay as much, but chances are you will both benefit from merging your audiences.

See, the best way to effectively run an influencer campaign isn’t to pay high-dollar prices to someone with a million followers.

It’s to create the influencers yourself.

This is something that Erin MacPherson, the General Manager of The Scalable Agency, talked about in her recent DigitalMarketer workshop. As a content marketing expert, Erin has helped brands increase revenue and generate traffic by utilizing this exact same method.

And you might be surprised at how well it can work for you.

How to Find and Create the Right Influencers for your Business

Finding the right prospects to become influencers is easier than it sounds because you have more at your disposal than you may think, and it’s easy to get into contact with them.

That’s because the best influencers are your customers.

If you’re in the market for an influencer, chances are your business has had a fair amount of success. Brand-new businesses don’t typically have the capital to hire influencers in the first place because they’re too expensive. And, if your business has had a fair chance of success, you should already have a built-in network of customers. That built-in network will give you plenty of options to choose from.

The first step of the process is finding the right candidate(s) for the job. You can comb through your email list, your Facebook groups, and your customer records to try to find someone that will work. And, if you’ve ever had a customer write a good testimonial for your business, that could instantly vault them to the top of your list. But what actually makes a qualified candidate for turning someone into an influencer?

Your customer avatar is always going to be the best and most effective candidate. When you are finding the person you want to be an influencer for your business, they need to represent the kind of person who is most likely to buy from you. That way, when people see someone like them using and enjoying your products, they’ll want to join in on the fun. Depending on what your business is, that avatar could look wildly different from another business’s.

Luckily for you, you probably have a pretty good idea what your customer avatar is. You already have loads of them in your email list.

After you identify who it’s going to be, you need to figure out what you want them to do. This could be anything from Instagram videos to blog posts, but the more creative and visually appealing, the better. It should also align with your specific campaign goals, whether that’s simply to raise awareness, or to sell a specific product.

This may be the most critical fact to remember when using this approach. Organization is key when trying to create your own internal influencer campaign for exactly the same reason that they’re enticing in the first place: the people you’re using are not professionals. For all the benefits of having a genuinely happy customer become a brand spokesperson, you also have to remember that they aren’t practiced like people who charge lots of money to post about your product on Instagram.

For the sake of everyone’s understanding (and sanity), it’s best to have your marketing campaign plan detailed and specific. That way you know exactly what role you want your community members turned influencers to play.

Don’t worry—if you keep calling on the same people to help you out, they’re going to get more and more comfortable with the process. No one is excellent at something when they do it for the first time. That’s why, even though you may want to swap about influencers from time to time, it’s best to always keep your best ones involved. Not only will they improve, but people will start to build a relationship with them (and your brand).

Once you know what you want your influencers to do for the campaign, all you have to do is reach out to them. If they’re already an established customer—and if you send them some free stuff—chances are they’ll happy to hear from you.

Then all you need to do is explain the situation and get on the same page. If you do offer them something up front, they’ll probably be more than happy to assist you with advertising. That’s when you’ll strike your first deal with them, and they’ll be so happy they might just do it for free.

Just like that, your grassroots influencer campaign is underway. You outline the content, and let your influencers execute the plan. Then, as their platform grows, so do your profits.

Why Creating Influencers is Effective

I can hear the follow-up questions already…

Creating influencers? Isn’t the whole purpose of influencer marketing so you don’t have to do work? People spend years strengthening their personal brand. Won’t doing that for them take a lot of time and effort?

And these are all perfectly valid. But if you dig a little bit deeper, you’ll see that there is a reason why top brands such as Wal-Mart, Lysol and Facebook have used this same strategy.

The fact of the matter is yes: creating influencers does take more time and effort. But the potential payout from it is massive. Here’s why…

For starters, you don’t have to pay them as much. The people you are recruiting for this form of influencer marketing are totally normal people and have likely never been an influencer for anything before. Lots of them may do it for free, but just giving them free products may be enough to get them to start participating.

And if after a while you really want to make the working relationship more official, you can always put together a larger contract. But chances are, you still won’t be paying them anywhere close to what you would pay for a “regular” influencer.

The trick with “creating” influencers is that you aren’t limited to just having them talk about your product once or twice in a post.

You use their testimonial in commercials, you make social videos with them in it, you have them write blog posts, and any other kind of content you can think of. You get to dictate how and what they say about your brand on any platform.

Then, once you have the foundation of the internal influencer machine built, you get to enjoy the best part about this strategy: you can turn it on and let it run again and again.

This method always stays low cost. There doesn’t need to be any negotiating new contracts or finding new price points every single time you need an influencer. You can just keep calling on them, again and again, to help you out.

You control the message; they do most of the work.

The other reason for doing it this way is it’s also great PR. And it’s great PR in a variety of ways.

Being able to put a face (or faces) on your business is always a good thing because makes your business more personal and welcoming. So, if you don’t already have a face for your business, introducing one will go a long way in building more of a connection with your customers.

On top of that, turning customers into influencers is a great way to tell a good story. It’s why when big companies make television commercials that they use real customers, they make sure you know it. When people hear that your business used real customers within your ads, it builds up the trust they have in you and your products.

And what’s better than that? It’s ingenious, it’s cheap, and it’s extremely effective. And on top of all of that, it’s really pretty fun.

Why settle for influencers that are way too expensive and not as effective as they could be. Reach your target audience by turning your best customers into marketing machines.

The post Don’t Buy Influencers, Create Them appeared first on DigitalMarketer.