The Evolution of Influencer Marketing: From PR to Revenue Driver

In this episode of Revenue Boost: A Marketing Podcast, host Kerry Curran sits down with Danielle Wiley, CEO and founder of Sway Group, to explore the evolution of influencer marketing from its PR roots to a powerful revenue driver. 

Learn how influencer strategies can move beyond awareness and reach, driving real results for your business. Danielle shares her insights on building effective creator campaigns, measuring success, and how even smaller brands can leverage local influencers to achieve national success. 

If you're an executive looking to grow revenue, this episode is packed with actionable advice you can't afford to miss!

Podcast Guest: Danielle Wiley 

Host: Kerry Curran

Topic: The Evolution of Influencer Marketing: From PR to Revenue Driver"

Welcome to Revenue Boost: A Marketing Podcast, where we dive into strategies that drive real business growth. I’m your host, Kerry Curran, and in this episode, The Evolution of Influencer Marketing: From PR to Revenue Driver, I'm joined by Danielle Wiley, CEO and founder of Sway Group. Danielle and I discuss the transformation of influencer marketing from its PR roots into a powerful revenue-generating tool. You’ll hear how influencer strategies have evolved, how to move influencers down the funnel to impact conversions, and how even small businesses can leverage hyper-local influencers for big results. If you're an executive looking to boost revenue, you won't want to miss Danielle's expert insights on maximizing influencer impact and ROI!

Kerry Curran, RBMA (00:00.554)

And welcome Danielle, please introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your background and Sway.

Danielle Wiley (00:03.319)

I am Danielle Wiley. I am the CEO and founder of Sway Group. I founded it 13 years ago following a long career in both interactive and PR. Started doing influencer work over 20 years ago and was at Edelman and seeing it grow and also seeing just how messy and complicated it was and really just kind Swing Group was kind of born from my own frustration of wanting to pick up the phone and just say to someone, like, here's what I want, here's my budget, make it happen, thank you, goodbye. And there was no one that could, there were a few folks kind of saying that they could do that, but no one doing it well. And so I eventually got frustrated enough that I jumped off and did it on my own.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (00:59.316)

Well, the perfect way to get started, right? You have a problem that needs to be solved. So, no, great. And so you've seen the industry evolve and it continues to evolve. So talk a bit kind of how you've seen that evolution over time starting more as a PR strategy.

Danielle Wiley (01:19.692)

Yeah, so it really did start, I mean, not only did my career with Influencer start in PR, but really Influencer as a whole started in PR. Initially, Influencers, and back then they were really just called mom bloggers, but they were treated like journalists, and we would send them samples of products, and they would be psyched to receive products, and they would write about it, and it was all very, very easy. And then, … 

Kerry Curran, RBMA (01:38.277)

Yeah.

Danielle Wiley (01:49.612)

… you know, everyone kind of came to the realization that, you know what, for the most part, influencers aren't journalists. They're kind of more like spokespeople. And if you actually pay them as spokespeople, you can share your key messages with them and let them know what your goals are. And they can actually do some really great sponsored content for you. And it's a much different type of relationship, but that's when things kind of really gelled and really … 

Kerry Curran, RBMA (01:57.908)

Yeah.

Danielle Wiley (02:17.064)

… and so that's how it all started. And of course, since then, so much has changed. I mean, technology has changed tremendously. The number of platforms has grown exponentially. And then I think there's also been this influencer marketing kind of really started off very much at the top of the funnel, all about reach and awareness. And I would argue that that is still where it is at its strongest, but because D2C is so huge now because we do have the ability to measure conversion in a way that we never did, there's definitely this desire to move influencers further down the funnel. While it's possible, it's not possible in every program, it's not possible with every influencer, and it's tricky.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (03:03.71)

Right, no, I definitely agree with you. I always think about my focus group of how much I rely on influencers, whether it's more from a content perspective or the affiliate influencers, affiliate-based influencers that really inform my knowledge and my shopping behavior. Sometimes a little bit too much.

But yeah, and I think when we did some original research last year, we found that influencers and social platforms were the top source of inspiration for customers or just shoppers looking for what to buy, whether they're in the market or passively just becoming in the market. So we've definitely seen that. So talk a bit about kind of how you approach influencer strategies for your clients and kind of what you look at to make sure you're making the right decision. 

Danielle Wiley (04:08.91)

Yeah, we ask a lot of questions. Every program that we do starts off with a strategic brief that is incredibly comprehensive. And we really use this as a blueprint for the whole program. So it's very important. And through 13 years of trial and error and just seeing everything that can happen, we kind of err on the side of too much information.

So what don't you want people to say? What do you want your creators to say? Listing out key messages, showing examples of content that have the same vibe that you're going for, looking at recruitment. Who do you want to pull in for this campaign? Even kind of higher up than that is what's your key KPI?

Kerry Curran, RBMA (04:50.492)

Right. Yeah.

Danielle Wiley (05:05.012)

Is this just about awareness and reach? Are you actually trying to drive conversions? Do we need to get people to click over to your site and eventually buy something or download something? The size of influencer we use, the platforms we choose to use, all of that, all ladder up to that KPI.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (05:25.268)

Yeah, and I think that's so important. I love how you do have such a comprehensive strategic approach because we're hearing a lot about agencies today just saying, okay, we are influencers now. We partner with a tech platform, so now we have this offering or we're a PR firm and we realize we need to add this. So it's important, I think, as you're pointing out that there's so many layers and specifics to it that you can't just go in one day and turn on an influencer program. And you talked about, you build the relationships with the influencers over time as well.

Danielle Wiley (06:04.686)

Yeah, I mean, I think if you talk to anyone doing influencer marketing, really one of the hardest pieces of it is the discovery, is finding those influencers. So finding that list, reaching out, getting them to respond. You know, when we're really lucky, we have a network of 50 ,000 creators. So for the vast majority of our programs, we are able to just send a recruitment out to our network and folks apply and we can just pick the ones who are the best fit.

That's ideal and it's such a luxury to have that pool of creators at our disposal. But there are always going to be programs that need someone who's outside of that box. We had a client last year who wanted professional bowlers. We've had clients, you know, we're working with a client now in the Pacific Northwest and they want people who live in certain communities to talk about this lumber company and some of the … 

Kerry Curran, RBMA (06:50.814)

Wow.

Danielle Wiley (07:02.606)

… environmental issues and how they're tackling them. That's very, very specific. to think, you you're not going to find that in our network of 50 ,000. So we have to go out and find, you know, hand find them. And even for us, we've been in the industry for 13 years, you Google us, we're legit. Even for us, the percentage of creators who get back to us, it's very, very small.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (07:13.662)

Right.

Danielle Wiley (07:28.578)

Doing that discovery is incredibly difficult. So it's very hard for folks to just jump in and do …

Kerry Curran, RBMA (07:35.602)

Yeah. Well, that client example just shows how vast the opportunities are for influencer marketing, that it can be used for so many different types of businesses and awareness driving as well. So I love that. I hope you found your logger influencers in the Pacific Northwest.

Danielle Wiley (07:56.672)

We did, we did. They're creating their content now. The hyper local stuff is really exciting. We're working with a very, very popular pizza restaurant in Chicago and doing that lumber campaign. We've done store openings and zip codes with very small populations. It's, I don't know, maybe it's not the sexiest side of influencer marketing, but I feel like because of the size and scope of our network and because we have so many processes in place, we're uniquely positioned to be able to tackle those types of programs. just kind of from a, I like the fact that smaller, more local companies can now dip their toes into influencer marketing. I think it has felt like something that just those big companies can do, but in reality it's incredibly effective content and there's no reason that companies of all sizes can't be taking advantage of … 

Kerry Curran, RBMA (08:46.303)

Mm-hmm. Yes.