How to Negotiate for Success with the Best Social Media Influencers

According to the 2019 Business Insider Influencer Marketing report, businesses are generating up to $6.50 for every dollar spent in influencer marketing. Most business owners believe influencer marketing attracts higher-quality leads than other strategies such as affiliate marketing, display, and paid search. Influencer success is partly because social users are likely to recommend products to others.

With such a compelling return on investment, businesses are vying to get the attention of the best influencers. Managers are turning to negotiation skills training to support their brands in creating valuable connections with influencers. This post covers the most useful tips to prepare for successful negotiations with the best influencers.

Research Brand Alignment

Not every top-performing influencer is right for your brand. For a successful influencer marketing campaign, work with influencers within your domain. Aim to partner with influencers whose online presence aligns with your brand.

Avoid influencers who endorse too many brands, as this can dilute your message. Try to partner with influencers who understand your brand. If you can find an influencer who already uses and likes your brand, that’s great. If you can’t, then at least introduce your influencer to your products before agreeing on campaign strategies.

Most skilled influencers are very particular about the message they put out to their audience. The influencer will therefore need to understand your campaign. How will your messaging fit into their communication style? If the message is too “salesy,” the influencer might risk coming off as a product pusher and lose credibility.

While building your influencer campaign, look for audiences that align with your target market. For example, could a fitness influencer also have an impact on supplements? For products targeting a particular region, look for niche experts within the target location.

Negotiate with the Right Person

Sometimes, the influencer isn’t the person you should be negotiating with. Identify who manages the influencer’s engagement program. The business management role differs with each influencer. Some of the contact possibilities are:

Talent Manager

Hired by the influencer to liaise with brands and clients.

Influencer Management Agency

These are companies set up to provide brands with influencer marketing services. These agencies usually have relationships with many influencers and offer influencer training.

Employee Advocacy

Your internal HR department may manage the hiring and training of staff as internal influencers.

Event Managers

Event managers may work with different influencers for a one-off event. Services may include social promotions for launch dates and charity events.

Be Specific on Content

Brands should be specific about the kind of content they expect from their influencers. Include guidelines with information such as:

• The type of content for posting.
• The information to share in each post.
• The frequency of posting.
• The timing of the posts.
• The engagement with the audience after a post is live.
• The profile on where to post, e.g. the influencer’s profile, group pages, brand’s profile, etc.

Visualize what you want your campaign to look like before reaching out to the influencer. Research the influencer’s past campaigns for similar brands. When you’re in negotiations with the influencer, brainstorm together to come up with creative campaign ideas. Some key questions to consider before negotiations are:

• Will the influencer be promoting the brand in general?
• Will the influencer be promoting an event, product, or product line?
• Will the influencer be demonstrating how the product works?
• Will the influencer be pushing a special promotion?
• Does your brand want to associate the promotion with a hashtag?

Negotiate Content Usage Rights

Owning and maintaining influencer content rights can be of lasting benefit to a business. Brands are prioritizing repurposing content to gain continuous value from their partnerships. However, nowadays, skilled creators are claiming more control over usage rights.

It can prove costly to buy content rights that you may never use. Yet, neglecting to secure usage rights at the start of the partnership may become more expensive after the content posting. There are four main variables brand managers should train to consider when negotiating usage rights:

Length of Promotion

• 1–3 months: The usage rights may be part of the baseline fee, with no incremental charges added down the line.
• 3–12 months: Moderate extra fee. Depends on performance, number of platforms, and number of usages.
• 1 year: Significant incremental cost.

Repurpose Platform

For less established influencers, content repurposing can increase their engagement and credibility. So, repurposing can lower the rate per content. For all levels of influencers, usage rights may depend on where the brand intends to repurpose the content. There are three main categories:

• Social media: This is the most requested usage right by brands. The content may appear across many social media platforms. Organic repurposing, such as shares, may not attract incremental fees. However, paid sharing and paid ads will be highly likely to attract extra charges.
• Digital: The influencer may charge an incremental fee for usage for website, email marketing, and banner ad use.
• In real life (IRL): Attracts high incremental fees. Examples are brand ambassador deals, endorsement deals, or public appearance deals.

Content Ownership

Many influencers are still open to work-for-hire deals, where the content belongs to the employer. Still, some of the best influencers are reluctant to grant the brand full ownership of the content. More established influencers may insist on significant compensation or limited-use licenses.

The cost of content ownership depends on the influencer’s creative skills, level of influence, and the presence of management.

Scope of Content Usage

The frequency of usage is something to consider during influencer negotiations. You can use the same post several times on the same platform. You may also use different variations of the same post in different platforms. For instance, posting on Facebook, then doing slightly different versions on Instagram and Pinterest.

As a brand, you don’t want to pay for what you won’t use. Here are a few points to consider when negotiating usage scope:

• Seasonal content: The content has a short lifespan from a single-day holiday to a season, spanning months. An incremental fee may apply if the content features in the following year.
• Early promo: The content usage will fizzle out upon a specific date, such as on product launch.
• Unsure: You might want to repurpose the content later but are uncertain of your amplification plans at the time of negotiations. Consider inserting options into the influencer contract to agree on a price.

Cover Your Bases

When negotiating an influencer marketing contract, prepare for any contingencies that may arise. Be as specific as possible to protect your brand and the influencer. Some clauses to consider including in the contract are:

Nondisclosure

Use a nondisclosure agreement (NDA) to protect any information that could harm the brand. For example, you may not want your influencer revealing their paycheck at the risk of other influencers bargaining for higher pay.

FTC Guidelines

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requires that influencers reveal sponsored posts. So, check to ensure your influencer announces your partnership through clear tags or mentions.

Exit Strategy

When the campaign ends, there should be a clear exit strategy out of the influencer partnership. Negotiate and include a clause allowing you to cancel the contract. Specify how to handle potential conflicts.

Exclusivity

Your brand message may suffer if the influencer is also promoting your direct competitors. Negotiate to include clauses that offer your brand exclusivity. At the same time, consider that the most skilled influencers will likely want the flexibility to work with other brands. Structure a win-win agreement by limiting the exclusivity. For instance, the exclusivity may only apply to specific brands or product types, or may span some weeks or months.

Successful Influencer Negotiations

Crafting the right influencer marketing deal is as important as partnering with the best influencer. Negotiation skills training prepares managers to look beyond an influencer’s compensation and past campaigns.

The brand has to figure out the types of content that will drive brand goals. The brand needs to partner with an influencer whose audience fits the brand’s message. Negotiations should include ownership and usage rights. To protect your brand, include contingency clauses in the influencer contract.