Createur hosted a roundtable with Supergoop!’s Director of Global Brand Marketing, Isabelle Conner.
Isabelle works on all of the brand’s press and influencer outreach. She shares with Createur concrete and actionable tips on how to partner with the brand, many of them valuable in your career as a creator as well. She said,
“I have been with Supergoop! for four years, so I like to joke that I have a BA in SPF. Over at Supergoop!, we work in a ton of different ways with different creators, whether it's through content-led partnerships or developing recipes with creators, or sponsored community events. We've really looked to cultivate a bigger sense of community over the last few years.”
Here are some highlights we pulled from the conversation regarding your approach to creator marketing, and working with brands.
- The space is increasingly crowded. There are tons of creators, tons of brands. A great way to stand out is to produce branded content in very specific niches.
- Train your audience to appreciate branded content and goods before posting about a paid deal. Get them excited about getting a deal.
- Dive into the material sent over by the brand and educate your audience during the campaign.
- When it comes to usage rights, it’s important to be super-duper clear. It’s helpful for everyone to know what they’re getting out of the partnership and also what they’re able to give.
- Brands have a structured budget and timeline and aren’t able to partner spontaneously. By showing continuous interest in a brand, you increase your chances of being on top of their mind the next time they have an opportunity.
Read on to learn about how to stand out in a crowded market, the kind of creator Supergoop! partners with, the best way to create educational content, the brand’s preferred platforms, and formats, tips on usage rights and contracts, and much more!
Brit: People are such fans of the brand. What do you think it is that they connect with?
Isabelle: The biggest piece for us is that the product really is different. We make something for everyone, whether you need something for a toddler, something to help treat hyperpigmentation, something to protect you from the sun, if you have oily skin, skin prone to acne, etc. We truly make something for everyone.
So for us, it’s really product first. We’ve gone out of our way to create a brand that brings the sunshine. We love the color yellow. We love everything that feels kind of glass half full. We want to be there for people every single day of the year.
We truly have a reason to be, a brand mission, which is to eradicate skin cancer. It's a mission that people are on board with. Or even just treating a specific skincare concern.
How can creators continue to stand out and be unique? And specifically, what are you looking for at Supergoop when you identify and select a creator.
First, I think the space is increasingly crowded. There are tons of creators, tons of brands. So when it comes to standing out, some of my favorite partnerships have been with creators that have released specific niches.
So if someone's like, “Hey, I have a group that gets together once a week and we grill in my backyard and that's our tradition.” That can make for an interesting, fun story and content vertical for us to tell. So finding really niche and specific content verticals make it really fun for us to consider partnerships because. Audiences are excited to see that creative integration. They know that you're already doing the thing. So to add in Supergoop could be really fun.
Second, We're always looking for a mutual affinity. It’s really important. Creators are building out their audience, right? Paid partnerships should always be the priority from your business point of view. But make sure that your audience is used to hearing you talk about consumer goods across the board and getting product recommendations that are unpaid and organic. So that once you approach your audience with a paid promotion, they’re ready for it, and they’re excited. Our favorite partnerships are when we look at the comments and the creator’s audience is like “you go bestie”, “congrats on the partnership!” We love to see when a creator’s audience is really excited for them.
I think we're approaching a moment where there's a lot less skepticism around sponsored content. People are used to seeing it. Especially on TikTok, people tend to be really excited when their creators get brand deals.
Predominantly, the most important thing is to cultivate a sense of excitement in your community to receive that kind of branded information. An audience that is ready for a product recommendation, ready for the education, especially for sunscreen, which can be pretty detail-oriented, is highly valuable.
Talk to me a little bit more about the educational aspects of the content. What would you like to see from creators in the way they educate their audiences on Supergoop! and the way they engage with their followers.
There’s a ton of information in the world right now about skincare. Say you’re contracted for five stories, try to really fill out those stories, say “Hey did you know this about SPF? Did you know this about the sun”, etc.
We brief pretty broadly and intensely, so we give a lot of material. And if there’s anything you pick up from our website or from our social, any nugget of information that feels relevant — finding ways to fold that in your content is very valuable for us.
We also value hammering the importance of daily SPF. Oftentimes we’re approached for partnerships with people saying “I’m going to Duluth.” Actually, what we want is the rainiest day in May to show how important it is to wear sunscreen every single day.
If you take a look at our social, it’s very education focus. So really for creators, taking the time to dive deep on why sunscreen, why this formula, why this ingredient. As partners, we’re here to help educate. If you get a question from one of your followers that you don’t know the answer to, we’re always here to help. Our social team can always jump in. But we also love it when the creator jumps in themselves and says for instance “This formula worked for me for these reasons, this one worked the best”, etc. Whatever information they can provide, we like to see the initiative.
When you work with creators, is it always educational, like sharing the benefits and information of SPF? Or do you also work with creators just for brand awareness, with a simple tag of the brand?
We do a bit of both. I think it depends on your audience. If they are ready to nerd out on skincare, the more the merrier, we love to see it. For us, our biggest message is that people need to wear sunscreen every single day.
There are messages that we’ll do throughout the year. For the most part, we’re focused on the product. It doesn’t have to be mentioning every single ingredient, but mainly just why sunscreen? Why every day, what are UVA rays and UVB? And focusing on that spirit of education. It’s a little bit more nuanced and complicated than talking about lipstick or fragrance, and there’s also more responsibility for our partners as it tackles health issues.
What about repeat partnerships? Do you look forward to working with the same community and creators as you build and grow? Or do you look for new partnerships every time?
We do sort of a mix. We have some partners who've worked with us quite a bit and it's because their communities are constantly interested in our innovations and the metrics are there. The interest is there, there is this ongoing enthusiasm for the brand.
When we're casting just in general for our partnerships, we're considering a lot of different factors. It will depend on the type of launch and the product. Also, if we contracted a few posts, is the interest still there, or is there audience fatigue?
"Just because a deal is not happening right at the moment doesn’t mean that the opportunity disappears."
If a partnership doesn’t work out the first time, there might be another opportunity down the road. Can you talk a little bit about the importance of continuing to be proactive in the relationship?
While it may appear that products fall out of the sky, we’re very much on a marketing calendar. Every beauty brand is. A lot of our partnerships start off with long-term mutual affinity.
So maybe there’s a creator that’s already talking about us, they’ve come into our DMs, they’ve commented on our social feeds. And we decide we love their content and we want to collaborate with them. We may get an inbound request, and I’m making up a month in October but we don’t have anything open. Just because it’s not happening right at the moment doesn’t mean that the opportunity disappears. Come February or March, when we launch a new product, that person might be perfect for that.
I think that checking in, saying hi, and being on our mailing list, even if we never requested a post, it’s always nice to see that there’s continued interest in the brand.
We’ve had people come to us and nothing has worked out for six months, and then suddenly we’re working with them. Keep that in mind about timing. And our budget is structured in a very specific way. So there is a right time and a right place. We’re not able to just partner spontaneously. There is a method to the madness.
I know this differs from brand to brand, but how do you prefer outreach? Do you like getting DMs or emails? How do you like people getting in touch with you and the team?
It’s a question that we’re always trying to figure out. You can always reach out to Supergoop!’s Instagram. We have a pretty robust team on the case, and they’ll hand off one of our emails. In the end, despite the millions of different ways to communicate, I think the biggest persistence is staying on email.
Generally, it goes to our Influencer team who manages our Sunshine Crew, which is our brand ambassador program, and then all of our paid partnerships.
You can enroll in the Sunshine Crew, get products, and as time goes on, be considered for paid partnership. If people are interested in joining the Sunshine Crew, you can reach out to Nina Haines on our team, she’s amazing.
What about platforms? Do you like to work with TikTok or Instagram? Are you agnostic?
I really think that there is a time and a place for both, and we do partnerships on both for different reasons. For example, on Instagram, the Stories are amazing for Q&As. People have figured out how to get information in a succinct, engaging, personal way.
I love TikTok because it’s creatively fun to work with. We love a trending sound. We love how dynamic the videos can be, and the potential for variety. TikTok is a little bit more high risk, high reward. Instagram is a bit safer, it’s what you get from the engagement.
So I think it really depends on who the audience is, and who the creator is. If most of their audience is on Instagram, that’s where we want to target.
What about YouTube and Pinterest?
We haven’t spent a lot of time on Pinterest concerning creator content. The way we looked at influencers in the beginning, was a creative, diverse way to fill our own channel with great content. We loved to repost things. With that in mind, Pinterest was a little less of a focus for us, and its algorithm is also more challenging.
As for YouTube, we’ve worked on this platform quite a bit and we love a YouTube integration. What’s amazing about YouTube is that it’s an incredible search engine. There’s a longevity that we love there. We’ve found success in doing routines and keeping it very evergreen for us. We like to focus on a few products.
"When it comes to usage rights, it’s important to be super-duper clear."
How do you have a good conversation with brands around usage rights and exclusivity? What are the tools that creators can use to negotiate rates? And what's the best way to have that conversation with a brand?
I know it’s always tricky to talk about money in general. But the more you do it, the easier it gets. I’m very shy and now it doesn’t scare me as much.
When it comes to usage rights, it’s important to be super-duper clear. I think increasingly, brands and creators alike are very aware that it’s an important topic. We’re very clear about what we’re looking for and what we want to opt into.
The way I typically break it out is, first of all, determining where is the content going to be used. Is it just in an organic repost? If it’s just that, it’s pretty simple to fold into your contract. If people are looking for wider-ranging usage rights, it’s important to figure out the timeline as well. Is it three months, six months, or a year?
Establish rates per month, and always fold-in organic repost in your contract, which I think is always the most basic best practice. That kind of content is always briefed within our guidelines, so if it ends up being reposted by us, you could end up becoming the favorite creator, and that could lead to another stream of business if the content performs.
It’s nice to have those basic best practices already set in a contract when it comes to paid usage. It’s crucial that all parties be super explicit and honest about how the content is going to be used, or not.
Another thing can just be having an opt-in fee, like “hey, I realize in the contract that we’re doing an organic deal here, but if the content performs and someone on your team wants to whitelist* it or boost my content, we could do this at this rate for a month.”
It’s helpful for everyone to know what they’re getting out of the partnership and also what they’re able to give.
*Whitelisting is the process of an influencer granting a brand partner advertising permissions to their social media content.
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