There's no question that the digital marketing landscape is changing faster than ever.
A big part of that is due to changes in consumer behavior and how they prefer to consume the content that’s important to them.
Legacy channels such as television are giving way to YouTube as the primary source of watch time, especially for younger consumers.
Beyond that, Instagram and TikTok are where many consumers go to learn about new products and conduct research before a purchase.
This means that smart brands who want to get in front of these engaged audiences need a competent and strategic influencer marketing plan.
The right influencer marketing agency is a key partner for this goal and can provide benefits that some people may not be aware of.
Below, we’ll outline why you should consider using an influencer marketing agency instead of going it alone when creating a social media marketing strategy.
What does an influencer marketing agency do?
A little more than 10 years ago, influencer marketing agencies didn’t even exist for the most part.
But as social media grew, existing marketing agencies simply didn’t have the expertise to deal with the rapidly changing landscape of social media.
This is when dedicated influencer marketing agencies started to come onto the scene.
Unlike traditional marketing that used relatively established methods, social media was changing so fast that it required a specialized approach.
That’s where an influencer marketing agency comes into play, and they help brands navigate the nuances of social media platforms so their marketing message is seen as authentic and engaging.
In short, an influencer marketing agency will provide the following services.
Help finding the right audience
When working with a solid influencer marketing agency, they’ll begin by studying your brand, your core customer, and what your brand’s goals are.
This may seem obvious and you may think you already know your customer, but the agency’s experience can uncover a lot of new opportunities and audiences to sell to.
Effective influencer marketing campaigns are made during the planning stages, and this is where a campaign can succeed or fail.
An influencer marketing agency understands how important this step is since every other decision is based on the information they learn during this initial process.
Influencer discovery & vetting
Discovering new influencers is also critical for campaign success.
The influencer’s audience needs to align perfectly with your brand message and core customer.
It’s more than just simply picking the influencer with the most followers or subscribers.
An influencer marketing agency understands how to quickly find and vet influencers to fit your campaign goals and strategy.
This process is also a very time-consuming aspect of influencer marketing, and brands that try to do this alone generally skimp on this step, leading to poor results or wasted resources.
Vetting influencers has to be done manually, so there’s really no way to get around this process, and using an influencer marketing agency ensures it’s done right and the rest of the campaign can succeed.
Today, many platforms promise to automate the process of influencer discovery and vetting.
However, the best results come from manually selecting and auditing each influencer for a campaign.
This ensures the greatest alignment between their audience and your brand.
Campaign content briefs & approval
This is where we start to get into the forward-facing content that your potential customers will see.
The content that each influencer will create is outlined in a content brief, which the influencer marketing agency creates and sends to each influencer.
Beyond just an outline for the content, this also addresses any brand safety guidelines, disclosure requirements, and other critical details so the message in the content resonates clearly with the audience.
This is also the step where authenticity starts to play a huge role. Authenticity is key to influencer marketing success, and the content is what drives authenticity.
A poorly made content brief can force the influencer to create inauthentic content, which turns off customers and looks fake or too much like an advertisement.
This is where a content brief makes all the difference and they need to be tailored to each influencer to play to the creator’s strength and delivery style.
Contracts with influencers
This area is often overlooked, but influencer contracts can be complicated and without the proper experience, can be a potential problem for brands trying to do their own influencer marketing.
An influencer marketing agency will have years of experience working with influencer contracts.
They also understand how to work directly with influencers or with their management company, which is common for larger influencers.
These contracts protect your brand and ensure you get the results you originally wanted. They also outline what the remedies are if something doesn’t go as planned.
Analytics during and after the campaign
Finally, an influencer marketing agency will provide key analytics during the campaign and post-campaign.
Many agencies will offer custom dashboards so you can create reports for your team to analyze.
These analytics go beyond just view counts and likes and show deeper activity so you can calculate an accurate ROI based on your marketing spending.
Main benefits of using an influencer marketing agency
The most successful brands in the world turn to influencer marketing agencies for a few key reasons.
We’ll outline those below so you can decide if an influencer marketing agency is the right choice for your marketing goals.
High success rate
Because of their experience, influencer marketing agencies will have a much higher success rate and positive ROI than if a brand starts from scratch.
A brand starting their own social media efforts from scratch will have to go through a trial and error period as they tweak various campaign factors.
This costs time and money. It may also harm the brand if the campaign comes off as inauthentic.
Customization for different social media platforms
Influencer marketing agencies will have a deep understanding of the nuances of each social media platform.
This may seem simple, but social media is a dynamic environment, and trends can change drastically in a short period of time.
An influencer marketing agency allows brands to leverage the latest trends while still maintaining authenticity and engagement.
Integration with your current marketing efforts
Marketing needs to be synergistic in the digital age. This amplifies your message and ensures full coverage across all marketing channels.
Influencer marketing agencies know how to amplify social media campaigns with paid advertising or other channels.
So if you’re running additional marketing campaigns, they can make sure your influencer marketing synergizes with your current efforts or whether you should adjust things for maximum benefit.
When choosing an influencer marketing partner, platforms like Tatari can complement your strategy by enabling data driven testing and performance tracking across connected TV campaigns.
Influencer marketing scalability
One of the key benefits of influencer marketing is that it scales better than many other kinds of digital marketing.
For example, pay-per-click advertising can deliver strong results, but many brands find it difficult to scale while maintaining ROI.
As you target more keywords, your ROI starts to fall.
Influencer marketing can scale much more effectively by targeting new audiences with the same proven marketing message.
However, this scaling takes experience and the ability to act quickly when a campaign is showing success.
Influencer marketing agencies know what to look for when launching a campaign and can immediately bring on new influencers to scale up as needed.
Full regulatory & platform compliance
Finally, there’s compliance with various regulations.
These can include domestic federal regulations as well as international regulations, depending on your brand.
It also includes platform-specific regulations in regard to promotional disclosures.
An influencer marketing agency will help you stay in compliance and avoid any possible problems when navigating this complex network of rules.
Do you need an influencer marketing agency to be successful?
In most cases, a successful brand will choose to partner with a dedicated influencer marketing agency.
The pros far outweigh the cons, and the money spent is earned back through improved ROI.
However, some brands may be able to conduct their social media marketing completely in-house if they have the following resources.
In-house marketing team with social media experience
Brands that already have an existing marketing team with the right experience may be able to create influencer marketing campaigns on their own.
Just make sure your team has the available bandwidth to take on these new duties or if you’ll need to hire new employees, which can be costly.
Social media savvy brands
Some brands are already highly social media savvy.
These are usually brands founded by a social media creator or someone else who has already shown prowess in building an audience through authentic messaging.
A brand like this can often create its own social media campaigns and have success, but it still takes time and effort to manage such a team, which may be more responsibility than the company wants.
So, even in these cases, some brands will hire an influencer marketing agency so the brand can focus on what they do best while other experts handle the marketing.
Small highly niche brands
If you’re a small brand that operates in a very small niche, you can sometimes manage your own social media marketing.
In a small niche, there’s generally a much smaller number of influencers, and you likely already know who most of them are and their audience.
This means it requires far less effort to choose influencers and audit each one to ensure they align with your brand and marketing goals.
These campaigns are also usually smaller in scale and less expensive, so influencer marketing agencies may not be interested due to the lower overall spend.
Overall, very specific brands can choose to manage their own social media, but in most cases, an influencer marketing agency provides the highest chance of success along with higher potential ROI on your marketing spending.