Should Creators Try Products Before Promoting?

We all know the feeling. We receive an email from a brand about a sponsored promotion. We can quickly record the video without trying out the product and make a quick dollar. Or we can wait it out and do a full product review. It is a hard decision to make. But after years of helping creators make money with brands that make a positive impact, I have realized the answer is: always try the product before promoting it. 

There are two reasons why. 

Protect The Audience Relationship: 

Your relationship with your audience is built on trust. They trust that your recommendations will be based on products and services you have used and liked. While brands pay you based on the number of people you can reach with your posts, brands truly want to pay you based on the number of people who trust and are inspired by your recommendations. If you lose the trust of your audience because you promote low-quality products, the future promotions you do will be less impactful. And if those ads are less impactful for your consistent brand partners, they may decide to cancel. The YouTube influencer marketing world is built on trust. Your word matters more than anything to your audience, so never jeopardize your relationship with your audience to make a quick dollar. Ethically and financially, it just is not worth it. 

Protect the Brand Relationship:

Creators rely on brands for income. For most creators, sponsorships are their single largest source of income. When you dive deeper into that sponsorship income, we often see that creators have a handful of brands that sponsor their content each month. Those consistent, long-term partnerships help to keep the channel consistently profitable / sustainable. For creators, there is nothing better than a consistent, month-over-month sponsorship partner. Suppose we know that audiences are more likely to trust your recommendation because your ad read is filled with your personal experience with the product. In that case, we know that ad reads with personal recommendations will result in more products sold from the ad. From there, the math is really quite simple, brands that see positive sales results will turn into long-term partners. Brands not seeing good results from your ad will not book more deals with you. So if you rush the first ad, you may blow your shot at a long-term deal with a brand.

Don’t risk your audience or your brand relationships for a quick dollar. Do what is right and make sure you are always testing products before promoting them. Your future self will thank you for it!