Modelling and Influencer Lawyers Give Tips to Avoid when Hiring an Influencer Marketing Consultant
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Introduction
Any smart business owner in today’s business world recognises that the right influencers are a top priority when launching a new business, product, or service. Hiring the right influencer, agency, or consultant, can be the difference that makes the difference to your brand’s productivity, profitability and success.
If a business is hiring an employee in a traditional role or outsourcing to a traditional marketing agency the issues to watch out for are clear. In a traditional hire when reviewing candidates you would consider a mix of factors, including credentials, work experience, personality, and skills.
However, influencer marketers are a new breed of marketers that hold an elusive role that cannot always be clearly defined. We represent start-ups and SMEs who often complain about the risks they face when hiring an influencer agency or consultant.
Why is hiring an influencer agency or consultant a risky venture? Influencers sit in the space between brands and the public and they do not often conform to the established business norms and in some situations have harmed the reputation of brands. The term influencer literally means a person (or persons) that is influential with a particular segment of the public enough to affect their decisions by promoting a particular brand, product, or service within the community in which they have influence.
Leonardo De Caprio has 53.9 million followers on Instagram and is well-known for his interest in the environment. Leonardo would be an influencer in the environmental industries. Many of Mr. De Caprio’s followers are also likely to be environmentalists so if you are a brand that wants to reach environmentalists Mr de Caprio would be an influencer that would make sense to promote your brand.
A lack of written clarity in a contract will create a multitude of problems you don’t need and ultimately result in wasted funds, time and possibly a damaged reputation.
Well-known influencers include Huda Kattan a make-up artist with over 59.3 million Instagram followers and is said to be worth almost a billion dollars.
The nature of an influencer’s work, however, is largely undefined and still evolving so if you start things off without a plan, it’s easy for your influencer agency or consultant to deliver results that fall short of your expectations.
Paying little attention to your project outcomes would be a major mistake when hiring an influencer agency or consultant. When you work with influencers, you’re making them your brand cheerleader which can be very problematic if they suddenly fall off the grid, get arrested for drugs, or go off-brand message. Therefore influencers need to be carefully managed and hiring the right Influencer agency or consultant is critical in being able to hire the right influencer.
A lack of written clarity in a contract will create a multitude of problems you don’t need and ultimately result in wasted funds, time, and possibly a damaged reputation.
Here are our tips for hiring influencer agencies or consultants and influencers based on our years of experience dealing with these relationships.
Top do’s and don’t’s when hiring an influencer agency or consultant
1. Clear goals
Before you do any hiring you need to know what you’re trying to achieve. Set clearly defined, SMART goals for the work.
You might not know how to create content for an influencer promotion, that’s why you’re hiring an influencer agency or consultant, but you do know your business, products, team, ethos, vision, and digital marketing strategy.
Each of those elements needs to align with the influencer you work with, the consultant you choose, and the influencer project they create for you.
Outline your goals for using an influencer agency or consultant as a strategy so it’s a solid method that’s designed to grow your business.
Ultimately, business growth is the reason why you’re using an influencer agency or consultant.
Rather than just jumping on the bandwagon because you believe influencer marketing will be a profitable way to grow your business, you need to approach it with the same business-focused outlook you would apply to any other digital strategy.
Your goals should factor in everything from the budget to who you’re targeting and the specific social media platforms they use.
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2. Think recruitment
The influencer agency or consultant you choose to work with will be a business partner therefore it’s important you view the hiring of your influencer agency or consultant as an extension of your employee recruitment.
The influencer agency or consultant you choose is your gateway to the best influencer for your business.
Your influencer agency or consultant will hold a really important role as they manage your influencer and the projects your influencer delivers for you. An Influencer agency or consultant will hand pick talent to deliver to you and give you reasons why that talent is best suited to your campaign. A good influencer agency means that you will be informed about conflicts they might have working with other brands before you start. You will also be able to rely on them to get the right influencer marketer for your brand that will really suit your campaign.
Productivity, engagement, and conversions will be much higher than doing it yourself as influencer marketing agencies specialise in influencer marketing so they are better informed of which influencer to approach. Influencer agencies or consultants are better at spotting influencer fraud. Since influencer agencies have worked with certain influencers over a long period of time, they have seen them build their followers organically.
3. Research your niche
Choose an influencer marketing agency with the niche experience you need to access the right type of influencer on the correct platform for the potential customers you wish to reach.
Find out if your chosen influencer marketing consultant has managed influencer projects for businesses like yours before. What are the metrics for the results they’ve achieved through influencer marketing for similar businesses in the past?
What are their industry connections? Which influencers could they offer you? What’s the performance data for those influencers?
4. Profitability as the end game
One of the drawbacks of social media marketing strategies is that you can do a lot and make no profit. Influencer marketing is at the top end of spending for social media marketing so you must ensure you have clear KPIs in place before you start.
The influencer marketing agency you select should be able to clearly explain how they will track and report performance so you can evaluate your return on investment from early on.
5. It’s not a numbers game
Followers don’t equal profits so make sure your KPIs will be based on revenue, engagement, conversions, and website traffic.
Similarly, don’t assume you need to work with influencers at the top of the industry. Known as mega-influencers, these influencers with over 1 million followers might look impressive but they’re not necessarily the best fit for your business.
You might find the best match for your products, team, and ethos in a nano-influencer with less than 10,000 followers or a micro-influencer with less than 100,000 followers.
10,000 followers who are likely to buy your products are far better than 1 million followers who are unlikely to ever buy anything from you.
Make sure your chosen influencer is on the right social media platform for your target market with enough followers likely to become returning customers.
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6. Trusted employee
Think of the influencer you will work with as a high-level employee. This employee will be the face of your business. Your chosen influencer needs to be someone you can trust who is carefully managed by a capable member of your team.
That team member is your influencer marketing consultant so make sure the person you opt for is fully aligned with your company ethos. Give your influencer marketer a clearly defined scope in which to manage both your influencer and the projects they deliver carefully.
Ensure there are contracts in place with clear terms and conditions for everything from payment structure to the words used to describe your products. Remember it’s your reputation at stake. We offer advice on all types of influencer and marketing agreements for all types of projects.
7. Aligned projects
The influencer marketing consultant you choose should have the capacity to align any influencer marketing with your wider digital marketing strategy.
Influencer marketing projects will need to feed into your company social media strategy as well as website development if they are to have an impact.
When an influencer’s followers’ interest is sparked they should be taken straight to your social media account which should be ready to receive them (or they may go straight to your website). From there it’s on to your website to either make a sale or begin the first stages of research
This process should be planned and properly managed by your influencer marketing agent who will need to work with your social media and website leads.
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Action
If you do find yourself in dispute with an influencer marketing consultant or have any legal concerns relating to the technology sector, we can help. Media lawyers for over 20 years, from technology to digital media, intellectual property rights and online content, we assist business owners, marketers and entrepreneurs worldwide. Call today on: 0207 305 7491, or email: peter@pailsolicitors.co.uk. Please see our media and entertainment services.
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