Scaling an influencer economy at IPSY to become the largest global beauty subscription brand | Jenna Habayeb (Ipsy, 7 for all Mankind)

Jenna is the CMO of IPSY, a direct to consumer business which happens to be the largest beauty subscription brand in the world. Prior to that, she was the CMO for 7 for all mankind, the denim brand, and was recognized as Forbes top 50 Entrepreneurial CMOs. 

Jenna talks about how the creator economy and developing a tiered approach with influencers has been a significant growth driver for IPSY. She goes into the KPIs that are important to them like Earned Media Value and how that ties to organic traffic which is a direct source for acquisition and how these partnerships serve as a primary communication vehicle for product announcements and earned media to drive existing subscriber AOV. One of the sources IPSY has at their disposal is an influencer network that reaches north of 20M brand proponents. Not only do they have distribution at scale, but the brands and personalities of their creators, also then drive even more brand loyalty. So it’s two feedback loops. One for distribution and another for brand sentiment. 

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Where to find Jenna: 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennahabayeb/

Where to find Patrick: 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/pcmoran/

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Sources we discuss:

https://www.tribedynamics.com/blog/earned-media-value

https://www.ipsy.com/about

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(2:42) A description of IPSY as a business and when it got started   

(4:14) Brand Partnerships as a supply source of products, Marketing Partnerships for amplification, and Creator Partnerships

(7:21) The differences between Marketing Partnerships and Creator Partnerships

(9:11) How IPSY got started building their creator economy 

(11:44) Breaking down the creator economy into three tiers 

(16:35) Using Earned Media Value to determine effectiveness

(19:34) Impacting new subs and driving engagement 

(21:29) Building non-transactional and authentic relationships with creators 

(24:03) The emergence of de-influencing 

(25:26) Using the community and customer forums for real time feedback and establishing deeper relationships    

(28:26) How the internal teams leading creators, the community, and paid acquisition work with each other

(30:25) How brands and companies can get started with a strong influencer strategy and build larger and stickier communities 

(33:51) Defining effectiveness by aligning to business objectives 

(37:14) Investment approach for influencers and tying to the right KPIs

(38:45) Starting small and thinking about creators as partners in both distribution and content