True or False: Australian Influencer Marketing Myths Under Spotlight

Influencer marketing: should you, or shouldn’t you?

There seems to be some pretty strong opinions floating around town on this marketing medium.

You know how it goes…influencer collaborations sending sales through the roof, and then the not so glossy stories where conversions are flat, deliverables aren’t met, communication is flaky, and expectations fall short.

As a Geelong Digital Marketing agency, we’re well versed across all thing’s influencer marketing.
Our social media team live and breathe it. 

So, we thought we’d debunk some of the common myths around engaging influencers and share our experience to help you feel more informed and empowered if you’re assessing whether this is a path to go down.

 

Not all influencers will want to work with your brand 

TRUE

Yep, no matter how juicy the offer is, influencers can be very selective in the brands they work with, which can be damn frustrating (and time consuming) when it comes to admin.

Generally, the bigger the following, the more fastidious the influencer, and they’ll only want to work with your product if it’s aligned with their personal brand, values, and audience. 

You’ll also have to be mindful they may be under an existing contract with a competitor. No deal. 

We recommend being strategic with the list of influencers you choose to contact, do your research, and gauge interest before spending time putting together tailored offers. 

You also need to be informed of market rates for content (posts, stories, unboxings, video, reels etc) in accordance with follower count, demographic and level of engagement.

 

You’ll be guaranteed amazing content

FALSE

This one is a tough pill to swallow – especially if you’ve forked out a five or six figure offer to a macro influencer. 

Getting crystal clear on what you expect from the influencer is a must and should be stipulated in your contract. You’ll also want to do some digging to see the content they’re already creating for brands and if this is up to par.

There will be the set of deliverables, deadline and posting times. But you’ll also need to include any creative direction or provisions to ensure the content ticks the boxes. 

We recommend creating a personalised brief for each influencer that is in line with their personal brand and the style of content they create. 

It’s also important to be realistic when it comes to sales and conversions. 

There are many outcomes of influencer marketing: brand awareness, user generated content, increase in followers, website traffic – it’s good to measure all of this as part of your KPIs.

You can’t negotiate pricing

FALSE

Influencers will typically have a rate card with their pricing, or you may approach an influencer with a budget, or an offer and set of deliverables.

If, for whatever reason, the influencer turns down your offer, or their rates exceed your budget, there is usually room for negotiation.

A big fat no, isn’t the end. Trust us when we say, we’ve turned many no’s into a yes with some good ol’ back and forth discussion.

This might mean reducing the scope of work (outcome), sweetening the deal with some additional gifted products, or finding a happy medium with the price point.

 

It’s a time-consuming process

TRUE

Influencer outreach can be a very time-consuming process, which is why many companies outsource this to marketing agencies, like us, to save time and all the hassle involved.

You’ll not only spend hours finding suitable influencers that are on brand and have an audience aligned with your ideal target audience demographic.

You will also need to audit their engagement rate, ensure their following is authentic, build a rapport with them, and communicate with them or their agent.

There is a lot of back and forth to discuss timing, strategy, deliverables, so being flexible is essential.

 

You can use their content across your marketing material

FALSE

Just because you’ve paid an influencer to post a photo/video with your product, this doesn’t mean you have the intellectual property rights over that image/video.

It’s super important to check the fine print within an influencer agreement before signing the dotted line to ensure you’re aware of where, when and how their content can be used.

You may have paid for an Instagram post with permission to share on your feed.

However, there may be clauses within the contract that stipulate a timeframe for this i.e (for a 3-month period), and you’ll likely need additional permission to use the post on your website or other marketing collateral.

The legalities of influencer marketing can be murky, which is why you must do your due diligence before making a partnership Insta official.

 

Influencer marketing can see business growth skyrocket

TRUE

There may be some things you need to be careful of when engaging an influencer, but trust us when we say, when you choose the right one for your brand and have a rock-solid strategy, it can be a very, very fruitful (and cost-effective) partnership – even better than paid ads.

When managed correctly, the return on investment can lead to sell-out campaigns, waitlists for your products and services, see social media followers explode, and build positive brand cred with your ideal audience.

There’s a reason why brands continue to work with influencers – and we’ve seen first-hand with our own clients the positive outcomes of a successfully run influencer marketing campaign.