We recently connected with Stefania Poletti and have shared our conversation below.

Stefania, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start big picture – what are some of biggest trends you are seeing in your industry?

Short-form video is exploding, and paid partnerships are surpassing social media ads.

Short-form video content is the future of marketing. And yes, that means TikTok, above all else.
Over the past two years, the platform has seen unprecedented growth and is expected to reach 90 million users in the US by 2023. The key to their success is their algorithm; the feed, appropriately named ‘For You Page’, serves content that is closely tailored to users’ specific interests and passions leading to remarkably high-quality engagement.

Meanwhile, there is growing frustration with competing social media platforms, particularly when it comes to ads. Facebook’s ad spend growth has slowed following Apple’s iOS privacy changes, record share loss, and increasing competition from platforms like TikTok. In short, if you are running ads on platforms like Facebook or Instagram and seeing disappointing ROI, it’s likely not you. So what is a brand to do? The answer is paid partnerships.

Paid partnerships is another term for influencer marketing. Brands can pay content creators (i.e. influencers) with thousands or millions of followers to create original content about their product or service. Creators then post the videos to their channels for their followers to view and engage with. When done correctly, influencer marketing campaigns can yield powerful results that surpass those of social media ads. Our case studies report 5-10% conversion rates (CVR), cost-per-view (CPV) under $0.01, and hundreds of comments and stories of users showcasing purchases and intent to buy. The reasons are simple:

– Carefully selected creators means content that will resonate with the audience brands are looking to reach.
– Content is original, curated, and does not feel like an ad. Users have become ad-resistant and prefer content from creators they follow.
– A growing number of people is using TikTok as a visual search engine, where they can find trusted answers, reviews, and recommendations (#TikTokMadeMeBuyIt has over 16B views and TikTok users are 1.5x more likely to immediately buy something they discovered on the platform)
– Unlike ads, paid content continues to accrue views and engagement long after the campaign is over (unless it’s deleted)

The biggest challenge is that there is still a lot of confusion about how paid partnerships work and many brands don’t know where to begin. It can be a chaotic and lengthy process to handle in-house; it involves reaching out to individual content creators, negotiating fees, drafting contracts, and understanding what KPIs should be monitored and how. Brands will often opt to put this process in the hands of a hired social media manager, an influencer marketing agency, or a third-party platform. This can have mixed results, depending on a few factors, including the partners the brand chooses to work with.

At Kindvertising, we are actively looking to set a universal and transparent standard for what influencer marketing should look like, cost, and what KPIs it should yield. Our Strategic Partnerships service is a streamlined process that is simple and painless. Here is what it includes:
– A dedicated Partnerships Lead, who will take care of every single step from finding the right influencers to monthly data reports.
– A roster of vetted content creators like comedians, vegan chefs, athletes, and more.
– Three flat-fee tiers, each designed to guarantee a minimum number of views, engagement.
– Automatic 10% discount across the board for nonprofits.
– Starting in January 2023, brands will be able to use our proprietary “Impact Calculator” designed to estimate their ROI in a matter of seconds.

We not only aim to help our clients reach the audience and the goals they desire, but we also want to set realistic benchmarks for how influencer marketing should work and what ROI clients should expect.

To learn more about our Strategic Partnerships please visit www.kindvertising.com/partnerships

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Kindvertising is an award-winning advertising agency dedicated to animal rights, human rights and protecting the planet. Our clients set us apart from other agencies: we work exclusively with vegan, plant-based and cruelty-free brands and nonprofits.

The biggest problem our clients face is reaching more flexitarians: people who occasionally purchase vegan or plant-based products primarily for health or sustainability reasons. We help our clients expand their customer base through high-quality, high-impact campaigns that are measured through strategic and premeditated KPIs.

I am immensely proud of the work that we do. We have case study after case study showing remarkable results and our clients continuously give us stellar feedback.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Saying no. Over the years, we have turned down several opportunities because they did not fully align with our values. Not compromising on our integrity can be hard, but it’s ultimately what gives us credibility and keeps our clients coming back with multiple projects.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

A few years into my advertising career, I was working with a lot of exciting Fortune 500 companies. Unfortunately, I was also becoming painfully aware of some of their cruel practices through my growing involvement with the vegan community and PETA’s Action Team. I would often spend my weekends protesting everything I was working on during the week. I could no longer live with such extreme cognitive dissonance, and I realized the most impactful thing I could do was fight back from the inside.

I decided I would use everything I had learned about advertising and marketing to serve compassionate causes. Kindvertising came to life as a means for ethical companies and organizations to access the very same high-end marketing techniques that big ad agencies use to successfully launch brands and new ideas into the world, without experiencing the same cognitive dissonance I was. By working with us, our clients invest in a group of people who actively support and believe in their mission.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.kindvertising.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/kindvertising
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/kindvertising/
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/kindvertising

Image Credits
https://www.istockphoto.com/ (standard license)