Should You build Your Own Influencer Team?
Some brands opt to nurture their own influencer marketing teams, while others opt to outsource from influencer marketing companies.
According to Gerardo Dada, the values of influencer marketing lie on their three essential qualities: reach, contextual credibility, and salesmanship. With more people trusting social influencers beyond any forms of advertising, i.e. TV, newspapers or billboards, it’s not surprising that marketers continuously seek to increase their influencer marketing efforts.
As influencer marketing becomes an essential part of the marketing mix, brands must decide the best approach to leverage this powerful channel: to outsource or develop it in-house?
Influencer Marketing Two Ways
When it comes to influencer marketing management, there are two approaches that brands can take: hire a team of strategists and campaign managers to identify and look for influencers, manage partnerships, and execute campaigns and measurement in-house or hire an influencer manager to set goals and manage performance but still leveraging influencer marketing companies to launch campaigns.
Either way, brands are left with the most important question: How to pick, assemble, and nurture a winning influencer teams for their marketing campaigns?
Option #1: In-House Influencer Team
More brands started to consider the growth potential of bringing the influencers in-house, which include brands identifying and building relationships with influencers, creating and executing campaigns, basically running the optimization internally. What are the benefits and drawbacks?
When it comes to the target audience, nobody knows better than the brand itself. Developing its own influencer community gives brand an edge of knowing the subtleties of what resonates with its target audience, allowing it to be flexible and involved in a personal approach. Additionally, more influencers are looking for a long-term partnership because it gives them financial stability. That’s why, fostering individual relationships with them to be brand’s long-term brand ambassadors is not only cost-efficient but also a viable strategy in the long run. This also enables brands to strategically test and refine their influencers to be aligned with the brand’s values.
Having said that, finding relevant influencers is time-consuming. Reaching out to the influencers, negotiating contracts, setting up a CRM to track relationships, and managing all campaigns, the whole process requires resources and time. Moreover, it’s challenging to stay on top of industry changes, especially in such a fast-growing digital space. As influencer platforms evolve, new trends will emerge and brands need to ensure they keep track of these fast-paced changes or their influencers will become less relevant for their audiences.
Option #2: Influencer Marketing Companies
Despite the popularity of in-house influencer, some brands still rely on third parties for influencer strategy. Here is the catch. Although brands might know their customers best, but companies know the influencer industry better.
When brands work with the right agency, it will bring in another level of sophistication to the campaigns. Brands save time looking for the ‘perfect’ influencers for their brands, since these agencies have already established solid relationships with influencers from various categories. Instead, brands can focus on developing high-performing strategies. Another advantage is the companies’ expertise and experience that allow them to bring first-hand knowledge on how specific influencers perform within a certain category or how different campaigns resonate with various audiences, which can potentially help brands set the right engagement goals. This also helps them to stay ahead of the curve to identify opportunities around social technology changes, i.e. the latest “hot” influencers or trending topics.
At the same time, the cost of an ad campaign for a brand could skyrocket when an agency is involved. That’s why for companies with limited budget or startups, cost may represent a huge barrier. Furthermore, there is a risk of communication challenge, such as delays or dilution of communication between brands, agency, and influencers.
What’s Your Decision?
While outsourcing can help brands reduce the amount of time they’re spending on influencer marketing, but there’s no denying in the ability of in-house teams to foster lasting relationships between brands and influencers. Therefore, as the influencer industry matures, chances are companies will likely take a hybrid approach.
That is to say, brands can outsource strategy from companies while leaving the execution to their in-house team, which utilizes the efficiencies of both. Integrating the proficiency of specialized companies into brand’s internal marketing department will catapult their marketing campaigns further.
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