If you find the process of discovering, contacting, assessing and selecting influencers for your marketing campaigns a little too tedious or stressful, it might be time to consider partnering with the experts.
In this article, we’ll cover what an influencer management agency does, explore types of influencer marketing campaigns, explain the benefit of hiring an agency and finally, share our picks for the top influencer management agencies of 2022.
Table of Contents
What Is an Influencer Management Agency?
An influencer management agency, also known as an influencer marketing company, is a team of influencer marketing experts who connect brands with influencers — a person with established credibility who has the power to affect the purchasing decision of others.
Think of an influencer management agency as a middleman for brands. Instead of searching for and contacting influencers yourself, an agency does the legwork for you.
In addition to finding the right influencers, influencer management agencies help brands create and implement influencer marketing campaigns to increase brand awareness, boost consumer engagement and generate leads and sales.
While some influencer management agencies handle everything from developing concepts to analyzing campaign results, some agencies handle specific aspects of the process.
Influencer management agencies may be categorized into three types:
- Recruitment: Finds and screens relevant influencers for your target audience
- Growth: Analyzes and reports marketing campaign results and offers data-driven performance marketing
- Creative: Helps with the influencer’s content creation and in-house production
What Does an Influencer Marketing Company Do?
Now that you know what an influencer management agency is, let’s dive into their key responsibilities.
An influencer management agency:
- Finds And Screens Influencers
- Creates Contracts
- Identifies Publishing Schedules And Guidelines
- Creates, Maintains and Implements Campaigns
1. Finds And Screens Influencers
Are you on the hunt for the perfect influencer for your brand, but not sure where to start?
This is where an influencer management agency comes in handy.
An influencer management agency finds influencers your brand can partner with for a marketing campaign.
Once they find an influencer, the agency will examine if the influencer has the parameters to represent your brand.
Some of the key factors they use to determine whether an influencer is suitable for your brand include:
- Target audience: Does the influencer’s target audience match up with the target audience for your brand?
- Followers and subscribers: How many followers does the influencer have?
- Engagement: How many likes, shares and comments does the influencer gain on social media posts?
2. Creates Contracts
Contracts can be intimidating and time-consuming to create. To avoid the hassle of creating influencer contracts, partner with an influencer management agency.
An agency ensures that key components in the contract are in place, including:
- Type of content required: Will the influencer only be providing image or video content? Which social media platforms should be utilized?
- Type and frequency of compensation: Will you pay the influencer a set amount, or per post?
- 取消或终止条款: Which sanctions will you implement if the influencer goes through unforeseen circumstances such as facing an illness, or if either party wishes to terminate the partnership?
- Exclusivity clause: Is the influencer allowed to work with your competitors, or are they only permitted to work with your brand exclusively?
3. Identifies Publishing Schedules And Guidelines
An influencer management agency determines the best time for influencers to publish promotional content, to make sure people see and interact with their posts.
Let’s say your target audience includes stay-at-home moms and stay-at-home dads,) and your brand offers kitchenware products.
An influencer management agency will ask the influencer to post content when your target audience is most likely to be online — say after dinner, when they’re done cleaning up after the kids, and they’re ready to scroll their Instagram feeds.
In addition to determining schedules, an influencer management agency will set guidelines for influencers to follow to ensure their promotional content meets your brand’s standards.
4. Creates, Maintains and Implements Campaigns
Influencer management agencies conceptualize, create and implement marketing campaigns for your brand.
Influencer marketing campaigns allow influencers to connect with your target audience to increase your brand awareness, reach and ultimately, sales.
Types of Influencer Marketing Campaigns
From social media takeovers to partnering with an influencer over the course of their career, here are six types of influencer marketing campaigns you could utilize for your brand.
- Sponsored Social Media Post
- Live Streaming
- Social Media Takeover
- Gifting, Unboxing And Reviewing
- Contests And Giveaways
- Long-term Brand Ambassador Programs
1. Sponsored Social Media Post
A sponsored social media post incorporates your brand’s logo or product into an influencer’s social media post, whether an image or video.
Considered one of the most effective types, this type of influencer marketing campaign shows the influencer’s interaction with your product or service.
According to a 2019 global survey, 80% of consumers purchased a product by clicking on a sponsored post recommended by an influencer.
Here is an example of a sponsored post on social media:
View this post on Instagram
In this post, famous basketball player, Giannis Antetokounmpo, shows off his Breitling watch using close-up shots of the product and a distinct “B” logo (which emphasizes the brand), as a watermark in his Instagram carousel post.
He wrapped up his Instagram post with a positive testimonial about the brand and utilized branded hashtags such as #forthejourney #navitimer and #squadonamission to expand Breitling’s target audience and gain more reach.
2. Live Streaming
Live streaming occurs when an influencer goes live on their social media account, such as Instagram, YouTube or Facebook to promote your brand to their followers. IT services providers can offer robust solutions to ensure that the live stream runs smoothly and reaches a broad audience.
Live streaming enables influencers to connect with their followers in real-time, allowing them to answer questions and share their insights about your brand.
3. Social Media Takeover
A social media takeover occurs when you allow an influencer to publish social media posts using your brand’s official account, which usually lasts for a day, to increase your followers and brand awareness.
Social media takeover content typically includes:
- A day in the influencer’s life, using your product or service
- Influencers attending your event, while sharing their perspective
Here is an example of a social media takeover post:
View this post on Instagram
In this example, Full Psycle asked a spinning instructor, Amanda, to take over their Instagram account.
Amanda took over Full Psycle’s Instagram account for a day to promote the brand’s cycling services and show their followers what her day was like, teaching a spinning class at one of the brand’s branches.
4. Gifting, Unboxing And Reviewing
Gifting occurs when you send an influencer your product or services for free.
In return, the influencer will record and post an unboxing video of your product on their social media account or publish a product review, whether in a video or image post, of how they enjoyed one of your services.
Gifting is an opportunity for influencers to get first-hand experience of your product and enables you to build relationships with prospective influencers who you plan on partnering with for a longer period of time.
Unboxing and reviewing, on the hand, occurs when you ask an influencer to review your products using their social media platforms.
Compensation for this type of influencer marketing campaign depends on your agreement with the influencer. Most often, it’s in the form of cash or additional free products.
Here is an example of an unboxing and reviewing campaign:
Unbox Therapy is a YouTube content creator known for his tech reviews. In this unboxing video, he’s giving his viewers a first look into the new iPhone 14 Pro Max.
He starts his unboxing video by giving credits to Kioxia before diving into the iPhone’s new features and specs.
5. Contests And Giveaways
Contests occur when an influencer asks their followers to engage in challenges such as answering questions, liking or commenting on a post, following your brand or tagging someone, while using your brand’s hashtags.
On the other hand, giveaways are easier to follow but the chances of winning are slim, since it’s anybody’s game. Both campaigns result in the winner receiving your brand’s product or services as a prize.
Contests and giveaways allow your brand to attract followers, increase brand awareness and boost customer engagement.
Dbrand collaborated with tech vlogger MKBHD to host a giveaway on his YouTube channel. A total of 50 phones (iPhones and Samsung Galaxy Notes) were up for grabs for anyone who joined the giveaway.
The instructions were simple: followers were tasked to follow both MKBHD and Dbrand on their social media accounts, to gain entry.
6. Long-term Brand Ambassador Programs
Long-term brand ambassador programs occur when you partner with an influencer for longer than one month.
A brand ambassador is someone who represents your brand.
Unlike other influencer marketing campaigns, a brand ambassador can promote your brand for more than a year, instead of a one-time collaboration, depending on the terms you both agree to.
This is also where influencer management agencies play a crucial role.
They’ll not only find and reach out to the right influencer for your brand, they’ll also draw up the contracts for you.
Here is an example of a Sephora brand ambassador:
View this post on Instagram
Carla Cassandra, one of Sephora’s brand ambassadors, frequently posts content to promote Sephora.
She took her content one step further by posting her experience as a Sephora brand ambassador, saying that she took a leap of faith in accepting the role while highlighting her job perks, such as meeting celebrities.
Benefits of Working With an Influencer Management Agency
The benefits of working with an influencer management agency are plenty, but here are two primary benefits for your brand:
1. Save Time
From determining your influencer marketing goals and KPIs to briefing influencers and monitoring their social media content, influencer marketing is a time-consuming task.
When it comes to influencer marketing, you need to:
- Identify goals and KPIs
- Create and implement influencer marketing campaigns
- Find and vet influencers
- Negotiate and create contracts
- Brief and coordinate with influencers
- Delivering the product to the influencers
- Review and monitor content
- Report and analyze data from marketing campaigns
If you partner with an influencer management agency, you can save yourself the hassle of this tedious process, while ensuring you’re on the right track to increase your brand awareness, boost customer engagement and generate sales.
2. Utilize Their Expertise And Connections
Influencer management agencies eat, sleep and breathe influencer marketing.
You can count on the expertise of a social media marketing agency whenever you need to know the latest social media and digital trends, tools, and platforms.
In addition, influencer management agencies have worked with countless influencers in the past, so you can bet on them to find the perfect influencer to promote your vegan, hypoallergenic, pet-friendly brand!
Top 5 Influencer Marketing Agencies
Interested in partnering with an influencer marketing agency but not sure where to start?
Here are the top five influencer marketing agencies hand-picked by our experts:
1. Ubiquitous Influence
Headquarters: Los Angeles, California
Ubiquitous Influence is a team of social media professionals, marketing experts and influencers who focus heavily on TikTok and work with businesses of all sizes.
With Ubiquitous Influence, you can:
- Access thousands of influencers and content creators who have millions of followers across different demographics
- Gain insights from a team who specializes in TikTok
- Create and execute your influencer marketing strategy across different target audiences
2. Ignite Visibility
Headquarters: San Diego, California
From influencer marketing to SEO, Ignite Visibility is one of the top digital marketing companies that has pioneered strategies for brands such as The General Insurance and National Funding.
Ignite Visibility services include:
- Social media marketing
- Influencer marketing
- Online reputation management
- Digital marketing strategy
- Search engine optimization
- International and local search marketing
- Public relations
- Reporting and analytics
- Website design and development
3. OuterBox
Headquarters: Akron, Ohio
OuterBox is one of the leading experts in SEO, paid search and social media marketing management.
They have a team of more than 90 experts who focus on generating leads and sales for brands.
OuterBox services include:
- Social media marketing
- Influencer marketing
- Content marketing
- Search engine optimization
- Web design
- Pay-per-click and paid search
4. SocialSEO
Headquarters: Colorado Springs, Colorado
SocialSEO is an all-in-one agency that provides social media, influencer marketing, SEO services and more. SocialSEO’s team consists of digital marketing natives who place their clients first to help achieve their goals.
SocialSEO services include:
- Influencer Marketing
- Social Media Marketing
- Amazon Marketing
- Search Engine Optimization
- Conversion Rate Optimization
- Content Strategy
- Paid Search
- Email Marketing
- Video Production
5. Sagapixel
Headquarters: Cherry Hill, New Jersey
Sagapixel is a team of experts who specialize in content marketing, SEO, PPC and web design.
They’ve worked with brands in different industries such as legal and healthcare to increase their online presence and generate traffic.
Sagapixel services include:
- Social media marketing
- Influencer marketing
- Search engine optimization
- Pay-per-click management
Wrapping Up on Influencer Management Agencies
Influencer management agencies save you from the hassle of creating and executing an influencer marketing strategy on your own, thanks to their niche expertise.
They typically create contracts, build marketing campaigns and find the right influencers for the job so you don’t have to.
From saving time to gaining access to influencer marketing expertise, working with an influencer management agency is a noteworthy investment if you want to increase your brand awareness and customer engagement, by working with high-profile names.
Outsourcing the services of some of the social media marketing agencies and specialized digital marketing companies can help you with this.
