Creator Sponsorship 101: The blueprint for how to build the next Warby Parker, Squarespace, or Athletic Greens.
Sell based on trust, not impulse.
When I needed a razor, I bought Harry’s.
When I needed glasses, I tried 5 pairs of Warby Parker’s at home.
When I needed a website, I built it on Squarespace.
I made my first purchase with these brands over a decade ago, and am still a paying customer to this day.
When the time came to buy, I didn’t even question who I’d use. The answer was already embedded in my mind. These brands had earned my trust and when it was time to spend, they earned my dollars without a second thought.
But why? It’s simple, really.
My favorite creators told me about them. A lot.
They sold me the benefits with authenticity so when I needed the product, I thought “If they like them, then I’m sure I will too”.
This is the power of Direct Creator Marketing — otherwise known as sponsorship. It allows brands to break free from the unpredictable game of social media advertising, creators to finally get paid a fair value instead of being left with scraps, and audiences to become lifetime customers with brands built on trust, not impulse.
By the end of this resource, you’ll have a full picture of the power of Direct Creator Marketing and how to get started in the space.
The Dilemma of Unpredictable Social Marketing
Social media advertising has a lot of challenges: Social ads typically require multiple exposures (approximately 10x) for effective recall, while organic posts from respected creators is a fraction of that. Think of all the ads you see on a daily basis and then contrast that with the impact of creator content you’re actually there to see. The distinction speaks volumes about the effectiveness and resonance of creator-generated content.
Case Study: Squarespace
Squarespace, the website-building platform, faced similar challenges with traditional advertising. In the early days, they set themself up to win their market by putting a significant portion of their advertising dollars into sponsoring content creators who align with their brand's message. They transformed their marketing approach from unpredictable social ads to hyper-targeted trust in their brand.
This strategic shift unlocked a more engaged audience and helped them become the leader in their space.
The Value Exchange Equation: Creators vs. Compensation
Creators are what make the internet valuable, and most of them struggle to monetize their work sustainably. You either need to get lucky and join the 1%, or you pray to get enough $5 patrons to afford groceries for the month. A fair value exchange between the internet and creators is long overdue.
Case Study: Athletic Greens
Athletic Greens, a leader in the nutritional space, recognized the value of sponsorship early on. By partnering with creators who embodied the same values as their brand, they not only created sustainable income for creators, but also witnessed exponential growth in their company.
By circumventing traditional social advertising in the early days, they allocated that budget to channels that drive stronger ROI — which was creator sponsorship.
Audience Trust: The Currency of Modern Purchases
Lifetime customers only come one way: trust. Sure, you can get an impulse purchase here and there, but is that sustainable? Will your customer feel good about the purchase and want to return over and over again? If you deliver on the promise of your product, you’ll quickly build an army of evangelists for your brand.
Case Study: Warby Parker
Warby Parker, the eyewear brand, had a revolutionary idea: “What if our customers could try at home before they buy?” This hadn’t been done before, so they needed a clear way to explain their differentiator to new customers. What was the best way to do that? Sponsoring creators.
By collaborating with creators who shared their own ‘try on’ experiences, they instantly built trust and excitement around a brand new concept that skyrocketed their brand.
It’s clear that sponsorship works. So why aren’t more brands doing it?
As you can tell by the examples above, creator sponsorship flat-out works. So why aren’t more brands using it? Why is this hyper-effective form of marketing not being utilized more often?
There are 3 reasons why:
Communication
Getting a sponsorship in place is tough. It can take weeks of email threads back and forth to get a single slot filled for one creator. Now imagine you want to work with 10 creators, or 100. Yikes! It’s a spiderweb of communication with countless pitfalls that no reasonable person wants to deal with.
Metrics
Sponsorship campaigns are traditionally difficult to measure. We know they work on a macro level, but it's difficult to get granular and specific in the same way you could with other forms of performance metrics.
Discovery & Expansion
Finding creators to work with who will actually drive customers to your brand is time-consuming and difficult. You search the internet to ensure they’re audience is a good fit for your product and that they’ll do a great job of telling your story.
Dealing with these issues makes spending time and resources on sponsoring creators difficult to justify. That’s where a tool like Darndest can help…
What if it was easy?
Here’s our unapologetic sales pitch. Darndest exists to make the sponsorship process easy. What used to take weeks, now takes 20 minutes using our tool.
Communication is centralized and fast. You can communicate with hundreds of creators at once, so you can say goodbye to those scary email threads.
Metrics are transparent and real-time. You can now see performance of creator sponsorship down to a granular level, all in one dashboard.
We help you find new creators that serve your brand. In our discovery and expansion tools, we make it easy for you to find relevant creators to help engage a new audience.
If you’re interested in finding out for yourself, keep reading below…
Ready to get started? We’ll make your first creator sponsorship campaign for free!
We believe that creator sponsorship is a game-changer for the next generation of timeless brands and that's why we are offering to build your first sponsorship campaign for free!
Here’s how it works:
Sign up here for a quick onboarding call
Darndest will match your brand with a great creator
The entire process is done for you - all you pay for is the creator's slot.
The worst that can happen is you try a new marketing channel and decide it’s not for you.
But in the best case scenario… You tip the domino that will start to turn your brand into the next Squarespace, Athletic Greens, or Warby Parker.
Get your free campaignHERE!