5 things you must look out for in your agency before shooting your influencer marketing campaign

If you’re planning on shooting an influencer marketing campaign with the help of an agency, there are things to demand from your influencer marketing agency before getting started. If you are getting into influencer marketing, there are obviously 2 ways to get into it. First route is through an influencer marketing agency and the second one is do it with the help of an in-house team. Both have their pros and cons and we will definitely cover those in a different post. This is specifically if you are going ahead with a dedicated agency. Since you are going to do this for the first time, you need to make sure that you have found an agency that can help you reach your goals. You need to make sure that the agency offers you these 5 qualities before proceeding further.

1. Ask the agency for a detailed brief with an action plan

When you’re working with an agency on your influencer marketing campaign, it’s important to start with a detailed brief. This will help the agency understand your goals and objectives, and ensure that they are on the same page as you. Moreover, you will get an idea about how they work and if they are a good match for your goals. Beyond just a general sense of your brand identity, you need to be specific about the messaging, call to action, and feel of the campaign. The more information you share with the agency, the better they understand your goals and it will ultimately help you understand their action plan in a better way. You must ask them how they are planning to represent you in these specific areas –

• The action plan– Ask them how they are planning to launch your campaign? What are the goals they will be looking at each step? What’s the timeline for each specific deliverable? Once you have a clear timeline from them, you can prepare a GANTT diagram to see how your campaign is going to pan out.
• Visuals– What kind of visual identity are they planning for your brand? This includes everything from general aesthetic to specific elements like hashtags, images, logos, filters, fonts, presentation and colors.
• Target Audienceand reach – Who are you trying to reach with this campaign and is the agency aligned with your goal? Has the agency suggested some influencers based on the demographics, interests, and needs of your target audience? Are they able to share the audience analytics of those influencers with you? If you have yes for all these questions, then you might be on the right path.
• Delivery and reporting– Now that you are happy with the agency based on the points we discussed, you can go ahead and inquire how they are planning to deliver it and what is going to be the reporting style. Ask them what KPIs will they be using to measure the response.
• Pricing transparency– Definitely the last but not the least. Every new concept starts in a rogue way where the early risers and opportunist make a fortune due to the lack of standard practices. A recent poll, done on Linkedin by APPRl, revealed that around 50% of the respondents thought that their agency charged them more than 20% as commission as the agency was never transparent about what they have been paying to the influencers. This is a huge number and if you are not asking yourself if the agency you have selected is being transparent with you, you might become one of those 50% respondents.

2. Leverage Their Expertise and Relationships–

The agency you partner with should already have strong relationships with influencers in your industry. If they don’t, they likely won’t be able to get you the placements you want or get you the best rate. Be sure to ask about the relationships they have before you sign on.

In addition to having strong relationships, your agency should be able to leverage those relationships to get you placement on platforms like Snapchat, Instagram Stories, and Tweets etc. If they can’t, find an agency that can.

Now the question is how do you make sure that the agency has a huge pool of influencers for you and what kind of relationship they have with those influencers? Here are some ways that can help you-

1. Insist on seeing the influencers’ social media analytics
2. Ask for a list of similar campaigns the agency has run in the pastand ask or results
3. 3. Ask about the agency’s process for onboarding and managing influencers
4. Make sure you plan a short meeting with the agency and influencer so that you get an idea if the agency was able to deliver your message to the influencer in the right way.

3. Clear and Consistent Reporting-

This is definitely one of the most important things you should demand from your agency is clear and consistent reporting. This will help you track the progress of your campaign, and ensure that it is on track to meet your goals. Your agency should provide you with monthly or weekly reporting that is clear, concise, and consistent. This report should include vanity metrics such as reach, impressions, and engagements, as well as conversions and ROI. The agency should also be able to provide custom reports upon request.

Understanding the report is the most important thing you don’t want to fall in the pitfall of overspending and trust me, best of the brands have been through this. Once you understand the report that the agency is sharing with you, you will be able to make a decision about how your second attempt is going to look like. You will be able to make a list of influencers who performed well for you and work with them again in near future. Thus, I would recommend you to ask your agency to create a report that has –

• Total no of followers/subscribers
• Potential impression (you can get it from the analytics)
• Actual impression
• Total spend on that campaign
• Total engagement
• Cost per engagement
• No of clicks
• And finally CTR

Once you are able to see all these parameters, you will be able to make an informed judgement on how your campaign has been performing and what should be done in the next phase.

4. Uses Technology to Streamline the Process-

An experienced influencer marketing agency will use technology to streamline the process. This includes an influencer outreach software that automates repetitive tasks and a robust CRM to manage relationships with influencers. It’s also important to have a system in place to track your progress and measure success. An agency that uses technology to streamline the process of influencer marketing is a valuable asset. This will save you time and money, and ensure that your campaign is run efficiently.

The process of influencer marketing can be time-consuming and messy, with a lot of moving parts. An agency that uses technology to streamline the process is a valuable asset. So have you asked your agency how they do all these processes and what kind of technology they have been using to save their time and money?

Understandably, influencer marketing works better with human intervention as it is a game of communication and relationships. But these things come later when you have finalized a list of creators for you. Before that, it is all technology that can help you find thousands of creators in a sea of millions of influencers. Once the execution part is done, it again all comes to technology that can help you to generate reports and see what has been happening to your campaigns.

There are agencies who simply share the database of influencers with the brands with some details that can help you to decide if they are worth working with. So next time whenever you decide to find an agency for your campaigns, do look for this one as we are living in a world of automation and technology.

5. Avoids Being Excessively Controlling-

There’s a delicate balance that needs to be struck when managing an influencer marketing campaign. Too much control and you’ll look like a stage-five clinger, too little control and your creative could go off the rails (and off-brand).

Your agency should have systems and processes in place to help avoid any mishaps, but at the same time, give influencers the freedom to be creative and produce content that will resonate with their audience. While it’s important to be involved in your campaign, you should ask your agency to not excessively control the influencers. This can lead to problems with the influencers, and ultimately hinder the success of your campaign.

Now that we have covered all the points, do you think your agency has all these qualities or you need to find some other agency? If your answer is yes in any case, we must be on the right track. Even if you still have any questions left or you are just a beginner in this field, you can get in touch with us and we will happily help you solve all your queries. Meanwhile, stay tuned for more updates like this as we are on a path to make influencer marketing as easy as getting groceries is.