LAURA: 0:01

If you want to start your marketing strategy with or just add influencer marketing in your strategy, it's important to be really open minded. But it's interesting to work with different types of content creators on different channels and also try to know what the audience is looking for. But these are your needs in your company.

JULIEN: 0:23

You can use influencer marketing, but you need to use besides all the other marketing tools, and it'll help you get the audience with different ways and build your brand awareness.

LAURA: 0:34

A human relationship, and trying to see if it will be a match or not.

RICHARD: 0:41

Hello Odooers, are you ready for another insightful episode of planet Odoo?

Well, brace yourselves because we have a fresh new topic for you today: 0:45

Influencer Marketing. And to guide us through this topic, please welcome our guests, Julian and Laura, marketing officers here at our Odoo Belgium office. They're here to share their valuable insights, drawn from their experiences, and shed some light on what we're doing here at Odoo. So are you ready to craft a winning marketing strategy? Let's get started. Hello you two, how are you doing today?

LAURA: 1:07

Hi, Richard. Fine. And you?

JULIEN: 1:10

Hi. Hi. Fine. Thank you.

RICHARD: 1:11

I'm doing well, but why don't you introduce yourselves first?

JULIEN: 1:14

Okay. Go ahead.

LAURA: 1:15

Okay. So my name is Laura. I have been working at Odoo in influencer marketing for over a year now. I take care of the Polish and the French market, and I graduated in public relations. Uh, I was in the marketing field, uh, like more than five years. And, uh, besides work, I love art, traveling and other stuff. But let's talk about influencer marketing.

JULIEN: 1:43

All right. Um, so my name is, uh, Julien. I am graduated from marketing. And a bit of background, I launched a few years ago with my brother, uh, a digital company, a digital agency, and, uh, and I joined Odoo, uh, this amazing team of influencer marketing, uh, a few months ago. And I'm in charge of the UK, the Netherlands and Flanders. So the Flemish part of Belgium.

RICHARD: 2:08

Excellent. Again. Welcome. So many people, uh, understand a little bit of what marketing is, but maybe not so much, uh, influencer marketing. Can you to, uh, help explain that?

JULIEN: 2:18

Yeah, sure. So influencer marketing, to make it quite easy, is actually promoting your brand through content creators. So you will reach out to, uh, let's call them influencers on social media. And then you will ask them to promote your service or product on, uh, on their media to their audience. So quite basically, that's influencer marketing.

RICHARD: 2:43

Quite simple. Excellent. And, uh, why do people need to think about influencer marketing?

LAURA: 2:48

Uh, I think that's, uh, for a brand. It's really interesting because you can reach, uh, new targets, a really specific audience, and you can have also the trust of your audience. Because if, for example, a creator will talk about your product or your service normally this creator, um, already tried it. Uh, for example, uh, in our team, we always ask the creators to, to have a call with them and we show Odoo, we explain what is Odoo, and after we ask them to test it, because we really want them to believe in what they say. So I think that's a it's a huge plus in the marketing strategy to have these different targets, audience and also the credibility.

RICHARD: 3:30

Okay. So essentially you're saying that it can help them find new markets.

LAURA: 3:34

Indeed.

RICHARD: 3:35

Okay. Excellent. And then um, why what benefit is there to kind of diversify their marketing approach?

JULIEN: 3:42

The big one would be uh, obviously. Uh, so as Laura said, uh, reach out to a new group of customer and then obviously, uh, yeah, opening that, uh, that group.

LAURA: 3:57

It's always interesting to have different ways of promoting your product or brand. So, um, influencer marketing is just a one part of a strategy. Uh, so it's really interesting to diversify and also use that, uh, because like we said, we can really reach a specific target. I can give you an example. We worked with Micode, um, he's quite known in France, in Belgium, and he's talking about no code, technology, etc. and people that, uh, who watch this channel are really interested in this topic. So we think that promoting Odoo in this kind of channel will really benefit. So Odoo, because we know that we will target this specific audience. So that's a plus.

JULIEN: 4:38

Yeah, actually it could be, uh, you can see it as a whole, like uh, you can use influencer marketing, but you need to use beside it, uh, all the other marketing tools, and you can do mail marketing and all those kind of stuff or ads, and it'll help you target the audience with different. Ways. And so yeah build your brand awareness.

LAURA: 5:03

And also it's a bit more creative because when we see the traditional ads, it's always the same. And when we work with, uh, creators, influencers, we can always see a different type of like tone of voice or way of promoting Odoo. And also they are not working here. So it's interesting to see how a normal person, uh, sees Odoo and uh, and test it and use it. So that's also really nice.

RICHARD: 5:30

So just a complete other perspective of the same features you're talking about.

LAURA: 5:33

Yeah, exactly.

RICHARD: 5:34

And how does influencer marketing actually work? I mean, I understand you reach out to somebody and ask them to talk about your product.

JULIEN: 5:40

What do you want us to tell you, like going into detail on the workflow, on how we reach to them and how it works?

RICHARD: 5:48

Yeah. Why not? Okay.

JULIEN: 5:49

You want to go?

LAURA: 5:50

What's important for us? Um, it's that we need to first, uh, check different profiles and see. Okay, this profile may be matched with Odoo because we can have a nice link between the content that is on their channel and Odoo, because that's really important for us. It has to be really natural. We also look, um, the audience because sometimes some creators can have a lot of followers, but they don't have nice views. So it means that, for example, if I have thousands of followers, but, um, people like a small part of my audience really watch my video. It's less interesting for us because we are really watching. Okay, how many people watched this, uh, ad? So that's another point that is really important. And we contact we have a first call with them. Uh, we explain our strategy, we explain the key messages, and afterwards we try to to see, okay, how we will promote Odoo because for us it's really important to do brand awareness, to educate also people, because it's important that they understand what is Odoo and see the added value to use this or to test it. And uh, afterwards the creator select, prepare, think about uh, nice, uh, ads. They send us the scripts we need to validate because sometimes they can do small mistakes. Like for example, we explain them always the pricing, and in the end they can say, okay, Odoo is for free. No, it's not for free. You really have to be careful about some messages. So that's a really important part to validate the script. Afterwards we validate the video and they will have to publish the content on their social media, YouTube. It can be on YouTube, on Instagram, on TikTok, on Twitch. We really want to to use as much as uh, channels as possible.

RICHARD: 7:46

Makes sense. Quite seamless it seems. And how do you maintain those relationships with the influencers?

JULIEN: 7:52

The goal of, uh, influencer marketing. Here at Odoo, we try to avoid to reach out to influencers for a one shot. So that's the first thing. We always try to go for at least three integrations. So an integration is, let's say, an ad. The goal behind this is it will help the influencer building the trust for his audience about Odoo. And then it will help us to build some, uh, some yeah, some relationship with that, uh, influencer. So that's the way we do it. Uh, and then we have a lot of other ways, uh, we try to, um, invite them at the Odoo experience to show them a bit around how Odoo works. What is the world actually, we are evolving in. So. Yeah, that's, uh, quite often I would say how we maintain the partnership.

LAURA: 8:44

I can add maybe also that, uh, sometimes some brands, uh, work directly with the content creator, and sometimes it's through agencies. And for us, even if we work with agencies, uh, that can propose different type of, uh, creators. We always want to meet the creator. So really have a first talk, get to know a little bit, and after really say, okay, I'm here, I'm explaining you what is Odoo? But I'm here. If you have any question, you can contact us because it's really important for us, this good relationship. Uh, so it's a honest communication. Straightforward. So I think that's, uh, that's the key.

RICHARD: 9:21

Sounds like most relationships.

LAURA: 9:22

Yeah. Of course.

RICHARD: 9:24

And so do you have any specific way of measuring the success or the, I guess, the performance of a influencer marketer?

LAURA: 9:32

Yes. Uh, so, uh, like I said, uh, before, the views are important. So after publication, we look after 30 days, how many people watched the video? And also we use Odoo to track how many people went on Odoo. com uh, to, for example, test. So we can see the views, the clicks, the revenue. So that's interesting. We send the link and the creator, uh, has to put it on the description of the. So that's something really important for us because we can see, okay, this adds, this content worked or not. Will we continue or not with this creator. And sometimes we can think, okay. For example, we uh, we worked with Inoxtag. It's a content creator with a lot of, um, uh, huge public, uh, young public. But it was a really success for us because we saw that a lot of people went on our website, tested. So it's it's really interesting to see that we can reach like different generation. Even the young generation can have a really good interest on Odoo.

RICHARD: 10:38

Great. That sounds logical. And then how do you ensure that the influencer partnership with you is aligned with our brand values and messaging?

JULIEN: 10:45

You can do it, um, in a different way, in a few different way. So first of all, uh, before even reaching out to the influencer, we are looking into his social media. And look, if he aligns with obviously our branding, let's say like that, we are focused on, uh, we put all of our focus on a few niches like entertainment, science, IT, tech, and like obviously all the niches that are related to Odoo or the one we select. So that's one way you can filter the influencer you work with. And then, like Laura said, when you have a call with him and when you explain him Odoo, uh, you have to make sure that he has a real interest in the product. And again, it will help you to make a selection of it.

LAURA: 11:37

And you can feel, uh, if the content creator is really interested, because often we see that, uh, they say, oh, great, that's a really nice tool. Uh, if I knew it before, I would use it. Uh, and they ask a lot of questions so we can see that. Okay, I see that you see the added value and you will make a good job and that you understand also it because that's, uh, sometimes a challenge to, to make it understandable because some people, um, say, okay, I understand, I see. And afterwards when they send us the script or the video, we think, okay, they don't get the points. So we can also see if we have the same like vision, values, etc..

JULIEN: 12:17

Yeah. So I would add add the last thing. Sorry. So yeah so selecting the niche is one thing. And then you can also look at the other integration they made for other brands and how they did it. And look okay. Is it professional enough for us. And is his tone of voice matching the vibe that we want to give. And if everything aligns, then yeah, you contact him and then you have to 1 to 1 call.

RICHARD: 12:43

And it sounds complicated.

JULIEN: 12:46

It's fun.

RICHARD: 12:47

Yeah.

LAURA: 12:47

No. Just, um, human relationship and trying to see, uh, if it will be a match or not.

RICHARD: 12:55

Of course, like all relationships again. And so then what were the biggest challenges that you have faced in this kind of situation or role?

LAURA: 13:01

As Julian said, we have different markets. Uh, for example, I'm doing a Poland, France. We have also Spain. And we saw, for example, that in Spain people are watching a little bit less, maybe YouTube or are more on TikTok or other social media. So that can be a challenge because when we start, um, influencer marketing in a new country, let's say we don't know exactly the audience, what they are interested in, etc.. So that can be, uh, the first challenge. Also, we said to to see if the creator is serious enough sometimes. Also, we need to look at the reputation of the creator because that's important, because when, um, creator has a bad reputation, it will impact also our image. So we really need to be careful about that. Um, sometimes other challenges are also the maturity of some um, uh, YouTubers, influencers, etc. because they create content. It's fun. Sometimes they, they say that it's something that they love. So it's not really like a job. But for us, we have some deadlines. We have we need some like serious like scripts etc. and we don't have it like all the time. So sometimes it can be a bit challenging to to work with some of them. I'm not saying with all of them, of course that's important. And also sometimes we have some last minute changes, uh, some, uh, maybe opportunities. We, we talk with a creator for over one topic and after like few weeks they he can say, okay, I will change the topic. Let's maybe integrate or do this way. And we are like, no, we talked that it will be like that. So sometimes, uh, small like challenges can, uh, can appear, but we can handle it.

RICHARD: 14:48

I'm sure you can both handle it very well. And with Odoo being kind of a well established business, it's a little bit different for new businesses. How can they navigate the world of influencers in an easy, effective way?

JULIEN: 14:59

I would say they could use influencer marketing, let's say. I think Laura took the example of a clothing brand. So let's say a clothing brand is is trying to make some marketing and want to use the influencer marketing. They can promote their, uh, their, uh, let's say, clothing by giving them a way to influencer or paying the influencer. So that would be one way. But it's it's ask a lot of money or at least, uh, some, uh, some stuff to give away. So for a new business, if it's a real new business, not an established business, I would not go with influencer marketing as first marketing tool. I would go with other tools, like I said earlier, mailing and maybe reaching out people another way around. But not with the influencer marketing. Not not as uh, as a first, uh, as a first step.

RICHARD: 15:54

Makes perfect sense. Now, if we were to go back to what you said earlier, you use Odoo to track some of the metrics here. How else do you use Odoo to manage your day to day?

JULIEN: 16:02

I use Odoo in a few different ways. My biggest app is the project app. It helps me actually to have a clear view of my pipeline and to see okay, and which content creator is in which stage, and so I can keep track of everything that's going on. Once you click on on a content creator, you will have it's not an app, it's like a feature in Odoo that's called The Chatter, and it helped me actually manage my whole mailing with that specific content creator so I can have like a look in a glance. Okay, what did we talk about? Because when you are talking with an influencer, it's fine. But when you are talking with 30, 40, 50 influencers in one time, it can be a bit tricky to remember what you talked about. So with the chatter, it helps you actually go through and then remember okay, we talked about this and this and this. So those are the next point that we need to to point. So project chatter and then I use the uh again it's not an app. It's a feature I use the activity tool that helped me actually, um, plan everything with uh, with the content creators. If I need to review a script or I need to, uh, to see if the contract is well signed and all those things I could put, like a reminder. And so it helped me on a day to day basis to see, okay, do I have a task that is past? I try to not have one, but it can arise.

LAURA: 17:25

It happens.

JULIEN: 17:27

So yeah, that's it.

LAURA: 17:28

And also eSign, the application E-sign. It's important because we, we work with contract and we can sentence in a really easy way through, um, e-sign. And also the charter is, uh, is nice because when some of us, uh, is on a holiday, we can also have all the visibility, the history of, uh, the conversation. So it's, uh, it's really helpful.

RICHARD: 17:50

Sounds pretty standard and pretty useful across the board. And are there any best practices or lessons learned over your time working in this industry?

JULIEN: 17:57

Lesson learned. Uh, I would say that the first one is it's a game of numbers. So you need to be aware that you will have to reach out to a lot of influencers of content creators, uh, before you get any answers. So you have to keep that in mind because it can be quite frustrating. In the beginning I had it when I opened the UK, I send a lot of emails and hadn't had any response. So yeah, so that's a game of number. That's a big lesson I learned.

LAURA: 18:26

And uh, also, uh, it's important to work with, uh, let's say small content creators. Small. It's because they have a smaller number of followers and also like bigger content creators, because if you want to do, for example, brand awareness, it's really, really interesting because you will reach such a large amount of people. But the smaller creators are really interesting because they have another type of audience. The conversion is really interesting because they have a bigger trust also on this kind of content creators. So that's something that is important to know. If you want to start your marketing strategy with or just add, uh, influencer marketing in your strategy. It's important to be really open minded, but obviously it depends on your objectives. But it's interesting to to work with different type of content creators on different channels and also like try to to know what the audience is looking for, what are your needs in your company? And uh, sometimes, yeah, it's really interesting to to use marketing influencer, but not in any case. So yeah, it depends on so many factors.

RICHARD: 19:42

That's uh, actually made me think of another question. Have you seen any interesting challenges or differences when it comes to working with influencer marketers or marketing influencers in different industries, or different or sorry sizes or countries, any kind of unique aspects that they each have?

LAURA: 19:56

I think that, uh, for example, when you work with micro, nano content creators, they are different from the known ones, let's say. So that's interesting. Also like the difference may even like in countries it's it's so different the way they like. Um, also um see marketing influencer for example, in Poland it's a little bit, uh, different. I work a lot of on for example, YouTube and um, a lot of like young people and older also like to watch, um, YouTube, for example, in France, something that a lot of people are doing that. And in Spain, for example, it's less known. So uh, so yeah, that's really interesting to see the differences.

RICHARD: 20:42

I can only imagine. Uh, well, that all said, do you have any last words for our listeners?

JULIEN: 20:46

I only have one. We are still looking for two people in our team, and we are looking for, uh, German one and an Italian one. So if you are interested, feel free to go and, uh, go on the Odoo website.

LAURA: 20:59

And apply it to the job position.

RICHARD: 21:00

Great way to take advantage of the, uh, the podcast. Thank you everyone.

LAURA: 21:04

Indeed. Thank you.

RICHARD: 21:05

Thank you for your time and have a great rest of your day.

JULIEN: 21:07

You're welcome. Thanks.

LAURA: 21:08

See you.

JULIEN: 21:08

Bye.

RICHARD: 21:09

Bye. Well, everybody, that brings us to the end of today's episode. We hope you found this conversation as fascinating as we did, exploring the world of collaboration with influencers who seem to be omnipresent in our daily lives is always a journey worth taking. If you have any thoughts or questions sparked by today's discussion, we'd love to hear from you. Feel free to drop a comment or reach out to us. Until our next episode. Stay curious, stay awesome, and keep Odooing it.