Item: GRIN
Rating: 10
Author: Olivia Schappert

Overall Satisfaction with GRIN

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use GRIN to host and support our influencer marketing program as well as our ambassador program. It is used to manage recruitment, applications, payments, emails/contact, content management, order generation, discount codes, etc! GRIN takes a process that use to involve Shopify, a scary spreadsheet, Gmail, PayPal, and a lot of man-hours, and puts it into one beautiful software that takes us a fraction of the time to use!

Pros and Cons

Pros

Influencer Recruitment.
Content management.
Influencer payments.
Influencer outreach/communication.

Cons

Adding more integrations (I know this is in process though).

Return on Investment

Increased ROI.
Increased productivity.
Increased content value.
Increased relationship with creators.
Major program growth.

Alternatives Considered

We looked at:
FOHR as well as many other small and new platforms and GRIN by far was more advanced, user friendly, and easier to implement. GRIN was not just good for the short term, but I know will continue to support me and my team for the duration of our program.

Key Insights

Do you think GRIN delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with GRIN's feature set?

Yes

Did GRIN live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of GRIN go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy GRIN again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Slack, Gorgias, Klaviyo, Attentive Mobile

Likelihood to Recommend

We had a mess of a program prior to onboarding GRIN! Since bringing it into our company we have seen a huge increase in brand ambassadors, a huge increase in ROI, as well as a HUGE increase in the work that is able to be done in the same 9-5 workweek. GRIN manages everything from start to finish with a campaign it truly is the Ferrari of influencer software and has taken our program to new heights. If you have an ambassador/affiliate program that you are having trouble managing, are at a plateau with, or are looking to revolutionize your processes and results GRIN is for you. If you are looking to start an ambassador/affiliate/influencer program, let GRIN take you there. This is the only software you will ever need, and it truly takes care of business!

Using GRIN

Users and Roles

2 - Influencer/ambassador marketing strategy, execution, and literally every single piece of our influencer/ambassador marketing discipline.

Support Headcount Required

2 - Organizational skills, people skills (talking to influencers etc), and drive (the user has to be motivated to find influencers, etc).

Business Processes Supported

Influencer Recruitment
Influencer Management (emails etc)
Tracking revenue, conversions, etc.

Innovative Uses

To support specific product launches with ambassadors (changing link destinations etc)
Increased tracking with GA
Truly building and maintaining detailed relationships with ambassadors via custom fields.

Future Planned Uses

To continue to support product launches
To find contact information for larger influencers
To support all of our sales/promos.

Likelihood to Renew

I wouldn't be able to run as high of a profitable or functioning influencer program without it. GRIN seriously is the organizational tool that propels us towards success, it is not in any way going to do the work for you, but it does make the work more efficient, easier, and WAY more organized.

Evaluating GRIN and Competitors

Products Replaced

Yes - We previously had an inexpensive app that integrated with Shopify. Overall it was very basic and didn't fit our needs, the only thing it took care of was tracking conversions and creating discount codes. We needed to replace the app because it was leaving a lot of meat on the bone so to speak, we could never scale (or manage it if we did) without more features.

Key Differentiators

Product Features
Product Usability
Product Reputation

Product features was the most important factor in our decision to move to GRIN. We needed the ability to manage every aspect of both our ambassador program and our influencer campaigns in one place. GRIN is also the leader in the industry so I felt confident that as our needs grew so would GRIN's technologies and that has proven to be true time and time again.

Evaluation Lessons Learned

If I had to do it again, I wouldn't change a single thing. Frequently competitors of GRIN reach out to me and my team to attempt to poach us from GRIN to their product. I feel so confident in my decision to use GRIN that I refuse to entertain any other software.

Comments

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Taylor Andrews
(Vendor Representative) commented 3 years ago
Thank you for your honest feedback, Olivia! We're always excited to hear how GRIN has helped tackle so many of the challenges of running an impactful program like yours. So glad that you're taking advantage of our robust integrations with Shopify and Gmail to help save time.

GRINNING IS WINNING