To provide the best assistance to creators and marketers, ShopStyle Collective rebranded and is now Collective Voice. Aside from a new name, the company has new tools to help users succeed in today’s ever-changing content landscape. 

General Manager Lindsay Jerutis shares with us everything new about Collective Voice.

Lindsay Jerutis, General Manager Of Collective Voice, Talks About The Company’s Evolution And Launch Of New Tools

What is Collective Voice?

Collective Voice is a premier creator marketing platform, helping creators and brands navigate all things creator marketing – from affiliate to brand partnerships. They have approximately 30,000 creators in their network whom they help monetize their content and connect with key marketers in the industry,  Collective Voice provides creators with an affiliate marketing platform.

Lindsay Jerutis shares, “We have an affiliate marketing platform where we enable creators on the platform to monetize their content by utilizing our affiliate links. We serve as a sub-affiliate network and ensure they can access and track sales from their audience to hundreds of different retailers.”

Collective Voice also helps creators by working with them closely on campaigns. They negotiate and facilitate relationships between marketers, brands, and creators. 

“We make sure that, across a number of categories, marketers have access to creators to be able to authentically expand knowledge about their brands or potentially drive sales. We facilitate those flat fee relationships and campaigns and ensure they go off without a hitch,” Lindsay adds. 

How Collective Voice Evolved Through the Years

Collective Voice has been evolving quite a bit over the last few years. In fact, the company’s top-line revenue has grown over 180% since 2019. 

The company’s evolution and expansion through the years focused on making sure that they have the tools, insights, and opportunities for creators and marketers to authentically reach audiences wherever they are. Collective Voice feels strongly about this, given that how audiences consume content constantly changes. 

“The rapid ascent of TikTok, all these other Reels, and some of the other platforms that have come and gone [prove] that people are changing the way they consume content. And so we feel like the best thing we can do as a creator marketing platform is giving creators the tools to take the way they work with marketers and brands and reach their audience wherever [they are].”

Collective Voice doesn’t try to pigeonhole creators into reaching their audiences in one place or another. Instead, the platform provides transparent data and analytics to ensure that creators fully understand where their content is coming from and what resonates most with their audience. 

This way, creators can determine what products they want to sell and where they can drive engagement, Over time, having access to Collective Voice’s comprehensive analytics and reporting capabilities enables them to create the most effective content for their audience. 

Collective Voice also developed new tools to help creators reach their audiences in more streamlined ways. One of the newest tools the company launched is TapTo.Shop. It is a link in bio solution that allows creators to easily create and post affiliate links across any platform and any browser. 

Lindsay Jerutis adds, “It’s making sure that it’s not requiring an audience to download another app or to have access to a different platform right within everything from TikTok to Facebook to Instagram.”

This new tool from Collective Voice ensures an easier workflow for creators as they can recommend products and shops right from the online platform they’re using. And the best part is that this tool isn’t exclusive — it’s free for everyone!

What Makes Collective Voice Different?

One thing that sets Collective Voice apart from other creator platforms is its emphasis on trust, transparency, and inclusivity as a company. In fact, this is the reason why the company picked the name Collective Voice.

The second reason why Collective Voice is different is that it advocates on behalf of the creators. Lindsay shares, “We’ve really seen that the creator marketplace develops creators in general and have an intense amount of power in moving industries. But they often don’t have the support or the real backing to feel like their Voice is being heard in the industry. That can be really hard for them as they’re often on their own.”

The company also aims to bring to light some of the most common issues creators face, like the pay gap among diverse influencers, and provide them with tools to empower them. “We want to make sure that they understand their worth and they’re [getting properly rewarded] for what they’re doing for their marketers,” Lindsay adds.

In an attempt to empower creators, Collective Voice also launched a program called Amplify. It’s an eight-week program to educate creators on how they can succeed. It’s an exclusive opportunity for them to take classes with experts from different industries. 

Lindsay gives us more details about the program. “What we’re doing is we’re working with 10 to 12 creators at a time and taking them through an eight-week program where they’re taught how to get ahead in the industry. The classes feature experts from sales, marketing, and other creators to help them expand their businesses.”

Collective Voice’s Amplify program covers everything creators must learn to stand out in the industry: from learning how to become affiliates and create marketing campaigns to financial planning and managing the business as a newbie. 

Empowering creators is important for Collective Voice as they want them to make amazing connections with their audiences. Lindsay adds, “We have this mentality of ‘a rising tide lifts all boats,’ and by empowering creators and the markets they work with, we’ll rise along with them. It’s really about making sure that the creators succeed, and with that, we’ll be successful, as well as our marketers.”

Identifying the Right Creators for a Campaign

The process of selecting the right creator for campaigns involves art and science. Collective Voice has a brand strategy team that uses their access to sales data based on historical knowledge of 15 years and their general knowledge of working with creators to select creators. 

According to Lindsay Jerutis, this team is responsible for marrying that art and science in finding the right creator on behalf of the marketers. The team asks the marketers what they’re looking for and what their goals are to find the right creator who can contribute to a successful campaign. 

Because of this, the marketer needs to deeply understand what they’re trying to accomplish and prioritize what they’re looking for. But not all advertisers understand this idea. 

“We will find that sometimes, marketers want to do it all within a limited budget. So, our job is to really help explain to them, ‘it’s very difficult to have both brand awareness and sales goals. Let’s pick one. What do you think is the most important for this particular campaign?'”

Once the marketers identify what to prioritize, Collective Voice uses its backup data and works with its brand strategy team to hone in on who they think will be the right fit for them. 

Successful Creator Marketing Campaigns 

Many factors contribute to a successful creator marketing campaign. One is having a strategic relationship with the client. Lindsay cites an example: “So we have worked with a luxury retailer for several years now, and a few things have made our relationship with them so successful — one is year-long campaigns. We always take this approach on recommendations as often as possible, but we know that can’t happen all the time.”

“But when an advertiser can commit to a long-term relationship with us, it gives us the time to understand how their expectations match up with creators, expectations of the relationship, as well as our ability to produce content and their KPIs,” Lindsay says. 

Content creation is a very personal thing for many of these creators. They know their audience best — some audiences will react well to one product, while others may not. And sometimes, creators take several rounds of content production to hone in on what their audience wants or what they’re going to like the best. 

By having a long-term relationship, Collective Voice can work closely with the marketer and the creators to find that sweet spot in creating the right content for the right audience. It also allows the company to use data in making strong decisions over a certain period, so marketers and creators can learn and utilize the data in the future. 

Lindsay Jerutis explains, “So we could say something like, ‘Hey, last time around, you wanted to push this particular seasonal trend. It ended up not being as popular as this trend’ or ‘You really wanted to do this type of video format, but actually, static posts end up doing better.'”

With the relationship Collective Voice has built with its marketers, it’s easier for them to flex their data, which allows the marketers to improve and move forward. Lindsay credits the company’s analytic team for providing this kind of benefit to their marketers. 

“We have an amazing analytics team that gathers the data and gives them trend information across all categories and industries. So being able to say to them, ‘Hey, look, we can benchmark you within this type of retailer,’ or ‘we can help you benchmark within this season’s hottest trends.’ Trying to give them a broader picture to make those decisions, helped us be successful.”

Creator freedom is another factor that’s very beneficial for marketers, which also makes for a very successful campaign; the more the marketer gives freedom to the creators, the better the outcome of the campaign.

Creators know their audience best, and the more marketers try to control and set rigid guidelines with them, the less authentic the content feels to the audience. That makes both the audience and the creator bristle often as they will feel that the content or campaign doesn’t ring true to them. 

Lindsay Jerutis explains, “Part of the reason why creator marketing has been so successful is it’s sort of the original word-of-mouth marketing. If it feels like your friends are saying to you, ‘Hey, I love this watch’ or ‘I love this brand’ or whatever it is, and if you don’t feel like they’re speaking from the heart or truthfully, it’s not going to resonate and people are not going to buy it.”

Future Trends Emerging

Lindsay Jerutis expects to see the evolution of content creation across all kinds of different platforms. “TikTok really came out of nowhere, and I don’t think it’s actually going anywhere. But I do think that new platforms are going to continue to come at us, and we’re not going to necessarily know until they’re here,” Lindsay states. 

To adapt to these trends, Collective Voice has launched newer tools, like TapTo.Shop, where they can provide creators with a storefront of their own. This won’t require creators to have their own blog or use a hosting service to distribute their content wherever — and these are critical for creators to adapt to the industry’s emerging trends. 

Collective Voice aims to provide tools to enable creators to meet their audience wherever they are as the evolution happens. Lindsay Jerutis adds, “What we’ll be doing is really looking at what that means for video, storefronts and podcasts in the future.”

What’s Next for Collective Voice

The company will focus on TapTo.Shop and grow that a successful tool for creators. This year, they’ll spend a lot of time understanding how their users and creators are maximizing the tool, what they’re using it for, and how they can make it better. 

Collective Voice also plans to expand its educational resources for creators. “We currently have an education area in our platform called Collective Academy. It’s a collection of videos that teach creators the basics and then the Creator Accelerator for a small group. I would love to think about how we take this very small group, take the information that’s in there, scale it, and be more able to give it out to more people. Because again, our goal is to empower creators at scale,” Lindsay Jerutis states.