It’s A Matter of Trust

Executive Summary

In this week’s drop, we break down our marketing agency journey, the rise of ads everywhere and fatigue, the decline in trust from brands and authority, and the rise of influencers and creators.

Shocker, these trends drive a massive need for authentic voices from reviews, peers, content, and influencers.

Intelligent marketers must recruit trusted third parties to rave about your brand, not just run ads. People crave authenticity, which we deliver via trusted recommendations rather than ads.

The Details

Round Barn Labs is coming up on ten years in business in April.

You go through several great clients, iterations wins, mistakes, case studies, people, processes, and improvements in that time.

We have had our teeth kicked in plenty.

As an entrepreneur, I have done my share of soul-searching, perhaps to a fault.

But, as Colonel Slade (Scent of a Woman) said about his friend Charlie, “This soul is intact!”

For our entire history as a business, affiliate marketing and paid marketing were at the center. But why?

The more we break down what we do to clients, teammates, prospects, and people without any idea what marketing is…

The Soul of what we do boils down to trust.

Brands are going to advertise.

Bear with me here.

Brands run ads on TV, Radio, Print, and Digital (Search, Social, Affiliate, Influencer, and Programmatic) on channels that will continue to rise and fall.

Yet

People don’t want ads.

Banner blindness, ad fatigue, and customers being inundated with ads everywhere, from email to billboard to direct mail, are not helping. There are even ads on Amazon, Macy’s, Uber, Netflix, and now United Airlines. See Eric Seifert's article Everything is an ad network.

Consumers want entertainment and trusted recommendations from friends, family, bloggers, reviews, user-generated content, affiliates, influencers, and occasional celebrities.

It’s time to embrace that trend if you have not already. If you have, you probably have not embraced it enough.

Let’s go a little deeper. Brands either earn, own, or pay for content.

1. Owned Media:

   1. This category includes channels that a brand fully controls, such as its websites, blogs, social media accounts, and email newsletters. 

   2. The essential advantage here is complete control over the content, style, and timing of messaging, making it ideal for building long-term relationships and brand identity.

2. Earned Media:

   1. This refers to publicity gained through methods other than paid advertising, including word-of-mouth, customer reviews, social media mentions, and news coverage. Earned media is valuable for the trust and credibility it garners from third-party endorsements (e.g., journalists, influencers, customers).

   2. Although it offers less than owned media, its positive impact is often more significant, though it requires ongoing public relations and high-quality content to maintain.

3. Paid Media:

   1. This encompasses all forms of paid advertising but extends beyond traditional ads to include strategic content creation and engagement designed to build audience trust.

   2. Sometimes called trusted media, it blends earned and owned media elements. It focuses on transparency, authenticity, and providing real value, often through channels like company blogs or social media, where the brand can engage directly and honestly with its audience.

What we do is undoubtedly a form of paid media.

We secure affiliate and influencer placements with a mix of flat fees and commissions and then, via whitelisting, amplify that in paid search and social ads, performing better than branded ads alone.

We broker trust in the following ways:

1) seeding gifts with potential influencers who love your product to promote your brand

2) reaching out to existing customers to select potential influencers on Social Snowball

3) using top-tier affiliate tracking software, we secure valued reviews or earned content to convince a high-traffic quality content partner to feature your brand in a paid / commission-rewarded post. Think CNN, Forbes, Men’s Health, Oprah’s Network, Magnolia, HEALTH, and Rolling Stone.

4) Securing placement with a professional athlete or celebrity

We secure partners that build trust for brands and amplify that.

Do customers know it’s paid for? Yes.

Do brands need to disclose it paid for to comply with FTC guidelines? You bet.

Sure, Nike, Lululemon, Royal Caribbean, Ford, All Birds, Skims, and Glossier will run ads.

But what performs better, ads or a trusted review?

Brands telling you how great they are?

OR peers, influencers, content creators, or celebrities telling you how great they are?

The answer is clear, and the data supports it.

Trusted Recommendations > Ads (even if perceived)

The numerous examples are seen in the explosion of influencers and creators into the performance marketing world.

We secure trust for your brand with your key customer segments, and we can then amplify that trust.

It doesn’t matter the channel (yes, it includes data-driven results-based affiliate, influencer, paid search, and paid social marketing)

We broker trust for your brand.

This performs better than just branded content.

We are witnessing an explosion in social media in all forms and a simultaneous decline in trust in authority, businesses, and ads. Whether we like it or not. People crave authentic voices to discover brands and make buying decisions from friends, family, community, influencers, creators, and celebrities. Yes, we can secure celebrity placements.

What others say about you matters more. 

Trusted recommendations outperform ads.

Join us on this mission to build performance marketing based on trust.