Pricing major issue for influencers and brands [NEW DATA 2020]

For brands and influencers, pricing still appears to be a cause of confusion. Brands are unsure what a fair pricing model should be and influencers are unsure about how best to price their services and content.

This confusion largely stems from the growth of influencer marketing. In its infancy, influencers would price based on the number of followers they had. In general, the more followers an influencer has the more they would charge for a sponsored post. Now, though, other factors come into play. Follower count is no longer the sole indication of an influencer’s value.

We surveyed 100 brands and 1000 influencers in our latest influencer marketing report to better understand the struggles they face as well as the key trends that will drive the industry in 2020.

As far as pricing goes we learnt:

Boosting influencer content with paid media spend is becoming the norm
Influencers believe brands should care most about the quality of their content
A majority of brands repurpose influencer content on other channels

Why brands struggle with pricing

20.3% of brands encounter confusion when it comes to effective and fair pricing. As a whole, there are no clear benchmarks for brands to figure out pricing. Brands now factor in a range of different metrics when it comes to budgeting. For example, they might consider audience data to ensure the influencer’s audience matches their target demographic. They may also look at brand affinity to see how closely the influencer shares the same values as the brand. Other factors to consider are quality of content, usage rights, and celebrity status.

But despite this, 58.5% of brands state they plan to increase their influencer marketing budget in 2020. This is largely due to the fact that influencer marketing is becoming increasingly more prevalent across the entire marketing funnel. It’s no longer just a way to grow brand awareness, but drive sales too.

Influencers care about their content

One core trend that emerged from our influencer survey was their desire for brand’s to consider the quality of content when coming up with a fair price.

Although the quality of the content was also important for brands, it seems different mediums and channels warrant different prices. Over half of all brands believed that an Instagram story post should be cheaper than an on-feed post.

This is largely due to the time-sensitive nature of story posts. The post is online for only 24 hours. This naturally means fewer people have the chance to see it than an on-feed post that exists on a profile for an extended period of time.

Influencers work hard to build an authentic following and provide them with creative content they’ll enjoy. This often leads to increased rates. Influencers take into account the amount of time and effort it goes into creating the content.

With that said, almost half of brands feel that influencers quoted fees are ‘quite high’. This could be indicative of a brand’s lack of understanding of the effort that goes into creating quality work.

Repurposing

Running influencer campaigns without repurposing the content is a mistake. Influencers not only provide you with a targeted audience to get in front of but they also provide you with quality content you can use on other channels.

Repurposing content extends its shelf life beyond the influencer’s post. You could repurpose your content:

On your website
On your marketing materials
Within paid ads
On your own social channels

Repurposing on paid social is becoming the norm. Not only this, but brands are increasingly looking to boost influencer content with paid media spend. Doing so gives them the chance to improve performance. They can decide exactly who the content goes to and what channels it’s seen on.

Multiple studies have shown that influencer content consistently outperforms brand-owned content because of the authenticity of the content. Consumers feel closer to influencers than they do to brands and as a result, the content resonates further than some of a brand’s own content.