Trusting Your Marketing To Teenagers (Influencer Marketing, Part II)

"We tricked these f**kers into paying me $5,000 to just say their name, smh..."

- Actual quote from one of our "influencers"

If you need a refresher on the original topic, click here.

Welcome to Part II of the series, and I hope you take some semblance on this one. For those just catching up, one of the companies I consult with hired influencer marketers.

As a group of Zillennials, i.e. that rather stringent period between "Millennials" and "Generation Z," we wasted $26,000 on an influencer marketing budget that failed immensely. With that said, I wanted to finish up by pointing out the good in this.

First, A Story

The quote at the beginning of this article was what I found on one of their social media accounts. Mind you, we expected a high return.

Influencer marketing is a 16.4 billion dollar industry as of 2022, and it simply means paying someone with social clout to market you.

In this case, it is really just a matter of product placement/product positioning.

Take a lesson from Jerry Seinfeld, who used product placements in almost every episode. Recall the seasonal release promoting Milk Duds. Kramer offers Jerry a Milk Dud.

Mind you, the two are sitting in a medical auditorium, watching a friend's heart surgery. As Kramer shovels the Milk Duds into Jerry's hand, they stumble.

And a single Milk Dud lands, in slow motion, in the man's chest cavity.

That Is Influencer Marketing

Yes, that is basically what influencer marketing is.

You are paying someone who has a high and relevant social media following (in this case, a total of 660,000 followers among our five influencers) to just mention you.

It Does Not Work Very Well

Now, I get the point of it.

Take into consideration that 66 percent of influencer marketers are below the age of 24.

This means that, essentially, we are trusting our money to teenagers or young adults who, suffice to say, have yet to officially exit puberty.

So, I delineated in Part I the mistakes we made.

For this one, I would like to give you some tips and strategies for finding the right ones.

Tip #1: Actually Meet With Them In Person

And do so three times.

Most businesses hire influencers via email. A study I performed in 2021, during the COVID outbreak, found that only 5 percent of companies interview their influencers.

You need to get a good feeling about this person.

Just because they have 100,000 followers across multiple platforms does not mean you should sufficiently throw money at them, much as product positioning does.

Rather, it is a job, and if we start looking at the process of hiring influencers with the same mentality as we would with any employee, we would succeed.

Tip #2: Give Them A Trial Period

Next tip: give them a three-month trial period (or one month, or whatever tickles your fancy). Rather than throwing money at them, test them out on a lower budget.

If you have $100,000 reserved for influencers, and you have 10 in total, that is $10,000 for 10 supposed shoutouts. But the process is not a once-in-a-moment deal.

Thus, see how they do first. Before hiring them, test out the waters. This is why I recommend using newer influencers to start if on a low budget.

Many influencers will ask for $5,000 for four mentions.

But if the market, their demographic, or their attitude is so concise that you truly want to hand over part of your marketing budget for a mention or a shoutout, do not look at it in the same light as the "Milk Dud" scenario. Rather, make an offer after interviewing them.

Then, make sure you give them a month or two on 5-10 percent of your overall influencer marketing budget. Give them three months, and test their abilities.

Tip #3: File The Necessary Paperwork

Remember, you are hiring an independent contractor, but that does not mean that they should be paid under the table, or unmonitored.

This means making sure you are protected. If you need a binding contract drawn up, I recommend going to HelloBonsai.com and drawing up a legal contract.

That was the mistake we made, and a mistake I encounter in my consulting endeavors: many consider the influencer to act as a middle-man, and this leads to failure.

Also, paperwork and contracts, suffice to say, frighten people.

By that I do not mean, scare them with a fifty-page contract. Rather, outline the milestones, and plan accordingly. It provisions a sense of professionalism.

Make sure that you have the ability to hold them accountable if they do not do their share of the work. Make sure you go through a site like LegalZoom.

If you are a small business, you can suffice with a $49.95 payment for one hour with a registered and licensed attorney through their website. Then, draft a contract.

Tip #4: Competitive Research For Each

Tip #4 is simple as cake: before jumping on the bandwagon, take the time to draft a template in Microsoft Excel. Isolate using the following example:

1) Username, 2) Contact Date, 3) Follower Count (Per Social Network),

4) Engagement Average (followers / engagement)

5) Schedule, 6) Budget, 7) Value, 8) Attitude.

This will allow for you to compare and contrast a minimum of 50 influencers. If you are serious about influencer marketing, you must examine it with competitive research.

Then, contact them. Figure out your budget per mention, and do not give them a flat fee. Rather, pay based on the mention or the post.

Contact all 50, and just like a job interview, see what they appear as. Are they capable of a one-year contract? Can they pull off successful influencer marketing?

Just because someone has 100,000 followers does not mean they are a good match. You must interview them, meet them on Zoom, and decide who gets the position.

Tip #5: Measure Carefully & Pragmatically

Finally, measure results. Do not trust the notion that just because you are paying someone to promote you means that you will succeed.

Thus, my advice is to keep that spreadsheet in mind.

See how much each post costs, how much engagement is generates, and use analytics tools to measure and split-test.

See what you would receive if you did it yourself, versus the results after hiring the influencer. Do this for three months before making an official claim.

Budget carefully, and if you need help finding influencers, reach out to me.

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