The truth of influencer marketing is it all begins and comes down to cost.
Whether starting a new campaign or looking to hire an influencer, one thing is certain: your budget will dictate much of your decision-making process.
You’ll need to finalize how much you can afford to spend on influencers and how much you’ll get in return for that investment.
And this investment is better off spent only on the influencer marketing process and not compensating hidden costs that you don’t even know exist.
You’re putting money into something that could be hugely beneficial and budget-saving or pouring money down the drain.
The only way to figure out which direction your campaign should head is by understanding the ins and outs of influencer marketing platforms and agencies.
Middle Men Involvement
The term “MIDDLE MEN” goes by definition: It plays the role of an intermediary in any distribution that enables interaction between parties.
And what does middlemen involvement have to do with influencer campaign costs?
Having middlemen (agencies) handle the brand-influencer conversation adds up to costs for itself.
To be precise, agencies don’t serve as a BRIDGE between the influencer and your brand but behave differently. A WALL.
Your brand will not have any say when it comes to campaigns, building a relationship with the influencer, or even selecting the right one for your brand. Your campaign brief is developed based on the agency’s preference.
In an Influencer marketing platform, there are no middlemen involved. You will be in charge of everything right from the planning to execution.
This gives you full control over your campaign and includes the costs associated with the influencers.
Your in-house team will be responsible; hence you don’t have to deal with hidden costs.
Campaign Budget Saving
One of the important things you need to know about outsourcing campaigns is that there are hidden costs—and sometimes, they’re not so hidden.
For every layer of the process involved in an influencer marketing campaign, there will be additional costs.
Sometimes these costs aren’t even mentioned during your campaign-brief call.
Also, there’s no way to tell if the quoted cost for the influencer is the actual cost.
In many cases, influencers might not be aware that the agency increases their deliverable costs to brands(like yours).
When running influencer campaigns using an influencer marketing platform, you will have the cost details of an influencer.
This should solve most of your problems with paying extra costs.
Another plus point for brands is that influencer marketing platforms give the influencers direct contact details, so you build a better relationship with them.
This can be a great factor to consider given that you can use onboard the influencer (you’ve collaborated multiple times) to be your brand ambassador, or since you provide them with a lot of campaigns, there’s a chance they’d reduce the costs at some point helping to save your campaign budget.
Influencer Cost Transparency
There’s no option for brands to contact influencers directly when outsourcing a campaign to an agency.
The influencer cost is the agency’s greatest advantage to quote as much as they wish, costing you more.
This will not be a one-time campaign where you’d pay for the influencer. If you are to work with the same influencer again, the agency will keep costing the same hefty price.
Instead of paying X to an influencer, you end up paying 5X every time you collaborate.
Agencies cannot provide the influencer’s contact information to ensure their business isn’t affected.
Influencer marketing platforms give the influencer the exact cost, providing the transparency any brand would need.
You can also request their deliverable cost if influencers have not updated their current price.
Having the option to view influencer cost details gives you an idea of how your marketing budget will look like.
Cost Negotiation
When outsourcing influencer campaigns with agencies, here are something to know:
- The agency will negotiate the cost with the influencer based on your brand’s request
- There’s no guarantee that the agency will actually negotiate and reduce costs (they might just reduce one of their additional charges).
Influencer marketing platforms provide the actual cost of the influencer per deliverable and social media platform.
These are great because they provide a way to compare costs across different influencers and ensure you’re getting a fair price.
However, your in-house team must negotiate costs with the influencer and agree on a mutually beneficial price.
Since the entire campaign control is in your hands, so does the negotiation with influencers.
Cost Benchmarking
When working with an agency, you have no idea how much the influencer cost is going to be.
Not knowing the actual cost means you can’t benchmark previous campaign costs.
When you partner with the same influencer multiple times, the agency will tend to charge the same amount—giving no room for negotiation.
With influencer marketing platforms, brands can see the previous campaign costs to benchmark their current charges.
This helps determine whether the influencer’s current charge is appropriate and for brands to consider raising or lowering their budget.
Key Takeaway
Here’s a quick recap of what’s discussed till now:
| Factors to consider | Qoruz Platform | Agency |
| Middle men involved | No | Yes |
| Budget saving | Yes | No |
| Transparency in influencer cost | Yes | No |
| Cost negotiation by the inhouse team | No | Yes |
| Cost benchmarking | Yes | No |
Conclusion
Cost transparency is the key to successful influencer marketing.
Platforms like Qoruz attempt to eliminate the middlemen by providing direct access to influencers and their information.
Direct access = cost and campaign transparency = efficient and budget-friendly influencer marketing campaigns.
