As a business ready to leverage influencer marketing, negotiating pricing with an influencer for a collaboration can seem challenging for some. While it cannot be avoided, it is necessary to approach the conversation with the required tact. Many e-commerce brands find this aspect of influencer marketing tricky to handle. This is mainly because every business wants to maintain positive long-term influencer partnerships with creators and influencers alike.
When done right, negotiating with influencers doesn’t have to be the much-dreaded part of the deal. A well-planned approach and clear communication can ensure your brand’s unique requirements are met without straining your business relationship with the partnered influencers.
Is it wise to show all your cards during initial conversations, and is there a smart way to approach negotiations without compromising your relationship with the influencer? Let’s find out.
Content creation requires extensive ideation, creativity, and tools to make creator content look attractive and unique. If the content (videos and images) fails to hook your target audience in the first 3 seconds, chances are they will scroll past it and never return.
With all the hard work involved, it's only fair that the partnered influencers get paid a fair price. During the negotiation phase with your partnered influencers, the goal is not to sign up for bulk content at low prices, but instead:
You’ve got your lane, and they’ve got theirs. When two brands merge messaging, you are exposed to people you likely couldn’t reach on your own. That means more visibility, new followers, and, yes, new customers.
Motivates the influencer to create amazing and relevant content for your business
Honors the hard work that goes into content creation and establishes mutual respect
Establishes a positive brand image for your business in the influencer community
Nurturing long-lasting and positive relationships with influencers for future influencer campaigns
Talking about monetary compensation can sometimes be challenging, even if that’s the goal of such partnerships. To keep the negotiation hassle-free, the following are some effective ways to prepare:
A campaign objective is the skeleton outlining the specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals pertinent to the influencer marketing strategy. This is the goal that your brand is trying to achieve through a planned influencer marketing campaign. Without a campaign objective, it can become challenging for your business to determine if the influencer marketing strategy is working. If an influencer fails to get you the desired results, you can always revisit the metrics to determine areas for improvement.
Some common objectives from an influencer marketing campaign can look like:
Remember, every company's campaign goals are different, and being clear about your requirements at the very beginning will help your business determine what to expect and how to communicate it to the influencers you have partnered with.
Outlining your goals and conducting audience research will also help you identify the influencers who align with your expectations and the target audience you have been trying to reach. This will give you an edge in your negotiation skills. Also, this will help you build a fan base with accurate information and confidence.
Increasing brand awareness in the creator's audience pool that you have been trying to target
Driving traffic to your website, which ultimately gets converted into sales
Boosting the social media presence of your brand while driving engagement
Creating a positive brand image, boosting its perception, and leveraging word-of-mouth marketing
As the goals and objectives become clear, the next step is to determine who the right influencers are to make your brand relevant and reach the right audience. At this stage, segmenting the influencers you plan to partner with based on their audience pool will be beneficial.
Influencers on social media can be categorized based on what is referred to as the “influencer's reach”. Here’s an overview:
They are regarded as the highest-ranking category of influencers on social media platforms and have 1 million or more followers.
They are as popular as mega-influencers and have an extensive reach of 10,000 to 100,000 followers on social media platforms.
With 1,000 to 100,000 followers, micro-influencers are not as big as mega- or macro-influencers, but they have expertise in highly specific niches, making them industry experts or topic specialists. Their diversity in the influencer's niche topic is regarded as valuable, often giving them the tag of thought leaders or subject matter experts.
These influencers have less than 1,000 followers but are important due to their impact in a specific community. Consider onboarding them for influencer campaigns where your products or services benefit a specific community or neighbourhood.
Money is key to every negotiation strategy. Every influencer will charge differently depending on the followers and the quality (and quantity) of content created. To avoid disappointments, it’s best to determine your budget for each influencer and the scope of the campaigns you want to run with them.
Asking upfront about an influencer’s charges is beneficial, as it removes doubts and gives your brand the much-needed clarity to determine whether this effort will be worth your time.
It also benefits to keep content creation costs in mind, including:
Visual aesthetics matter on social media, and to get the best quality images, most influencers work with professional photographers. This allows them to execute their concepts with ease, knowing the photographer will capture exactly the campaign's vision.
Video campaigns can communicate the campaign’s objective instantly. Hire a videographer to create visual video content that captures attention in the utmost detail. The package usually covers video length, scenes, props, and other elements.
Content creation works differently for every platform. As a result, the cost of creating and posting content will differ for each platform.
The price for bundles of posts and stories can reach up to $10,000, especially if your brand is partnering with an influencer with a massive follower base.
Often regarded as the home for entertainment and lifestyle video content, popular influencers on the platform can charge between $50 and $10,000 per post. This figure depends on the nature of the post and how your brand will be featured in their video content.
Many consider YouTube their go-to platform. However, creating content on YouTube is different from doing it for other social media platforms. Partnering with a YouTube influencer can cost anywhere from $500 to $50,000, depending on how much brand-centric content the influencer creates.
Well-planned negotiation strategies are crucial to avoid misunderstandings and establish a positive relationship with the influencers you are partnering with. A strategic approach allows you to be flexible while getting significant value from your influencer marketing campaigns. Here are some negotiation strategies to practice:
Before starting the negotiation process, you must recognize the nature of the campaigns you will be running and the types of compensation these campaigns can offer.
These posts involve influencers creating content using your company’s products or services as the focal point or the centre of attention. These campaigns boost brand visibility and credibility in your target audience pool. They can also be repurposed as paid ads.
Such campaigns are immensely popular, especially when your products or services are new and you want to break the surface tension of doubt (“Is this product/service worthwhile”, or “how do I use it” type of questions, for instance) in your target audience. The influencer(s) will create content reviewing your brand's products or services. As these posts are tailored to be direct and honest, such a campaign will drive sales, generate ROI, and build brand credibility that works through word-of-mouth advertising.
In such campaigns, influencers unbox your products, showcasing the product experience first-hand and generating excitement, anticipation, and preference. These content pieces are particularly popular in the beauty and tech industries.
Other popular types of campaigns include giveaways and contests, influencer collaborations, and social media challenges. These influencer marketing campaigns drive massive engagement and generate excellent sales for your brand.
Influencers are building their own empires, their own businesses. Every brand deal or campaign they associate with must be aligned with their business goals and objectives. So, explain your campaign's objectives before making an offer or starting the negotiation process.
By showing how your brand has significantly grown over the years, why your range of products or services is different, and how you can impact your followers' lives, you can simplify the negotiation process.
Some valuable data points you can refer to during this stage include:
Showcasing vital data points like audience demographics indicates how the influencer’s audience aligns with your brand’s target market.
Average engagement rates, such as likes, comments, shares, and saves per post, relative to their follower count, can help further your cause.
Consider the industry benchmark, compare the influencer’s performance and engagement metrics to the offer your business is proposing, and show how it aligns with industry standards.
Bundles are a versatile and practical way to make your influencer partnership valuable. With bundles, you can combine content creation requirements for various content formats and social platforms under one roof.
To create a dedicated bundle for influencer marketing, you can consider:
This usually includes creating different content formats for a target platform. For instance, one Instagram reel and three Instagram stories. Or it could be one YouTube community post and two YouTube Shorts.
This involves creating a bundle that mixes different content formats for various platforms. For instance, you could post 2-3 TikTok videos or create one long YouTube video. Later, you can repurpose this content to make three Instagram reels and one YouTube community post.
Influencer marketing benefits a brand on multiple levels, and sharing the profits your business generates with relevant influencers is a great way to make your brand stand out. This motivates the influencers you are partnering with to create quality content.
Such moves instill a sense of trust and gratitude, encouraging the partnered influencers to become genuine users of your products. As a result, they transform from brand ambassadors to customers who love your brand for its products or services.
Integrating data tracking parameters at every touchpoint of your campaign is essential for accurate performance tracking. Some key performance metrics to track and tools to use include:
Today, influencers are more than just faces or voices selling a product or talking about their lives. They serve as trendsetters, cultural icons, and thought leaders actively shaping the world around them and beyond. Due to their popularity and familiarity with social platforms, influencers are also adaptable to changes in media consumption patterns.
So, when your brand partners with influencers, it’s getting the exposure it needs to scale. However, that should not be the sole goal of the partnership.
By offering more than money to meet the influencer rate, your brand can build a deeper and more reliable relationship with them. This can include access to special events in your organization, early access to products or services, or even special discount codes that influencers can share in their communities.
| Performance metric to track | The tool/platform you can use for tracking |
|---|---|
| Click-through rate | CollabX |
| Downloads of a resource (especially from a website) | Google Analytics |
| Newsletter sign-ups | Placing UTM parameters on the website and Google Analytics |
| Sales generated | CollabX and Google Analytics |
While the prospects of influencer marketing look promising and immensely beneficial, mistakes during negotiations can make the marketing campaign less impactful:
The benefits of influencer marketing are massive, but there are times when the partnership might not be within your budget. In such circumstances, stretching your budget to accommodate the deal may seem viable. However, such budget stretches can result in cost-cutting in different aspects of your marketing or advertising budget, dampening your campaign's overall impact. Instead, look for influencers within your budget and negotiate with influencers responsibly to avoid regrets later.
Influencers always turn brand deals and collaborations into successful influencer partnerships. Their calendars are almost always full as they partner with other brands. Instead of waiting, it's best to act swiftly and secure the collaboration before the peak holiday events begin. If your team is holding internal discussions and needs more time to decide, tell the influencer so they can keep a spot open for you.
Usage rights must be part of your conversation with influencers. Make sure to discuss them instead of quietly slipping them into the agreement. It hampers trust and may even spoil your reputation in the industry.
Once the negotiation process is over and every expectation has been outlined, the final step is to make the partnership official with mutually beneficial agreements for legal considerations. To achieve this, make sure to:
Drafting a clear contract is crucial to avoid legal troubles and ensure deliverables meet your brand’s expectations. The agreement must also outline the guidelines influencers must follow when creating content for your brand.
The agreement should outline clear expectations, including but not limited to:
The contract should also outline the publishing guidelines and approval process clearly for particular creators
Once the influencer partnership agreement is signed and the influencer starts creating content for your brand, it is vital to stay connected with them to discuss the campaign as required.
Beyond that, to maintain a smooth and positive relationship with the influencer, it is essential to keep them updated about the changes in your campaigns, offer usage rights with clear guidelines, and make payments on time (without constant reminders).
Influencer marketing is here to stay; negotiations will always be part of the deal. However, negotiations do not have to be tricky or complicated. A systematic approach can eliminate hesitation and replace it with open communication, transparency, and room to discuss possibilities together.
Ensure you recognize influencers who align with your marketing strategy and budget. Setting clear deliverable expectations and sharing guidelines will allow your brand to have content curated to your specific needs without stretching your budget. With the right approach and good management, achieving influencer marketing success does not need to be all that challenging.
CollabX, a brand under the trusted umbrella of Web IQ Technologies Private Limited, is a performance-first influencer marketing platform. We empower brands to scale with data-driven creator campaigns that deliver real, measurable results.
