Influencer marketing is thriving and is here to stay. Daniel Alden, the Head of Operations and Customer Success of Otterfish, talks to us about how Otterfish came to be. He also shares the impact of Otterfish to the content creation process and what it has in store for content creators.

Who is Daniel Alden?

Daniel Alden is the Head of Operations and Customer Success of Otterfish, a platform built for content creators. Together with his partners, Daniel aims to streamline the content-making and approval process.

The Idea That Inspired Otterfish

Otterfish wasn’t originally created for influencer marketing. The platform was built for something else but had to undergo changes after it didn’t attract enough traction.

Daniel explains, “We started around 18 months ago, and we first launched Otterfish as a small business or agency running test ad variants. So, the goal for Otterfish was we can help you in the way you post and test different variants.”

Daniel attributed the shift of Otterfish’s direction and focus to his partner, Brooke Howard-Smith. Brooke also also owns a talent agency in New Zealand called WeAreTENZING. This allowed Brooke to gain experience in influencer marketing and use that to create Otterfish.

“We wanted to pivot Otterfish into a content management approval tool. The goal for Otterfish is to help content creators, agencies, brands, and talent managers streamline how they brief, collaborate, and approve content.”

Daniel pointed out that one of the inspirations for creating Otterfish is to omit the long email chains, shared drives, and countless spreadsheets and put everything into one managed tool.

The changes Daniel and his partners implemented for Otterfish seem to drive better results.

According to Daniel, Otterfish has been in the beta phase for around six months, and some lead agencies in New Zealand have started using it. He says about 50 creators are using the tool, including some brands.

As for the future of Otterfish, Daniel comments, “Next month, we’re aiming to launch this into a tool that people will start paying for. So yes, we’ve had quite a journey.”

How Otterfish Works

To ensure that Otterfish will serve it purpose, Daniel and his team reached out to agencies, brands, and creators to ask them how they currently work.

Based on their answers, Daniel and his team understood how clunky and lengthy the content creation process was. He explains:

“Normally, the process starts by emailing a brief, and that email goes back and forth. Let’s say, for instance, for an agency that’s working with ten creators they have ten different email chains to go through. Then they usually collaborate through a Dropbox or Google Drive.”  

And while these platforms work in sharing content, Daniel recognizes that they’re not designed to showcase ad content or play videos. This can cause problems and delays in the content creation process.

He continues, “And then they [the agency] will have to share that with their clients, and they come back through email again and will go back to the creators to say it’s approved.”

Daniel shares that Otterfish combines those processes into a single page. This way, agencies can collaborate with creators, creators can share content with the client and the agency, and the client can approve it within the tool itself.

With Otterfish, agencies have a dashboard where they can have everything in one place — regardless if they’re working with ten different creators — rather than having it cultured in different spreadsheets and drop boxes.

How Otterfish Aligns Content with Brands, Their Values, and Objectives

Daniel is proud to share that Otterfish provides structure, something he finds beneficial for agencies that don’t do a lot of influencer marketing.

To explain to us how the tool works, he goes, “The idea that we’ve tried to do is just how we structure the tool itself. So, the briefing [process] is collaborated through uploading or creating a brief through the tool. The brief is collaborated on by different people and then agreed upon. And then we have a two-bit approach where the concept is reviewed and then approved.”

Daniel explains further that the idea behind this concept is to make sure Otterfish aligns the influencer to the brand and goes into the content. It’s also to help agencies that still don’t understand how influencer marketing works and how they should structure.

It seems hard to believe, but there are still some agencies that aren’t familiar with or haven’t used influencer marketing. According to the 2019 Influencer Marketing Report: A Marketer’s Perspective, 93% of marketers have used influencer marketing. This means that agencies that belong to the 7% will enjoy Otterfish and its features.

How Otterfish Measures the Effectiveness of Content

Otterfish is already a powerful tool, but Daniel shares they still have plenty of plans for it, including adding features to measure the effectiveness of the campaign.

Daniel guarantees, “It will be part of our goal. But in the short-term, we’ll have something that people can upload the results to, so then it’s actually all in one place.” 

He continues that while users can upload results or screenshots on Otterfish’s chatbox, he and his team plans to incorporate a result dashboard in the tool.

The Role of Technology and AI for Otterfish

Daniel and his team already have plans to create a perfect marriage between AI and Otterfish. He mentions that the founder, Brooke Howard-Smith, also invested in a company called ASM, which is an AI.

“We’re looking at how we can use AI to inspire creators to write good concepts based on the brief on Otterfish. We’re having discussions at the moment on the roadmap on how we can bring AI into Otterfish.”

Otterfish’s Success Stories

Although Otterfish is new in the market, Daniel is proud to share how the tool helped many agencies. He particularly talked about Countdown, New Zealand’s leading supermarket brand that serves over 3 million customers weekly.

In general, working with agencies goes through the same process in Otterfish: once the brief is approved, it’s sent to content creators. From there, Otterfish creates 50 to 80 emails to try and start the conversation, upload concepts, and have everything approved.

“With Otterfish, they’ve been one of our real success stories [Countdown]. Better delivery times and a lot of streamlined processes, so they can do more with less. Because of how easy and simple it is, not only to make a campaign, but to send it out to many content creators and manage it all in one place.”

Future Plans for Otterfish

One of the biggest plans Daniel and his team have for Otterfish is the use of AI. Besides using it to help creators build better concepts and content, he also wants to use AI to create the best captions for images.

He adds, “With images, we want Otterfish to help content creators create captions based on the brand’s value and the brief.”

Daniel also mentions how he wants Otterfish to display the results of its users’ campaigns and the success of their content.

Title: Daniel Alden And How Otterfish Plans to Change the World of Influencer Marketing

Meta Title: Daniel Alden And How Otterfish Plans to Change the World of Influencer Marketing

Meta Description: Get to know Daniel Alden and find out how he started Otterfish and how he envisions it to improve today’s content creation process.

Excerpt: Daniel explains further that the idea behind this concept is to make sure Otterfish aligns the influencer to the brand and goes into the content. It’s also to help agencies that still don’t understand how influencer marketing works and how they should structure.

3-4 sentence summary of the article: Daniel Alden is one of the brains behind Otterfish, a tool designed to make influencer marketing easier. Although Otterfish is still in its beta phase, Daniel shares how it has already improved the processes of many agencies and content creators. Daniel and his team has a lot of plans for Otterfish to ensure that it become an all-in-one tool for content creators.