How to Pitch an Influencer

I am STOKED for you to meet today’s guest, Jason Panzer, a 9-figure Ecom legend who will be hosting a LIVE podcast at Marketingland!

Who is Jason Panzer?? 

Well he’s the man behind cookware brand, Hexclad, who works directly with Gordon Ramsay. Yeah I know, INSANELY cool.

Building a 9 figure brand is a tall task, but lucky for us Jason shed light into the key metrics he looks out for, how to pitch a big influencer like Gordon Ramsay, and advice to Marketers looking to crush influencer Marketing.

Here’s what Jason had to say in his own liiiiightly edited words.

1: What Metrics to Use:

“At Hexclad we are very MER focused (Marketing efficiency ratio), not because it’s the best measure, but because it’s the easiest and most accurate ratio to measure in Marketing.

Right now 5 MER is our gold standard, but this changes over time as your efficiency changes.

A big way to increase this efficiency comes from unpaid influencers.

Every business is different, every business attacks things differently, but we have always used gifting to influencers to increase our efficiency (ouuuu OK). 

Send your product to celebs, send it to the press, send it to social media influencers.

Paying for posts is silly, unless you’re a CPG brand with a massive budget, you won’t see a long term ROI if you pay one influencer to post about your product (this is a Marketing hill I would die on).

Gift to influencers, just get your product out there.

2. How Hexclad Pitched Gordon Ramsay:

The harder you work, the luckier you get. 

We worked really hard building our business, putting all our energy into it.

Then in the middle of 2020, we noticed Gordon Ramsay was following us on social media.

We were super giddy. We thought, what’s the worst that could happen and then reached out to him.

Next thing you know, we got a response from Gordon, saying our product looks cool and he was interested in learning more (just take your shot!!).

Then we were on a call with Gordon’s team running through the vision of Hexclad, being super transparent about everything. They knew we weren’t VC backed, weren’t a startup, we couldn’t afford a multi-million dollar cash payment collaboration with Gordon.

So instead we sold Gordon and his team on the upside of being an investor in the company and showed him our numbers and growth to back up the allure.

It took less than a year to sign and announce the whole deal, but the biggest takeaway was the importance of finding an influencer whose authentic self aligns with your brand. Those are the partnerships that excel.

3. How Much to Pay an Influencer:

If it’s the right person, don’t be afraid to take a big swing. 

(We don’t hear this often in Marketing, but I LOVEEE IT).

Don’t get hung up on how much you give to an influencer, at the end of the day if the partnership is successful, it won’t matter if you gave them the extra half of a percent, do the deal.

4. Crushing Influencer Marketing:

Put in the work, get help, get product in peoples hands and do it from the jump.

We always have all hands on deck with influencer Marketing. So many different teams touch it, whether it’s a PR agency, internal team, or people in our DMs reaching out.

It is incredibly valuable to get products in people’s hands. 

Not everyone is going to be a win, you will send some product and the influencer might not post, so what. Over the long term, there is a positive snowball effect if you are smart about your gifting. 

5. How to Pitch an Influencer:

You need a good story, one that will get the influencer excited. 

To really close a deal with an influencer of Gordon’s status, you need to sell the company to the influencer, they need to be shown why a partnership makes sense for them. 

There’s no wishing that a celeb will come to your team excited to help out. Be prepared to make your case with true value props, and a clear outline of why your product is differentiated (your USP is soooo important).

Then show how they can help you make your business more valuable and create additional value for themselves.

6. Doing Attribution with Gordon Ramsay:

We focus on two main metrics, overall brand awareness and performan-”

I don’t want to spoil the rest of Jason’s attribution strategy with Gordon Ramsay, that will be saved for his LIVE podcast at Marketingland!! (Marketing FOMO in full effect right now.)

I’ll see you there Marketing Bestieeeee! :)))