More and more brands are investing time and resources into influencer marketing campaigns with big expectations for results. However, without the right alignment between all parties involved in the campaign, brands may be doomed before they even formally kick-off the campaign. 

So to shed light on what it takes for a brand to drive the best results from an influencer campaign, we chatted with the glue that holds many influencer campaigns together, talent managers. We talked to several talent managers that work across influencer campaigns across a variety of industries including beauty, travel, technology, home, fitness and more to understand what brands need to do right to deliver strong campaign results. 

Clear trends and themes evolved during our conversations as to what brands should be thinking about and acting on as they develop their influencer marketing programs. Read on to learn what a brand should be considering when putting together an influencer campaign. 

What Sets a Brand Up for Success? 

Jen Powell, the Founder of JP Inc has deep experience managing talent in the fashion and beauty industry. She told us that “having clear goals and collaborating with the brand up front is key to a successful influencer campaign.” Taking the time to work with the brand directly at the outset of the campaign is well worth the time and effort as it helps to align all parties involved in the campaign. 

Becca Bahrke, the Founder of Illuminate Social echoed similar thoughts as Jen, stating that “aligning with the brand right from the outset when you are drafting up the SOW for a campaign is vital. This needs to be done in an effort to establish the KPI’s for the campaign so both parties understand what success looks like.” Establishing KPI’s is a key area that must be established and agreed to well prior to the campaign kicking off. Eric Kullberg of Creators Agency further elaborated on Becca’s above point telling us that “establishing a basic understanding of the KPI’s that everyone is marching towards is very important. And with that understanding comes a need for the brand to establish transparency with the brand and vica-versa.” 

Typically larger brands that are used to working with influencers (or creators) have this process down pat, but if you are working with a brand that is either new to influencer marketing or doesn’t work that often with influencer campaigns it’s important that you establish these metrics from the outset of the campaign. A brand that is new to executing influencer marketing campaigns may have unrealistic expectations for the campaign results, making alignment between all parties critical. 

While a brand may be working closely with a talent manager and an influencer to establish goals and KPI’s, it’s essential that the brand understands the influencer(s) that they are working with and doesn’t try to “stifle their creativity,” Bahrke further explained. “In addition to working with your brand, the creator also has their own brand to maintain so you can’t just expect the creator to become a robot for your brand, you need to make sure that you give them the freedom to be who they are. That will not only help them feel more involved, but will also help you drive stronger results because the content that they create will be more authentic to them and drive stronger overall results since their audience won’t think that it’s an advertisement,” Bahrke added. 

Ultimately, the brands that see the strongest results from influencer campaigns let the creators develop authentic content to share with their followers. The more authentic the content appears, the more their followers will believe and trust the content, which will yield stronger results.

Understanding the Difference Between Brand and Awareness Conversion Campaigns 

In our conversations with talent managers one common theme kept bubbling up: not all influencer campaigns are the same. Generally speaking, influencer campaigns can be broken down into two buckets: brand awareness and conversion campaigns. And the goals and KPI’s for each of those types of campaigns are very different. Powell emphasizes the importance of brands understanding the different types of campaigns, such as brand awareness and conversion campaigns, and tailoring the approach accordingly. "For me, it's about finding out from the brand what the priority is for the specific campaign. Is it conversion? Is it brand awareness? What are the goals? And then once that is established, I can figure out how to achieve the goals of the campaign.” 

Brands need to understand that not all influencers are good at driving both. “Usually a creator is either good at driving conversion or brand awareness in a particular campaign. Typically the creative and messaging for a brand awareness campaign looks much different than the creative and messaging in a conversion campaign,” Powell explained. And brands should do their best to keep the talent involved in this process once it is determined what type of campaign they are going to be running: “when a brand partners with talent (creators), the talent takes it very seriously. Talent is very much involved in putting in their two cents - campaign concept, creative concept and then suggesting how they can make sure it's successful,” Powell added. 

Once goals are established, the creator wants to hit those goals because they don’t want to lose a potential client. So if a speed bump arises that hampers the creator's ability to hit the goal, it creates a tense situation.  “It’s important for brands to be realistic about the products that they have the creators promote,” Bahrke told us. “I’ve had some brands partner with talent (that I manage) that is not even ready to go to market, and since the product (or technology) has issues, the creators cannot possibly hit their goals - this becomes a frustrating process all around.” This point further illustrates the importance of having clear and open communication lines established between all parties throughout the campaign. Brands need to be flexible and willing to adjust KPI’s if issues pop-up with the creator's ability to hit the campaign goals.

Addressing Pain Points

Streamlining the influencer onboarding and payment processes is an area that brands can vastly improve. Powell highlights the challenges talent managers face when dealing with multiple platforms and portals, stating: "I think that with all of the platforms and portals that brands use could do a better job at making onboarding and getting paid easier for the talent. Brands have to understand that a lot of the talent don’t have agencies or agents that they need that they rely on to collect money themselves and give them all the details and that makes it hard to go on to multiple different portals in order to get paid."

Becca Bahrke, adds to this by stressing the importance of transparency in the payment process. "The more information we give the talent, the less they feel like they are hiding information from them. But we need to get payment information from the brands in order to disseminate that to the talent. If we can actually be very transparent with the communication that's going on and showing how much we're checking in on an invoice and then consistently paying them for everything else we get in, I've got a happy talent," she says.

One other pain point that arises often is micromanagement. Leanne Perice, founder of MADE BY ALL told us that “brands that micromanage creators in the creative/concepting process often hinder the campaigns social success. I think there needs to be a balance of trusting the creators while ensuring brand objectives are met. Finding this balance is an art but remembering that creators are in fact creatives is very important as well.” 

Ultimately, the key to influencer marketing success lies in fostering strong, collaborative relationships between brands, talent managers, and influencers. By setting clear goals, maintaining open communication, and ensuring smooth onboarding and payment processes, brands can create campaigns that deliver results and keep influencers eager to work with them again in the future.

Talent Managers Predict the Future of Brand Campaigns  

Leanne Perice shared with us some interesting takes on where it is headed: “Forward thinking brands are already starting to do this, but as we look forward to the next two years or so, more and more brands are going to include creators in the campaign briefing process. They will hand a creator a campaign brief and have them collaborate with them to make the brief 10% better.” Leanne called out that “brands aren’t creators, creators are creators - so the smart ones will have the creators drive the campaign development with them.” 

Eric Kullberg had a similar take as to where the industry is headed - viewing it evolving to have the creators “own” more of the experience: “I feel strongly that more creators are going to be building out their own platforms and brands and as a result, brands will need to think more about how their brand aligns with the creators brand as opposed to the way it works today.”

One thing is clear after having talked with talent managers, this space is evolving at a rapid pace with lots of innovation. Stay up to date on the latest goings-on in the influencer space by following along on our blog. And if you are looking to learn more about how Lumanu can help your brand or agency streamlining the onboarding and payment process for paying influencers, set-up some time to chat with our team here.