You’ve been given a difficult task. As an influencer marketing team, management has asked you to increase your performance while maintaining or decreasing your budget.
They’ve asked you for the magical ability to do more with less and it feels like you’re stuck with an impossible task. To draw inspiration from the ever-wise Winnie the Pooh, “People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.”
This article is going to help you achieve the impossible with nothing but some smart thinking and showcase the best ways to maximize your influencer marketing budget.
The Birth of Influencer Budgets
The responsibilities and budgets of influencer marketing have been traded between different business units since the early 2000s.
Like many cooks in the kitchen, public relations, social media, marketing, research and development (R&D), and other teams have all had their fair share of ladles in the influencer budget soup.
Now, specific influencer teams often own their budgets, but the benefits of a strong influencer program and budget to back it up can be felt across the organization.
Marketing Benefits
- Customer acquisition and testimonials
- Content creation at scale for product marketing
- Repurposed content on marketing and social channels
R&D Benefits
- Product research via surveys and focus groups
- New product ideation and concept testing
Shopper Marketing Benefits
- Drive traffic to in-store purchases
- Promote brand and retailers
Securing Your Budget
For most marketers, this is the largest challenge you’ll face in accomplishing your program’s goals. Whether it’s economic restraints, executive buy-in, or overall budget tightening, marketers know the fight for more money is never-ending.
However, if you can make the most of the dollars you’re given, you have a better chance of securing more budget in the future That said, accomplishing really big goals with a really little budget is near impossible.
So, if you need help securing the budget you want, try utilizing our resource for building an effective performance report to show your boss why more money should go your way.
How to Maximize Your Budget
Create a Comprehensive Activation Plan
If you’re asking a lot from your influencer budget, the least you can do is get specific. Go through your strategic calendar and map out your planned activations and campaigns as a way to work backward.
By taking this step, you can get a sense of which campaigns will take priority in your budget and what may need to be cut out. Here’s an example of a timeline in our 2022 Influencer Marketing Planning guide.
Best Budget Allocation
Proper budget allocation will extend your dollar as far as it can go. We know budgets may vary depending on the size of your organization, your experience with influencer marketing and other contributing factors.
Whether you’re working with a few thousand dollars or tracking towards one million, we’ve put together some sample budgets to help you allocate spend toward your influencer initiatives to build a wholistic program.
$10,000-$50,000 Budgets
- Use 50% of budget for an ambassador program or campaigns to create high-quality content distributed to the influencers’ audience. These channels include TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, blogs, etc.
- Use 25% of budget for paid media to distribute the highest performing content to target audiences through paid efforts. These channels include Instagram and Facebook via Ads Manager.
- Use 25% of budget for ratings and reviews to leverage influencers and advocates to create product reviews in exchange for product or nominal compensation. These channels include brand.com and e-commerce sites.
$100,000-$500,000 Budgets
- Use 20% of budget for a dedicated ambassador program to create high-quality content distributed to the influencers’ audience. These channels include TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, blogs, etc.
- Use 20% of budget for campaign plus-ups – i.e., save your budget for marketing campaigns, additional influencers, and content.
- Use 25% of budget for paid media to distribute the highest performing content to target audience through paid efforts. These channels include Instagram and Facebook via Ads Manager.
- Use 15% of budget for ratings and reviews to leverage influencers and advocates to create product reviews in exchange for product or nominal compensation. These channels include brand.com and e-commerce sites.
- Use 20% of budget used for platform fees to receive data-backed insights and measurements via a platform.
$1,000,000+ Budgets
- Use 20% of budget for a dedicated ambassador program to create high-quality content distributed to the influencers’ audience. These channels include TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, blogs, etc.
- Use 10% of budget for campaign plus-ups or events – i.e., save your budget for marketing campaigns, additional influencers, and opportunities.
- Use 10% of budget for brand lift to understand the impact of influencer marketing on the brand.
- Use 25% of budget for paid media to distribute highest-performing content to target audience through paid efforts. These channels include Instagram and Facebook via Ads Manager.
- Use 15% of budget for ratings and reviews to leverage influencers and advocates to create product reviews in exchange for product or nominal compensation. These channels include brand.com and e-commerce sites.
- Use 20% of budget for platform fees + expertise/services to work with experts and data-backed insights/measurement with a company.
1. Set Clear Goals and Metrics
This may seem like a no-brainer, but influencer and social media marketing is a relatively new and ever-changing industry. With new social features and creators emerging every day, it can be easy to lose sight of your goals.
Whether you’re a seasoned pro or a newbie marketer, goals and preferable metrics are the starting point of an effective influencer campaign.
Before you spend any money on the budget, make sure you clearly understand what you expect from the influencer marketing strategy you’re about to invest in. Do you want more website traffic? Brand awareness? Sales leads? Engagement?
By setting clear goals and metrics, you can ensure a return on your investment and adjust your influencer & social media strategy as needed to stretch your budget further.
Make sure you also tie these metrics to your overall brand success and revenue as best you can.
This is where influencer marketing platforms come in handy; by using technology to map influencer-powered results to business success, you’ll have an easier time determining what partnerships and strategies are most profitable.
2. Structure Deals that Maximize Content Value
This one is important and will save you loads of money in the long run.
Remember, it’s not just about working with influencers who have a high follower count; sometimes a smaller-scale influencer may have more sway over your specific target audience because they have a closer relationship with those individuals.
You want to focus on agreements that guarantee the most value for your money in regard to the content being produced and your overall objectives as a brand. Here are some reasons why people erode their trust in an influencer based on the content they produced:
One way to do this is by requesting certain types of content from influencers, like stories, photos with captions, or videos. By having influencers produce specific types of content, you’re able to control the overall narrative while still getting a creative spin from the people you trust.
Develop a campaign brief (within your influencer marketing platform) that clearly outlines the message and content types your company is interested in, and work as a team with your influencer(s) to design content that truly resonates with their audience.
3. Seek Micro-Influencers in Your Niche
While it’s important to have some household names on board, don’t forget about micro-influencers (who have 5,000—100,000 followers). In fact, they might be more beneficial to your campaign than the A-listers.
Micro-influencers are an underrated type of influencer that generally have a smaller but more engaged following, which can be extremely valuable to your brand.
They also tend to be more affordable and willing to try new things and more likely to hustle to grow their fan base. No wonder why 90% of businesses want to work with them.
Plus, micro-influencers are often viewed as more relatable and trustworthy by their followers– which is why micro-influencers boast an average engagement rate of 3.86%, while mega-influencers see only 1.21%.
The ideal way to start finding micro-influencers is by looking in your existing customer base. Community members who are already talking about your products or industry in general are more likely to want to work with you.
4. Collaborate with Other Brands
One way to get more from your influencer marketing budget is by teaming up with other brands in your industry. This can be done by partnering with a complementary brand on an influencer campaign or cross-promoting content across channels.
For example, if you have a skincare line and want to collaborate with an indie makeup brand.
You can team up and send each other products to use in tutorials, blog posts, or social media posts. AI-powered content marketing tools can also help you come up with ideas for collaborative posts.
Influencers are often receptive to working with multiple brands at once, especially if they compliment each other. Not only will this give you access to a whole new group of followers, but it’s a great way to build relationships with other industry leaders.
5. Work With UGC Creators
When it comes to cost-effective marketing, user-generated content is king. When you want both to come up with new content instantly and generate trust while still playing a role in the campaign process, you can rely on UGC Creators.
UGC Creators differ from traditional influencers and brand ambassadors as they’re primarily building content for brands to share on their own channels, rather than the creators’ channels. It’s the perfect marriage of the creator economy and UGC, and it’s less expensive to produce than in-house content.
6. Publish Influencer Content Across Multiple Channels
Just because you’re working with influencers doesn’t mean you should put all your eggs in one basket. In fact, the most successful marketing campaigns are those that use a variety of channels to reach their target audiences.
This can translate into measurable results, especially when you include an element of social commerce in your influencer campaigns (think: influencer posts shared on your brand’s website, tagged with featured products).
Influencer marketing can be paired with many marketing channels, such as email marketing, social media advertising, and content marketing, to maximize reach and engagement.
For example, if you’re launching a new product, you can use influencer marketing to create buzz around it, but also use paid ads and email marketing to drive sales.
This multi-channel approach will not only help you reach more people but will also increase your chances of converting leads into customers.
7. Measure and Analyze Results
The campaign doesn’t stop when the influencer posts go live. In order to determine whether your campaign was successful, you need to measure and analyze the results against the initial goals you outlined before the campaign began.
This includes looking at things like website traffic, social media engagement, and sales. By taking the time to measure and analyze the results of your campaign, you can make adjustments as needed to improve its effectiveness.
8. Repurposing Content
Producing new content takes a lot of time and money, and waiting for new content can be a massive bottleneck for marketing teams looking to increase ROI.
The savvy marketer employs a more cost-effective, faster, and equally effective strategy to boost their return: repurposing influencer-generated- content.
If your IGCt is relevant and aligns with your brand messaging, you’re getting more bang for your buck by repurposing it across more channels.
To ensure you’re getting re-purposable content from your creator partners, set them and your brand up for success from the beginning with these tips.
Make a Content Plan for Redistribution
If your creators are providing amazing TikTok content, repurpose it on Instagram Reels or an Idea Pin on Pinterest. Every redistribution is an opportunity to grow your brand’s influence and a dollar you don’t have to spend.
Utilize Your Ambassador Program
An ambassador program is a brand’s secret weapon for when content production with contracted creators may be slow or your brand needs a boost for the day. Ambassador programs typically provide high volumes of content for lower than average costs to stretch your budget.
Promote Your Ratings and Reviews
When partnering with creators for ratings or reviews, try offering an incremental incentive to those willing to submit a review in addition to the content they’re creating. They already have the product in hand for content creation, so why not ask for a review?
9. Avoid Budget Blunders
Working With the Wrong Influencers
Alignment on brand and influencer personas is a key step in the discovery process for a reason. If the creator doesn’t match your brand’s voice, tone, and values, it’s likely that the content they create won’t either and as such will miss your target audience.
Costly or Hidden Fees
Depending on your contract with a given creator, there are some hidden fees that may be an unwelcome surprise on your limited budget. In your influencer communication, watch out for fees around allowing listing, content syndication, and draft reviews.
Sending Products to Influencers Who Don’t Want It
A blunder all too familiar for marketing managers, this is pretty self-explanatory.
Avoid sending product until you have confirmed creators who are ready to receive it. Gone are the days of mass-mailing products to creators who did not agree to receive it.
