With a new viral beauty product out every other week, consumers are often reduced to the dollar amount the latest “must-have” product is worth. Meanwhile, with the brands beauty marketer leads— like , EADEM, and Camille Rose— influencer-led community building is at the core of their success. “Influencers are not only influential in a way where they can sell a product, but they’re influential within their communities,” Payne tells ESSENCE.
As consumers increasingly value ethical brands they can trust, her key strategy builds a story around the ones she represents, growing real emotional connections with audiences. That way, she can set an intention for the community in which each product is a part of. “Sometimes, the best way to create a real ground around a product, a brand, etc.
, is to be able to affect, not only the person that you’re targeting,” the Ohio-born, New York-based consultant says. “but also the community around them.” Payne’s career took a turn from bussing tables at a restaurant when Solange Knowles’ assistant Shabazz put her onto Saint Heron.
Since then, her trajectory led her across industries: from doing marketing for musicians like Doja Cat, SZA and Alicia Keys, and even heavy-hitting fashion brand Coach. All of this was before she found her home within the beauty industry’s rising brands. Below, she opens up about her dynamic beginnings, intentions for Black beauty brands, and the priceless marketing advice she’s received.
I actually come from a background of being in corporate America. My career started within the music industry. One of my first jobs I ever had was working for where I came on essentially as an editor for her platform, .
There, I wrote about music, and culture under the Solange aesthetic and umbrella. I left working with Solange after about two years and I wrote for . I worked at RCA Records as a digital coordinator.
I worked at Interscope Records as well and I was in the music industry for about four or five years. That whole era of being able to work for Solange was so pivotal in my career. I was just bussing tables, so when the opportunity came along for me, it was divine timing.
I credit Solange’s assistant, Shabazz, for kicking off my career. She knew me from being in New York and she was like, ‘I see something in you’ that I essentially didn’t even see in myself. She took me under her wing, taught me the ropes.
I didn’t come from an editorial background. Going into Saint Heron, they have a very certain aesthetic, a certain way of looking at culture. It was pivotal because I think that it’s something that carried me throughout my career.
I see a lot of how that experience is showing up in my time at Eadem, because, being a French brand, the aesthetic is very, very intentional. It’s very intricate. Everything kind of comes full circle.
To me, influencer marketing, in a sense, is essentially a pillar within your marketing department to help amplify the product or brand. It’s about being able to affect the people around you. Sometimes it’s not about having them buy a product, but being able to create an emotional connection.
I don’t look at the content creators that I work with as influencers. I look at them as a part of the community that I’m in. I have real relationships with a lot of them.
I had the honor of working with Doja Cat in the early parts of her career, SZA, Justin Timberlake, Alicia Keys, and Billie Eilish. That was kind of my kick off. I’ve done influencer marketing ever since.
It’s like a passion of mine. It’s a love of mine. I left the music industry after about four or five years and I took a stab at fashion.
I became the senior global influencer marketing manager and strategy manager at Coach. I was there for a little over a year. I really wanted to just kind of take a leap of faith and kind of see where I landed and I had the amazing opportunity to go to Topicals.
I led the influencer marketing strategy at Topicals. It was very much an honor being able to work under the Topicals founder Olamide Olowe in the early stages of what Topicals is now. We had some really big moments like the Ghana trip and seeing the all over the place.
I was one of the key players behind that and that was my kick off into the beauty industry. Coming into beauty was a way for me to challenge myself because I had already learned the ropes of the music industry. I already learned the ropes of the fashion industry, but beauty was a space where I felt like I could be a teacher and also be a student.
I had the opportunity to go to L’Oréal or some of these bigger brands, but I really wanted to nurture relationships with up-and-coming Black-owned and PoC beauty brands. I wanted to bring all of the skills that I’ve learned over time to these brands and help amplify what they are doing. Topicals was my first stab at that.
I consult for EADEM, which is a French beauty brand that I absolutely love. We actually just launched our new product . I also work for a hair company called in Atlanta.
I work with both of those brands simultaneously. That’s kind of where I am now. I have a long-standing relationship with them.
I also have a lot of respect for the ones I choose because, for me, it’s bigger than just ‘here, I’ll give you this lip balm and you post it on Instagram.’ How are you affecting the people around you? What’s your voice within your community? How are you uplifting the people around you? I think that that’s how you create real influence on marketing strategies and real relationships. That’s also how you sell products: digging into that second layer of who these influencers are.
I think that one of the things I loved about what I was able to do at Coach was that I brought in new breath to an old brand. Coming into Topicals, one of the things that they wanted me to lean into was bringing in a diverse audience and an audience that would stay around for the story. It was all about being able to connect influencers to the brands that were not only interested in the products, but were interested in the people behind the products, too.
One of my strategies that I use is from this guy . He has a Black-owned advertising and marketing company called . For me, he is God-level when it comes to influencer marketing.
He told me there are two things to keep in mind to be successful at influencer marketing. The first is that you have to build a relationship, it can’t be pay for play. Secondly, sometimes the best way to create a real ground around a product or brand is to be able to affect, not only the person that you’re targeting, but also be able to affect the community around them.
That’s been my trick. My entire strategy is to create this robust, evergreen strategy where all the ‘it’ girls, guys and everybody has this lip balm to the point where it’s like, ‘why don’t I have it?’ I think it creates this level of FOMO because everybody has a fear of missing out. Everybody wants to be a part of this inner circle, this inner community.
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