At the recent travel conference, most of the marketing and public relations agencies we interviewed claimed to be doing influencer marketing, but it wasn’t their expertise. This made us wonder, “Why trust a non-professional to handle something so valuable? Why put all your marketing eggs in one basket?
Let’s go back 10 years and think about social media. When you review how you handled social media strategy, what would you do differently? Would you focus or budget differently on social, thinking long term? In your content strategy, PR, or SEO, would you think more thoroughly or hire more professionals or invest more career-wise? Are you making the same mistake with influencer marketing?
Think about your business when faced with challenges of revenue growth and expanding into new markets every day. Now think about how much the market has changed in recent years and how these new demographics and geographic markets present an opportunity you haven’t seen in years. A new face, capable of reaching your audience in ways unseen – and quickly.
Influencer marketing is simply content creators with highly engaged audiences and their own publishing platforms.
From the sheer volume of influencer requests to PR teams focusing on their own objectives, to outsourcing influencer marketing to agencies that can’t provide consistency across all brand channels, brands haven’t put in the effort and expertise that influencer marketing truly requires, thus shortchanging themselves.
We are all influenced by online recommendations to buy new products, travel to new destinations, or experience new things with family or friends. Whether it’s on Instagram or through links on blogs or websites, the simple fact is that influencers are shaping trends, driving companies to create better, more inspiring, and more interactive products and experiences. Influential marketing has the power to define your brand.
“90% of consumers trust influential individuals over advertisements or celebrity endorsements.” – Forbes
“1 in 5 people choose their travel destination based on social media.” – Destination Analysts
“For tourism boards, the results of influencer marketing are $12.54 in media value for every $1 invested.”
There are agencies specialized in helpful search engine optimization, website development, dedicated public relations, and managing all social media. They are experts in their fields. They have knowledge and years of experience that can help you achieve goals and deliver specific results. They have spent years building websites, conducting A/B testing to determine where to place email sign-ups for maximum subscribers. They have tested ads on Facebook to see which ones get more clicks. You wouldn’t hire a search engine optimization agency to handle your social media, nor would you hire a public relations firm to rebuild your website. Now is the time for agencies to handle all influencer marketing efforts.
» Learn more about: The Power of Influencers!!
5 reasons for using an influencer marketing agency:
- Brand Consistency Leading to Cost Efficiency and Revenue Growth:
Save time, save money. Partnering with an influencer marketing agency allows brands and their PR/advertising agencies to work more efficiently, reducing the internal time needed for research, identification, vetting, and management of a group of bloggers/influencers. A survey found that 75% of professionals consider finding the right influencers to be the biggest challenge in sponsoring content activities. Influencer marketing agencies have the right institutional knowledge and infrastructure, offering better and more effective ways to manage relationships with influencers.
Instead of strictly focusing on individual campaigns and then having your PR agency reach out to influencers, creating a mess, an influencer marketing agency’s every communication truly builds ambassadors and gets the right message across.
If done well, the core of influencer marketing is building business and loyalty. Influencer marketing is a business development function that can increase sales, drive website traffic, or influence public opinion.
An Agency of Record helps you complete all other marketing and PR work – committed to an ongoing strategy, integrating influencers from the start of the strategy rather than randomly placing them here or there. - Unparalleled Expertise:
An influencer marketing Agency of Record (AOR) works 24/7, 365 days a year, in the world of influencer marketing. There’s no substitute for this experience and insight into the ever-changing landscape of social media and publishing. While some agencies and networks tout their vast influencer reach, it must be understood that the agency you attract has a unique understanding of each person’s preferences, strengths, and specialties. The right agency can leverage its relationships to negotiate lower rates and quick turnaround times.
Is it a change in algorithms or a new trend? With an influencer marketing agency, we can quickly adjust our upcoming campaigns without losing any time or money. - Comprehensive Strategic and Creative Approach:
Advertising agencies will have a talented and dedicated team consisting of social and content experts, as well as campaign leaders, who will be able to provide “out-of-the-box” creativity for your product and can build on it month after month, year after year. You will work with a diverse group of influencer-centric individuals who know how to create a successful idea because, after all, what sells is the idea, not the product. - “Turnkey” Service:
When you collaborate with an agency, you gain access to a wealth of resources that you wouldn’t have internally. This includes managing all requests from influencers, contacting viewpoints, paying for and negotiating influencer projects – so you don’t have to rely on another agency for media visits and handling paid media. We handle all of this, so we know the strategy behind each person and what they bring to the table.
Hiring an agency specializing in influencer marketing means getting a partner who has a deep understanding of how to run successful sponsored content campaigns. Brands can balance what is most relevant to their direct role in advertising campaigns, such as key messages, coverage, and key performance indicators. However, handing control over to an experienced influencer marketing agency means that others will handle the small but important details, such as blog negotiations, product shipping, giveaway rules, managing bloggers’ compliance with reporting deadlines, disclosure compliance, and tag usage – just to name a few. When using an agency, these details are not the brand’s responsibility; instead, the agency is on standby, responsible for managing and implementing all related projects. - High-Quality Evergreen Content – Seamlessly Integrating with Your Current Marketing and PR Efforts:
Influencers have their finger on the pulse of the creative direction of the times and can pivot very quickly. Influencers and our in-house agency creatives produce the most eye-catching graphics, engaging text, and captivating video content.
An influencer agency will already know the types of content specific influencers produce. They’ll know which influencers need more agency creative input and which influencers perform best when creating on their own.
Much of the high-quality branded content created by influencer agencies and influencers themselves for your campaigns will be able to be repurposed for marketing purposes in the future, making it truly evergreen content.
» Check out Influencer marketing as part of the communication strategy
4 reasons why you need Brazen Mena as your influencer marketing agency of record:
- Experience:
Our roots as a travel publisher began in 2015, we expanded with a social and blogging team, hiring a content creator and social media thought leader as our Vice President – making us the only marketing agency focused solely on the travel industry. This experience allows us first access to some of the most influential people in the space, as well as the expertise to determine the influence from social personnel, what you should pay for yourself, and what you can get for free to take your business to the next level, and what you leave behind. - Extending Your Dollar Through Conceptualized Custom Campaigns:
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to influencer marketing, but it all starts with a compelling idea. At Brazen Mena, we’re always at the forefront of social media trends, so we can devise strategies that leverage trends and sentiments while seamlessly aligning with your current and future marketing efforts. Digital and social content is ever-evolving, and so are brands, so we keep clients focused on content types that garner likes and shares while providing them with the ideal audience and strategy. Influencer marketing isn’t just about IG billboards/commercials for us. Let’s devise a year-long strategy that leverages influencers for your brand/business all year round, making your brand always the top choice for the right consumers. - Personal Relationships with Brazen Mena Influencer Academy:
Finding the right influencers isn’t just about their number of followers and engagement. There’s an undeniable human factor in influencer marketing that makes it effective. Since 2012, we’ve been collaborating with influencers and content creators for travel and lifestyle brand campaigns, building deep personal relationships with each one of them. We know their strengths and weaknesses. We know what resonates with their followers and what doesn’t. We also know their true rates, turnaround times, and ability to exceed specific KPIs to help your business thrive. Finally, our Influencer Academy is a community of content creators who lead influential influencer marketing campaigns, creating content through the lens of business focus, and furthering Brazen Mena’s current and future plans – providing clients with a professional creative team, delivering ongoing value and expertise. - Technology & Reporting:
We use top-tier third-party reporting so you don’t have to doubt you’re working with a truly influential person who accurately hits your target market and delivers content needs. Our reports are detailed and insightful, delving into the specifics of why certain content is effective or ineffective, allowing us to conduct A/B testing and optimize content for the best results and ROI.
