>> Live from Las Vegas, it's The Cube, covering Magento Imagine 2019. Brought to you by Adobe. >> Welcome to The Cube. Lisa Martin with Jeff Frick, live at The Wynn Las Vegas, for Magento Imagine 2019. This is a really buzzy event. All e-commerce innovation, tech talks, with about 3,500 folks, and we're excited to welcome to The Cube Tina Mulqueen, CEO of Kindred PR Marketing Agency as well as contribute with Forbes, Digital Trends, expert on e-commerce, I would say. Welcome to The Cube. >> Thank you so much for having me. I'm happy to be here. >> So we were talking about influencer marketing before we went live. And you have been doing, been working in that kind of before it was even a concept. We were just saying how much marketing has changed in the last few years alone, and how brands have had to to survive and be profitable, evolve with that. Give us a bit of a perspective, first on kind of Kindred PR, what you're doing, how you got involved in influencer marketing. >> Sure, so I was really fortunate to have some great mentors early in my marketing career that kind of ushered me along in the right direction and said hey, I think we should really pay attention to this whole Twitter thing and what's happening with these real, everyday people that are amassing a following on Twitter, and that's really where it started was on that platform. So I ended up on a team for CBS that did some of the influencer marketing for Vanity Fair and for their coverage of The Insider and Entertainment Tonight, and we would work with them to get event coverage to trend online. And as you mentioned, that was before, really, we knew what influencer marketing was. It wasn't really, it didn't have to a name, so to speak, at that time. And so I learned a lot from then, and we have kind of come full circle with influencer marketing, where it, I was at first working with these sort of micro influencers, as we would call them now. And then it was a lot of brands working with more of the celebrity influencers, like the Kim Kardashians of the world, and now it's gone back to brands are really interested in these micro influencers again because of the concept of authenticity, which is a big one right now, that marketers are paying attention to. >> Exactly what I was going to say. >> So how do they dance around the authenticity? It's such an interesting and knife edge, right? Because you want people to promote your products because they like them, and that's the original celebrity endorsement back in the early days, right? People actually did use the product that they endorsed. But now you get paid endorsements, and people can see through that. At the same time, it obviously has some results, or people would not continue to invest, and now it's come full circle, whereas you said because of the internet, I with some particular interest can reach a huge number of people around a really small interest set, because of the distribution of the internet. >> Right. So what's interesting is, influencer marketing, when we first really started talking about influencer marketing, we treated it as word-of-mouth marketing. And it had some incredible benefits over some more traditional kinds of marketing because it was word of mouth. And then because influencer marketing had a lot of investments, brands were investing heavily in influencer marketing, and we were dealing more with celebrity influencers, consumers became smarter as well during this time. And then they started looking at these celebrity endorsements and realizing that these are not real endorsements. And so I think that's where we're seeing this shift back to micro influencers, and people that are really using the products that these brands are touting. >> But how does a brand, how do they engage with the micro influencer? >> Actually, there's a really great case study that I always use as an example of this, and it's actually BECCA Cosmetics, which, BECCA's one of the, I think the number one, sales cosmetic line in Sephora. And they reached out, I think it was about a year ago, maybe a couple of years ago now. They reached out to an influencer because they realized that their website traffic was going up every time a certain influencer would go live on YouTube and was using their products. So BECCA reached out to this influencer that was organically using the products, and collaborated with the influencer to create a line of products of her own. And that really, I think they sold out within the first hour when they actually went live with the product line. So that's a great example of how to engage with an influencer that is organically using your brand, and making sure that you're also including their audience, in, like, the iteration of the product, because then the audience of the influencer is also invested. >> And what defines influencer versus a micro influencer? I imagine the sheer volume of followers, but there's got to be more to it than that, because there's this really cool example that you gave, what BECCA Cosmetics found was much more probably authenticity. So talk to us about not just the number drivers there, but some of the other, I mean, it's one thing to be able to blast something to 100,000 people. It's a whole other thing to actually be able to engage their followers and convert it to a transaction. >> Right. So I think that often when we hear brands talking about micro or macro influencers, they really are talking about the number of followers, but I think you bring up a really great point with respect to that level of engagement of that following and how to really tap into somebody that is engaging their following. So I think brands are going toward actual experts in their field, or actual experts in the product line in a bigger capacity now because they know that what they say is going to be more meaningful to their audience and more engaging to their audience, rather than based on number of followers alone. So there's a lot of different things that are going into play to create a better context for marketing. >> I'm curious how other metrics have evolved beyond just the transaction. So there's the followers, and then, you know, there's obviously transactions, as you said, there's website traffic. But as people, as brands are starting to realize that engagement, ongoing engagement, interaction with content is part of the relationship, separate from and a value to the actual transaction. How have their metrics changed? How are they reviewing these programs? I'm sure a lot of it at first was, "Well, we hope it works, we think it's working." But how has that matured over time? >> It definitely has matured, and there are some platforms out there that will try to quantify influencer marketing in different ways than we've seen in the past. It's gotten a lot more sophisticated. That said, marketers still have a real challenge ahead of them in terms of quantifying their efforts in a meaningful way, because it's still hard to put a number to brand sentiment. And that's a lot of what influencer marketing is. >> Right. And is it, from an investment point of view, I always think of people with a large bucket of money, right, they put a very small piece in their venture fund, which has a real low probability of a hit, but if it hits, it hits big. And when they're budgeting for the influencer program, is it kind of like that? You know, we've got this carve-out that we are not quite sure what the ROI is. We think it's important. We don't want to miss out. Versus, you know, what I'm spending on print or what I'm spending on TV, or what I'm spending on kind of traditional campaigns. How are marketers looking at that within their portfolio? >> It is a great questions, and I think that marketers know that they need to invest in influencer marketing, so we're seeing an influx of investment coming in through influencer marketing. That said, I've been in a lot of conversations with brands that are talking about, do we go the macro influencer route or do we go with the micro influencer route? And right now I think that brands are starting to realize that if you get a lot of voices or a number of voices that are sharing the same sentiment and that are able to feed off of each other with respect to the conversation and amplify each other because even if you have micro influencers with smaller following count, they're going to amplify each other's content, and that ends up in the long run, as we talked about, being more authentic. So that's where a lot of the conversations are going right now in terms of how to spend that influencer marketing budget and weighing the pros and cons of those different options. >> Well, marketing is and should be a science these days. There is so much data about all of us from everything we do every day that brands need to be able to evaluate that, leveraging platforms from Adobe Magento for example, going back to the BECCA Cosmetics and thinking well, if they evaluate these micro influencers and the lift and the traffic that they get, if they're actually using that data appropriately then that should be able to inform how they're actually carving up their investment dollars into which influencers, macro or micro, they know that is going to make the biggest impact on revenue. So it behooves marketing organizations to become scientific and actually use all this consumer data that we are all putting out through our phones, on social devices, constantly. >> Absolutely. I think it's a great point. And I hear often from clients too that they have, they've invested in these platforms that will sort of try to analyze the data, but they're not doing anything with that data. So a lot of e-commerce merchants and retailers, if you don't have a strategy on how you're going to implement that what you're learning from your consumers, then it ends up falling flat. >> What's the biggest surprise you hear from marketers today in terms of this influencer marketing? Are they confused, they're getting it, are there any, I mean you had one really good success story, are there any other, you know, kind of success stories you can share that this is a very different way to get your message into the marketplace? >> You know, one thing that I think people should do more of, that it kind of surprises me that we aren't seeing more of is using media as a channel for e-commerce merchants to have an affiliate strategy. So basically utilizing influencers in collaboration with a media channel to be able to have a new revenue stream. I think that that's something that we haven't seen very often. It's something that when I was working as the CMO for a public trading company called Grey Cloak Technologies, we worked with Sherell's, which is a company that we were acquiring at the time to consult with Marie Claire on how to incorporate influencers into their e-commerce strategy as a publisher. And that's something that I think that people could take more advantage of. >> Even just with affiliate codes or coupon codes and those types of things? They're just not really executing on it that well. >> Right, right. And I think that part of it is a technological component, like the technology isn't quite there to be able to implement, well, to be able to implement that on a wide scale. Like Marie Claire, Sherell's ended up creating the technology for them to be able to incorporate influencers into their e-commerce strategy. But I think that we're going to see more of that. >> Right, because for the influencer, that's one of many sources of revenue that they need to execute on if they're actually going to build, you know, a lifestyle business around being, you know, quote-unquote influencer. They need that affiliate revenue on top of their advertising revenue and all these other little pieces, selling t-shirts, etc. >> Right, right. And we're seeing some companies that are coming to the table to try to provide solutions. One company that I've been watching for a while is called COSIGN, and their platform basically allows influencers to integrate on the platform and link things through social media so that people can buy through a picture, on Facebook for example. So I think we're going to see more of those types of technologies as well. >> Let's talk kind of on the spirit of trends and some of the things that you are seeing. There was this big trend in the last few years of everybody wanting to be able to, we can get anything through Amazon, right? And we can get in a matter of hours. But looking at, and seeing some big box stores that did not do a good job of being able to blend physical, digital, virtual, all these storefronts. What though are you seeing in terms of companies, maybe enterprises, needing to sort of still have or offer a brick and mortar experience? Like we were talking to HP Inc. this morning, he was on stage, and this click and collect program that they launched in APEC where depending on their region, people need to be able to start and actually transact online, but actually fulfill in store. In terms of like, maybe, either reverse engineering online to brick and mortar or hybridizing the two, what are some of the trends that you're seeing that businesses really need to start paying attention to? >> Sure, so I think that omnichannel has been a buzzword for some time, and the way that marketers are looking at omnichannel now, or the way that retailers are looking at omnichannel now is a little bit different. At first, when we started talking about the concept of create this sort of seamless interplay between brick and mortar and online storefronts, it was about taking the brick and mortar experience and putting it online. And now I think marketers are getting better at realizing that those are two completely different channels, and your customer's in a different place in both of those channels. So you need to give them an experience that is relevant for the channel, and it can be totally different than what we're used to in traditional retail stores. But brick and mortar obviously does have a place. We're seeing Amazon come out with their own brick and mortar locations, and we're seeing different e-commerce startups have brick and mortar locations and be very successful with them too as an e-commerce first storefront. So there's definitely a place for brick and mortar. I think people will always have to shop in brick and mortar storefronts, although we obviously are going to get more sophisticated delivery options, and that's coming as well. But I think that it's really an interplay and it's understanding what the channels are and where your consumers are at in that space. >> And then the whole next generation of that, which we're hearing about here, like shopping inside of Instagram. So now as opposed to a destination or I'm going to some place to buy something, whether it's online or a store, now it's actually just part of experiencing the media, as you said, and oh by the way, while I'm here, that looks interesting, I'll take one of those as well. Whole different level of experience that the retailers now have to support. >> Right, absolutely. There are other technology platforms too that, like one of them is basically producing video content that you can scroll over, or let's say you were just watching a commercial on your television, or maybe it's not even a commercial. Maybe it's like real long form content, and if you scroll over a product in the image, you can purchase it out of that video. And so these things are coming as well. It's really an exciting time. But it's an exciting time to be creative as well, because you have to have some creativity behind these strategies in order to make an impression on the consumer. >> It's exciting and creepy at the same time. (Jeff laughing) I don't know if my wallet can handle that. But we'll see. But one of the things I was wondering, when you were talking about, for example, Amazon going, starting as this online mega store and now having brick and mortar stores, the acquisition of Whole Foods. I can't go in there and shop without being asked if I'm a Prime member. But what are some of the sort of foundational customer experience expectations that, because I would think personalization would be kind of a common foundation that whether I'm shopping online with whatever, I want whoever I'm buying from, especially if I have a history, I want them to know what I've bought before, maybe my average order value, to be able to kind of incentivize loyalty. But I probably want the same thing if I'm in a brick and mortar. Are you seeing some sort of key foundations that businesses, whether they do one, the other, or both, need to put in place that can span both? >> Absolutely. So I think it's a great point. I think personalization and the experience. Obviously we're hearing so much about experience in terms of e-commerce, but in brick and mortar stores in particular. But I think that the personalization piece is such an important one. But I also think that it's now getting to where we need to personalize more on the marketing for no matter what channel it is. So you need to bring that physical experience with the customer to your e-commerce efforts as well so that you can, for example, if you're going to email market to me, I want it to be relevant. I want to know that you have been paying attention to my shopping habits, and it's kind of a fine line with respect to data, but if you're going to be using my data, I want to make sure that it's useful to me and it saves me time. >> And it kind of goes back to a point Jeff and I have heard a number of times today, and that's validating me as a consumer that you understand that what I'm interested in that you have to offer, you understand it, it's important to both of us. Well Tina, I wish we had more time to keep talking with you, but we thank you so much for joining us on The Cube this afternoon and talking with us about some of the things that you're seeing, your experiences. And now I know the difference between an influencer, macro and micro, and why they can be so important to brands of any size. So thank you for your time. >> Thank you so much for having me. >> Our pleasure >> Thank you. >> For Jeff Frick, I'm Lisa Martin, you're watching us on The Cube live from Las Vegas at Magento Imagine 2019. Thanks for watching. (upbeat digital music)