Why Brands Should Pay Influencers// Alternative Title: “Pay Me or Get Out of My Freaking Email Inbox”
Over the last 5(??) years, influencer marketing has been a favorite topic of marketing badasses.
Just google “Does influencer marketing work?” and you’ll find a few million articles, shouting about the pros and cons of influencer marketing.
But the real question, the one that most marketers seem to be asking or dancing around is, “How do I get an influencer to post about my product and pay the least amount of money possible?”
We optimize social media ads, congratulating ourselves on low ad spend leading to high conversion. We switch ad networks, affiliate networks, AdWords management companies, etc — trying to pay the least amount of money for leads and product purchases.
Here’s the thing: Influencer marketing is different. It doesn’t work like networks or regular ad buys.
Influencer marketing is a hybrid of ad buys AND making creative content.
Being cheap with influencer marketing harms your brand. And it doesn’t work.
If you want to spend your time giving away free product, then you should put $100 into a social media ad, and do a giveaway there.
Let’s talk about why you should be paying influencers:
1. You’re Paying for Content Creation
Have you ever outsourced a YouTube video, blog post or product photos to a freelancer or company?
There are websites out there, where you can pay someone $50 to put together a marketing video or pay 1 cent a word per blog post. You could hire the kid next door to take product photos on an iPhone 2 you found while cleaning out your junk drawer.
But you’re not.
Likely, you have researched and requested bids from a 3–5 companies or individuals for your project. You’ve looked at their portfolios and their websites, and you’re JAZZED about their work.
You do not show up in the inboxes of those companies or freelancers saying, “How much does a full day photoshoot cost for our new product?” And THEN offer to pay $0 (or a small percentage of the rate they’ve shared) because your product is SO AWESOME.
Influencers are freelance creatives.
Influencers are content creators. Influencers are curators. An influencer (that you want to work with), has likely invested quite a bit of money into equipment, learning how to create content — and it shows, because thousands of people follow her work.
Take away: Influencers are freelance creative professionals, and they should be paid — just like freelance creatives are.
2. Your Brand Values Require It
If I had a dollar for every “feminist” or “inclusive” brand that showed up in my (or my influencer clients) email inbox, asking for the influencer to share their product for free — I’d have a lot of dollars to help pay off my fancy college student debt.
It is SO WILD to me, when a brand that targets women shows up in the email inbox of a woman — and wants free labor. A brand that’s done ~body positive~ or ~inclusive~ ad campaigns, posted about the wage gap, etc.
Like, you want women’s dollars — but you don’t want to PAY women?? WTF?
That’s hypocrisy, and eventually, some time or place, an influencer will mention this via a tweet. And you’ll have a PR shit show on your hands.
Take away: If you can’t pay women because your brand values require it, you SHOULD do it so you don’t have to hire a fixer PR firm.
Feminist Apparel is a good example of this.
(Description of Images: Feminist Apparel in Instagram DMs, asking to use the image shared in their product on their social media pages and website. When prodded about payment, the company declines.)
3. The Market is Crowded
In my experience, an influencer with about 50,000 followers on Instagram gets around 2–3 product inquiries a day, or around 80 a month.
Many of those companies aren’t interested in paying for sponsored content. To be conservative, I’ll say that half of them aren’t interested in paying the influencer’s rates. So that’s 40 companies trying to get free content.
Time for some mental math. Let’s say an influencer posts to Instagram daily. That’s 30 opportunities for your product, right? Ehhh, no.
According to best practices, only 20% of an influencer’s posts should be promoting product.
So, out of the 30 posts a month, that’s 6 posts that promote a product. Of those posts, let’s say an influencer lands 3 paid partnerships.
That means 40 companies (who want freebies) are vying for 3 spots.
The odds are not in your favor.
Also, because you’re sending a free product — you have basically ZERO say as the the type of content (if any) the influencer makes. When a company asks to approve the photo before it’s posted, and they haven’t sponsored the content, I just chuckle to myself.
The influencer isn’t working for you, because she’s not invoicing you.
Influencers. Prioritize Invoices. Free product often becomes gifts for other people.
Take away: When it comes down to it, unless you’re selling YSL bags, your product likely isn’t going to stand out from ~40 other free products.
4. There is no such thing as a free lunch
Okay, let’s say that you do (somehow) manage to snag an influencer for 20% of her regular rate or for free.
The content just isn’t going to be as good.
If an influencer gets a good sponsor, one she wants to build a relationship with (returning customers ftw), she’ll do EVERYTHING she can to make sure the content posted gets as much engagement and eyeballs as possible.
She’ll point out the post a few times on her IG stories, mention it in her email list, prep friends/family to comment on the post to boost engagement BEFORE SHE POSTS IT, etc. She’ll spend a ton of time replying to every single comment on the post, feeding ~the algorithm~ so more people see it. She’ll do extra things that you won’t be able to quantify and put in a contract.
She’s just not going to do that for a company she feels isn’t paying fair. She’ll take a good photo, sure, but it’s more like to die on the vine.
Take away: Like with all freelancers, consultants or agencies — expect half-assed effort for half-assed payment.
Finally.
The goal of influencer marketing should not be, “How can I pay the least amount of money possible?” or “How can I get this influencer to promo our product for free?” Because it harms your brand (see numbers 1–4, above). Rather, the goal of influencer marketing is to create the highest amount of engagement and high quality content — within a budget that respects the time of creatives.
Do you need help with influencer marketing? Let’s chat.
About Brianne
Hey, I’m Brianne! I’m a online marketing consultant and personal coach. You can check out my website here, and my fashion blog here!
