Christian Lovrecich: “Content Creation”
Content Creation — Everyone has their own style and their own way of creating content. Media buyers like myself hire influencers to create content for our brands all the time. You’re already creating tons of it so might as well get paid for it. Do a search for platforms that put influencers in touch with brands, make sure to build your profile along with your portfolio and brands will start reaching out to you.
As part of my series about “How Influencers Can Monetize Their Brand”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Christian Lovrecich.
Serial entrepreneur? Advertising & digital media expert? Podcast host? Youtube celebrity in-the-works? The truth is, one could say, Christian Lovrecich is the closest thing to a digital renaissance man.
He’s currently on a mission to not only help businesses scale from 6 to 7, 8 figures (or higher), harnessing the full power of Facebook ads through innovative marketing strategies. In other words, he makes his clients cut through the noise fast & simple, leaving their competitors wondering “Boy, what just happened?”
And it doesn’t stop there. For those who want an insight into the mind of a brilliant modern advertiser, every week he shares his most recent marketing & advertising insights through his YouTube channel Pixlfeed. But Christian is all about pushing the envelope one step further…
That’s why his Podcast is a true labor of love when it comes to truly fleshing how modern & successful entrepreneurs have built their way to the top, in friendly, hour-long interviews with them you can watch while sipping down your favorite drink.https://content.thriveglobal.com/media/442abb18ff814b1496c597045ffb937f
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit more. What is your “backstory”? What brought you to this point in your career?
I’ve always been an entrepreneur at heart. Even as a kid, I was always trying to sell something. Besides the adrenaline rush of making a deal, I love providing a service or item that makes someone else’s life easier or makes them happy and more fulfilled. Sales has always been a part of my background, so I have significant experience and have done my share of “cold calls” to make sales and obtain clients. I’ve always been interested in Marketing- finding a better way to match potential customers with the goods and services provided by businesses. Marketing has always interested me. I’m that guy who watches the Superbowl for the commercials instead of the game.
At 23 years old, I started my first company, and I began to study marketing and how to target customers. At that point, I was working with traditional marketing, such as mailers and similar print materials. I’ve always been somewhat of a “techie,” and I’ve always seen the value of developing technology, using the internet, and keeping up with day-to-day changes of how we communicate and obtain information. I’ve been a social media junkie since it began. I knew it would be huge and continue to grow and affect marketing and advertising. I wanted to be a part of it, and here I am!
Can you share the funniest or most interesting story that happened to you in the course of your career?
When I was learning about selling on Facebook-when the platform first became public for advertisers, I decided to test a shirt that I knew would be a winner because it was a very niche-specific design. It was a niche I am passionate about and the design looked awesome! I hired a company to make the shirt as the orders came in, and to ship them to the customer directly. I launched the campaign for a Black Friday deal and it was an instant hit! The orders were coming through 24/7, and I was super excited because it was my biggest success at the time.
You’re probably wondering where is the mistake? Well at the time I had the design made, I looked at it on a monitor that wasn’t calibrated, and I made the huge mistake of not ordering a sample for myself. It turns out black print on a navy blue shirt does not show up well in person. After the orders went out, I started getting bombarded by messages on our fan page and emails complaining about the product. Customers emailed me pics of the product. It looked horrible.
That shirt went on to make about 12,000 dollars in sales before I pulled the plug because of the faulty design. I believe in quality and taking care of my customers over anything else, so by the time I was done sending replacements, processing refunds, and giving away gift certificates to make everyone happy, it actually cost me a lot more than that. In other words, the irony is that my first “real winner” in eCommerce ended up costing me a lot more than the revenue it generated. Lesson learned, and I NEVER made that mistake again. Every product is sampled and checked for quality control before we even put it online for testing to see if it sells.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
I’d like to think I have. When the whole pandemic hit there were a lot of local businesses that were caught off guard by not having an online presence especially local restaurants. In order to help I reached out to a lot of them locally and put together virtual training for them to help them set up an online presence in order to keep their businesses going and be able to service their customers online. I’ve also launched a YouTube channel called “PixlFeed” where I personally teach others everything there is to know about how to effectively run Facebook Ads along with everything related to digital marketing and how to take advantage of social media in general.
You have been blessed with great success in a career path that many have attempted, but eventually gave up on. Do you have any words of advice for others who may want to embark on this career path but know that their dreams might be dashed?
The answer is simple don’t give up. I see so many people in this business give up so easily, if you really want to make it you have to put in the work and you’re most likely to fail but there’s nothing wrong with failure because with every failure you learn a new lesson on what not to do or how you could have done something better.
None of us can achieve success without a bit of help along the way. Is there a particular person who made a profound difference in your life to whom you are grateful? Can you share a story?
There are so many people that helped me along the way especially in the beginning, my wife being one of them. Without her support when I decided to go for it all the way I honestly don’t know where I would be today.
So what are the most exciting projects you are working on now? How do you think that might help people?
I get to work with a lot of well known direct to consumer (DTC) brands from around the world that most of you are familiar with. This is exciting to me because it gives me access to all of their resources where we can create amazing content that let us run some amazing Facebook Advertising campaigns along with Instagram and social media in general.
What are your “Top Five Ways That Influencers Can Monetize Their Brand” . (Please share a story or example for each.)
1. Merch
Create your own brand. If you’re an influencer, that means you have fans and what better way for those fans to support you than by buying your merch? Start a Shopify store, hire a designer on Upwork, Fiverr or 99 Designs. Download a print on demand app like Printful where you can upload your designs to a shirt, hoodie or even coffee mug. Add the link to your store to every piece of content you create and always give a call to action at the end for your fans to visit your store. When fans go to your store and place and order companies like Printful take care of everything for you, it’s all automated! Let’s say someone orders one of your shirts, the order comes in, it gets sent to Printful automatically, they print the shirt with the design on it and even ship it for you! No need to worry about inventory or keeping up with orders is all done for you automatically.
2. Sponsorships
When you start to build a following a lot of business owners and brands are going to start approaching you to push their products. Try to work out a deal where you get paid upfront and commissions based on the amount of sales you bring them. Only work with brands that you believe in yourself and that are beneficial to your audience. Know your worth based on the number of followers you have and never ever sign anything without consulting with an attorney first.
3. Affiliate Marketing
If you don’t want to deal with starting your own products or your own stores you can always do affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is an online sales tactic that lets a product owner increase sales by allowing others targeting the same audience to earn a commission by recommending the product to their followers.
Simply put, affiliate marketing involves referring a product or service by sharing it on a blog, social media platforms, or website. The affiliate earns a commission each time someone makes a purchase through the unique link associated with their recommendation. Done well, this performance-based opportunity can be a very profitable business by netting you a healthy income.
4. Content Creation
Everyone has their own style and their own way of creating content. Media buyers like myself hire influencers to create content for our brands all the time. You’re already creating tons of it so might as well get paid for it. Do a search for platforms that put influencers in touch with brands, make sure to build your profile along with your portfolio and brands will start reaching out to you.
5. Consulting
People are eager to learn how to do this and the truth and the matter is that this is not something you can learn by going to school. If you’re a successful influencer you can create your own course teaching others how to do what you do along with how to succeed. You can charge for private masterminds along with 1 on 1 private consulting for individuals and even corporations that want to reach a specific audience.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
The education system needs a complete overhaul. Unfortunately, education in the US and many countries focuses on memorizing material and test scores. We need to focus on real-life skills and how to put ideas into action. People would benefit more from that kind of education system and, in turn, they will be more motivated and end up in careers they love and enjoy. It will help our country become more productive. We have great technology at our disposal and it should be used interactively to educate our kids.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this. 🙂
I would have to say Mark Cuban. He’s a billionaire in the tech sector and followed his passion for basketball by buying the Mavs and turned the franchise around. He’s invested in many startups throughout the years, and I like that he’s involved and spends time helping others realize their entrepreneurial dreams. I respect that many times he makes an investment in the person behind the business, not just because of the business itself. He came from nothing and went all the way to the top through hard work and determination. I admire his involvement in many different business sectors, and I aspire to be able to do one day as well.
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this!
