Ben (00:01.392)
Welcome back to another episode of Content Amplified. Today I'm joined by Danielle Bitz. Danielle, welcome to the show. Thanks for being here.
Danielle Bitts (00:09.322)
Hey, Ben, thanks so much for having me on. Excited to chat.
Ben (00:12.24)
Love it. Awesome. Well, I'm going to jump right into it. Danielle, could you share your background because this is a fascinating subject. I'm really not good at this subject, so I have a million questions. So we'll dive right into it. But Danielle, tell us your background, passions in marketing, just a little bit more about yourself.
Danielle Bitts (00:30.206)
Yeah, absolutely. My journey began about 10 years ago. I actually started out in hard news. I was a journalism major. I got my master's in journalism, thought my lifelong pursuit was become a lowest lane, but I quickly learned that lesson here in New York City. Hard news was not for me. Started to really grow an interest in feature writing. I had always loved long form writing, long form media art forms. So for me, I really started to get into sports writing, feature writing, sports videography and multimedia.
editing together. I've been an editor, I've been a shooter, I've been on the ground as a one-man band, so I do have that media experience, but for me, it comes down to storytelling and doing that through the form of content. So for me, started out in hard news. A couple years into that, realized it was not for me, like I said. Found my way through a couple startups, a couple smaller brands. When things really just started transitioning for me in terms of branding and marketing was actually at Spartan Race.
I was a senior producer there. They sent me around the world from Sweden to Greece to Iceland. That was a great one. We were shooting docu-series, documentary content, but really the merge between long form and short form on social media and really just bringing a life, bringing a brand to life via media was really where the gear started turning for me. So about six years ago is when I really started to transition my background in media into that branding space that I find myself in.
here today and today I'm the VP of Brand and Creative for Bodybuilding.com.
Ben (02:02.016)
I love it. Your career is way cooler than mine. I'm overly going to say that at the very beginning, so I'm super jealous. When I would travel, it would be like Nashville and stuff like that, which is totally cool and Vegas, but not your Icelands and Greece's of the world, so I'm a little jealous of that.
Danielle Bitts (02:06.882)
Yeah.
Danielle Bitts (02:21.395)
It was a pretty cool opportunity for sure.
Ben (02:23.844)
Yeah. So when we talk about content, we're often talking about content creation and the best way to internally write it or sometimes people outsource it. But you have this amazing program of using influencers to help produce really high quality content, but quite a bit of quantity. I'll stumble over my words there, but you're getting a lot of content from really good people.
Let's dive in. How do you run an influencer program? How does that work for you? Where did you find it? How have you grown it? Tell us a little bit more about that.
Danielle Bitts (03:04.842)
Yeah, for sure. You know, I think we'd be remiss to say that the word influencer gets a bit of a bit abused, right? And in 2023, I think, you know, you look back years and years ago. I mean, you're looking at the Kardashians when you say influencers 10 years ago. But today it's changed. You know, quality creators are influencers, whether they like that word or not. They are influencer influencing the general population, you know, to participate in buying of a product, you know, subscribing to a product, whoever the case may be.
But influencer, I think it gets a bad rap, but ultimately creators today are doing a lot of great things on a small scale and large scale. When you look at the scale from nano to micro to mid to macro and mega, I mean, there's so many terms that we can throw around here, but ultimately, I think the days of macro influencers are really coming to a close here and we're starting to really find the benefit in those nano and micro influencers for growing a brand in a community.
Ben (04:01.872)
love it. Very cool. So in your specific use case, when you're building an influencer program, what are some of the steps and some of the processes that you should really think about to successfully implement a program of this nature?
Danielle Bitts (04:20.074)
Yeah, it's a great question. And I like to look at it from a five step approach. So typically number one, I mean, you have to set your goals and it's gonna be different for everybody. You can be looking for a new customer acquisition, you could be focusing on sales and revenue, you can looking for maybe just brand awareness and extended reach, especially if you're newer in the game, right? So all of these can be achieved through a program, but it's important to identify what your priorities are so that you're not disappointed in the long run. So if you're really setting yourself up for a...
an ROI strategy and you end up getting a little more brand awareness, you may be upset about that. I've seen it happen, right? By not driving hard dollars into the program. So you can have both, but you can't have it all. And you need to set those realistic expectations right from the start. You know, number two, yeah, I mean, from there, I mean, it's really about making a plan. So you have your goals in place. You have your KPIs that you want to really measure.
Ben (05:03.534)
I love it.
Danielle Bitts (05:11.51)
you know, short term and long term, whether that's month over month, quarter over quarter, or year over year. Hopefully you're getting that far. That's the goal, right? Make a plan, right? I think we were chatting earlier, you don't always have a budget, especially when you're trying to prove a concept. And I think that's kind of been a learning lesson for me over the years of doing this. Most of the time you are not getting in the ideal budget that you want, right? When you do have that budget, you need to understand, you know, what's the most nimble way that I can use this budget. And if you don't have a budget,
What is something valuable that I can exchange with, with these creators to get them to buy into my program, to continue giving me content that can help me grow my brand.
Ben (05:51.764)
I love it. So when you're looking at that one specifically, so we're creating goals, you know, we're aligned as a business. This is what we want the program to do. You know, this is the objective, you know, like you said, top of the funnel, bottom of the funnel, somewhere in between, we're at least aligned on what we can actually like realistically accomplish. You're making the plan and then you're setting aside the budget, right, to do it. What are some unique ways that you've approached?
the way to compensate influencers and look at that. I mean, there's a million different ways you can spin it, but like, what are some of the few techniques and ways to kind of compensate and incentivize some of these influencers to actually write content?
Danielle Bitts (06:35.17)
Sure, I think being in a couple of different industries has helped me in the sense that I've done it on the event side, I'm doing it on the e-comm side. You know, when you have a physical good, when I tell everybody, it becomes a bit easier, right? You have something to provide them with. And when it is something, you know, in our case here today with bodybuilding.com, I mean, super valuable, you have supplements. I mean, these are supplements that are gonna help their health journey, help their longevity, help their sports performance goals.
These are things that they will likely be buying if they weren't a part of the program, right? So there's a huge value add in being able to offer that physical good. When I was at Spartan Race, it was races. And I was telling you earlier, well, you can only give so many races before somebody gets tired of running for a year, right? So it's a bit more difficult. So when you have products, when you have something valuable, whether that's a subscription, annual subscription, you have merch, you have gear, you can do a gift exchange,
However, I will say it only lasts so long. You're only going to get buy-in for so long with that approach. I think ultimately after six months or so, you have to look at your top performer who is actually bringing in the top dollars for your brand and start to think about actually incentivizing them with cash in order for them to stay engaged long-term.
Ben (07:51.492)
it. Very cool. So we've got steps one, two, and three. Goals, plan, budget. What are some of the other steps on the program that people should consider when they're building out a full influencer program?
Danielle Bitts (08:06.078)
Yeah, I mean, we just talked about budgeting a little bit, right? But I'll dive into that one a little bit more. Step three, if you have a budget, one, you're very fortunate and you should be thanking the person who gave you that budget because that's a great starting block. Number two, don't go and spend it all on macro influencers. There is so much value in the nano and micro game. They have niche communities, they have engaged communities. And if you go and spend your entire budget on.
one influencer that has over a million followers, you are gonna be really disappointed by the ROI you're seeing on that investment, as opposed to taking that very same budget and splicing it into, let's say, 10 or 20 different influencers, who can one, create content for you, and two, promote your product or your service for you.
Ben (08:51.616)
I love it. That makes a lot of sense. The macro-micro, I think we're seeing that, like the power of a micro influencer. It's not about how big their audience is like you're talking about. It's someone who just likes to communicate with a small group of people and they have a legitimate one-to-one relationship, at least closer to that. The more macro you get, the less of an actual relationship and more of a follower, followy kind of relationship. So
I think it's fascinating that the numbers support that and that it makes a lot more sense to spend your budget there.
Danielle Bitts (09:27.638)
Yeah, absolutely. I'll say one specific example in my head. I mean, she's crushing it for us right now. She's got less than a thousand followers and she's our top performer in a group of 100 people. So she's putting it on her blog, she's putting it on her Instagram, she's really promoting this very well through the use of her code and her affiliate link with us. And she's earning money and we're earning money and it's a great proof case there.
Ben (09:53.512)
I agree. And so it's a very strategic partnership as well, right? You know, obviously some people are going to care more than others, but there's a lot that you can really do. And it makes sense to really not just go after the followers, but the relationship. That's awesome. So what are points four and five in the system?
Danielle Bitts (10:08.138)
Absolutely.
Danielle Bitts (10:11.818)
Yeah, I mean, you've got the base and the foundation built, right? So step four is content. So I mean, you know, I am going to geek out about content, I'm probably gonna run out of time on this one. But you know, ultimately, you're gonna be getting a ton of UGC back if you set it up that way. So for us, you know, we're this exchange that I mentioned, they're getting X amount of pieces of product from us for X amount of deliverables. So we sign all of our, we call them athletes, but we sign all of our influencers to a contract with bodybuilding.com.
once that contract begins. So to do their monthly deliverables. So they always, like I said, X amount of deliverables in exchange for X amount of products. We use a really great influencer tool for this, for management. We're able to see performance of how some of their content is doing. We're able to approve or reject content based off of parameters. So say we launched a campaign of a new line, or maybe it's the new year campaign, and they're submitting content specifically for that campaign, we can approve or reject.
So it's really great to have a management tool, I'll say that, to organize the overwhelming amount of content that's coming in for us because we are getting hundreds of pieces of content every month. And I will say it's not just promotional content. This isn't just user-generated content that's saying, hey, go buy this protein. It's so much more than that. We are getting accredited personal trainers, nutritionists, sleep experts, dietitians. We're getting really great individuals into this program because we're very specific.
in terms of who we accept into this program. So that being said, I mean, they're creating educational content for our users. It's not just promoting the product itself. They're providing value for us to put that on our organic social and paid social for our users.
Ben (11:52.404)
So how much direction do you give your athletes on the kind of content that you would prefer? Do you let them completely go on their own? Do you completely hold their hands somewhere in between? What's the best approach?
Danielle Bitts (12:07.306)
Yeah, I think every, it's funny, everyone is uniquely different. We have a community portal that our influencer team can actively talk with them on a daily basis if they're seeing anything. We have campaigns, and when it's a campaign or a product launch, we'll be pretty blunt in terms of what we're looking for from them. But when it comes to just their evergreen deliverables month over month, they kind of understand by now what we're looking for. Maybe if someone's a little bit newer, they have a couple of calls with our team.
We also do a monthly team call with our entire influencer program to give them company updates, let them know what's happening, let them know what launches are upcoming, any events. I think events is a huge opportunity to showcase your influencers or in our case our athletes. When we go boots on the ground at an event, we invite any local influencers to come and really represent the brand with us. So that's another great way to get them involved.
Ben (12:57.876)
Love that. That's awesome. So the final, the fifth point, how do you kind of round off an influencer program?
Danielle Bitts (13:06.11)
Yeah, I mean, you've got to market it. If you want to grow and scale your program, you can't just rely on word of mouth, it's not going to work. So you've got to start injecting, you know, your program application form in things like email, if you've got to put it somewhere on your homepage, put it you know, actively promoted on organic social, put some boost spend behind it, just really spread the word of you know, we have this program here, the perks always have perks in your program outside of just the product, right?
for us is you can participate in additional shoots, you get access to pre-released products, things of that nature. So the more you can really sell the program, the more applications you're gonna get, and the more you're gonna spread word of what you're doing for your brand.
Ben (13:50.336)
I love it, I love it. So what percentage of your content that you're creating is in-house versus like athlete driven for you at this point in time, if you don't mind me asking.
Danielle Bitts (14:01.258)
Yeah, it's a good question. You know, I think there's a time and place for everything. And I don't think it can just be like a cookie cutter approach. You know, I think for us, we produce a podcast in-house. We do branded content. We do body fit content for our fitness app. So that is where kind of your highly polished and high res content is living. On the flip side, that's not going to work for organic social, right? So our influencer program is a main driver for our organic social channels. If you go to bodybuilding.com's Instagram.
you're not going to see a ton of glossy content on it. You're going to see primarily UGC. And I'll say about 25% of that is probably source UGC when you're looking for maybe more of that virality hit, right, in that higher engagement post to keep numbers up. But on the flip side, about 75% is, it's coming from our athletes who are creating that content for us. So they're really, they're really pulling weight for organic social.
Ben (14:51.732)
I love that. So it's not just the content, it's the distribution of that content is coming through those influencers as well. There's an immediate readership and authority and trust figure in the process.
Danielle Bitts (15:02.73)
Absolutely. And again, that's why we are so specific into in terms of who we really I'll say allow right for lack of a better word, but or accept is probably a better way to put it into this program versus an ambassador program. Those are for our most loyal customers. And there aren't really prerequisites that are going to be required, you know, to join that program to join something similar to like a rewards program. But when it comes to this influencer program for bodybuilding.com, yeah, we have
We have expectations and you've got to come ready to make some really great content for the fitness community.
Ben (15:35.232)
That's amazing. Well, I have learned a ton. I could probably ask a million more questions, but thank you so much for taking the time to share all these insights. I know influencers, B2C does a pretty okay job with it, I think for a lot of businesses, but in B2B, it's still an area that's completely untapped. And I think there's so many applications and all of this advice is super universally applicable. So thank you so much. If anyone has questions.
Danielle Bitts (15:40.27)
I'm going to go ahead and close the video.
Ben (16:03.804)
about how to run a program or they're interested in joining your program, things of that nature, what's the best way for them to reach out and connect with you?
Danielle Bitts (16:13.034)
Yeah, absolutely. If you're looking for supplements and to fuel your health and wellness journey, head to Bodybuilding.com. There's also an application form right at the bottom of that home page. I've got to keep myself honest there, right? You can follow along with me personally on Instagram at Danielle Bitz, same on LinkedIn, Danielle Bitz. Not too hard to find.
Ben (16:31.26)
Awesome. Well, Danielle, thank you for the time today. I really appreciate it.
Danielle Bitts (16:34.698)
Yeah, Ben, thanks so much for having me.