It’s no secret that influencer marketing is at the forefront of many businesses’ marketing strategies in 2022, with Hubspot listing the channel as the #1 marketing trend for this year. However, brands face a seemingly difficult question: should influencer marketing be done in-house or through an agency?
In the current climate, most B2C brands outsource their influencer marketing. Some of the reasons behind this are not having enough influencer marketing staff in-house, as well as being unsure as to how the channel can be best utilised. With this in mind, it’s important to weigh the pros and cons of in-house vs agency for influencer marketing to determine which options are best for which brands.
In-house influencer marketing: Possible but not ideal
One aspect that will always be advantageous for brands is their knowledge of their customers. This allows in-house influencer marketing teams to pick out influencers that really resonate with what their customers want. Having this know-how is essential to establishing authentic relationships with influencers that are more likely to convert their audiences.
Although it’s not always easy, brands can directly build relationships with influencers for the long term. This gives the influencer more time to understand and optimise their content together with the brand. Doing so can improve the brand’s top-of-mind status among the influencer’s audience as they will become accustomed to seeing the brand featured in the influencer’s content.
To successfully do influencer marketing in-house, however, brands need to have the right processes and resources in place to measure and scale the channel. This involves having a functioning and scalable influencer database or CRM, as well as collecting relevant data and keeping systems up to date.
Doing this effectively in-house is challenging, especially if there’s only a small team of in-house influencer marketers. That’s not to say it’s impossible, but there are a lot of potential risks associated with undergoing and maintaining this amount of content and relationship-building in-house.
Agency partnership for influencer marketing: A wise choice
Risk mitigation is on every business owner’s mind. One way to mitigate risk is by bringing in an agency that has deep knowledge of what strategies and campaigns have worked for similar brands in the past. This knowledge is essential for getting a more complete understanding of how the project will perform and is fuelled by a data-driven influencer marketing approach.
Good influencer marketing agencies keep themselves up-to-date with the latest industry trends and practices and are also forward-thinking and innovative in their influencer marketing approach. Having this knowledge is essential to resonate with audiences in the present moment, whilst also having a good idea of where the industry is heading, and therefore, being able to plan ahead to achieve the best results.
Many brands find it difficult to scale influencer marketing in-house, as doing so would require more staff dedicated to sourcing and implementing collaborations with influencers. Because agencies already have established connections with influencers they know and trust, they are better positioned to provide effective scaling of the channel for brand growth.
Another plus of working with an agency is that they have stellar knowledge of how to negotiate fees and what the best fee levels are for campaigns. Influencer marketing agencies’ deep experience allows them to provide their clients with a larger volume of collaborations. This is especially true if an agency has a technical platform that supports the scaling and measuring of influencer marketing activities.
If you choose to collaborate with an agency, you can get help with everything from defining the strategy to managing the operational parts of the project. When you, together with the agency, have set goals, created a strategy and decided on which influencers to collaborate with, you can leave the rest to them. The agency coordinates the entire process from editing and approving drafts, to ensuring that all posts are distributed on time and in line with the agreements. An agency also handles the administrative tasks with the profiles, such as payments and product distribution.
It’s entirely possible to let an agency do their thing when it comes to planning and executing an influencer marketing campaign for your brand, but there is another option for brands that want to go with an influencer marketing agency but also have some in-house staff working with the channel.
Mixing both in-house and agency influencer marketing: Best of both worlds
Using both in-house and agency talent allows businesses to have control while still leveraging expertise from an outside perspective. Using this approach provides a good solution when you want to scale influencer marketing but don’t want to hire a lot of influencer marketing specialists in-house.
There are many different areas to cover within an influencer marketing strategy, and having a mix of in-house and agency can provide you with the best of both worlds. For instance, brands will typically want to undertake the more fun elements, such as building relationships with influencers and liaising with the influencers directly about content, without having to deal with the boring aspects of administrative tasks like chasing influencers. For this reason, agencies can sort out the seemingly more mundane parts, allowing the in-house team to thrive in more fun or creative areas.
Brands’ in-house influencer marketing team can sometimes have doubts about their job security if an agency is brought in to do all the work. This is sometimes the case when there is a rather small in-house team of one to three influencer marketers. However, mixing in-house and agency expertise aims to work efficiently for all parties involved and ensures that everyone has an important role to play.
A hybrid setup between in-house and agencies when it comes to influencer marketing is steadily growing, and we’ve personally seen how effective this partnership is for planning and executing stellar influencer campaigns that both brands and audiences love. For sustainable results with this approach, always-on influencer marketing is essential to remain top-of-mind for customers and to maintain important influencer relationships.
Final thoughts (and the winner is…)
Now that we’ve gone through the strengths and weaknesses of the different ways to work with influencer marketing, it’s down to your individual circumstances to determine which method is right for you.
If your brand doesn’t have an in-house influencer marketing team, it’s beneficial to reach out to an agency that can use its expertise to help you achieve your goals. However, even if you have some in-house staff working on the influencer marketing front, it’s still beneficial to work with an agency. This collaborative way of working ensures that your in-house team can work on the more exciting aspects of the channel whilst benefiting from the agency’s established working relationships with influencers.
If you’re still unsure about which way to go, don’t hesitate to contact us or check out our blog for more inspiration on how you can approach influencer marketing.
