Influencer Rates: How much do influencers really cost (real brand examples)?

In today’s digital age, more and more companies are turning to influencers as a way of marketing their products. As the age of social media continues to grow, so does our dependence on influencers. Those who have established themselves as experts in their respective fields are making connections with companies and promoting products for a price. But how much should you pay an influencer? What is the best way to go about it? Read more to find out! This blog post will answer those questions and provide some tips on finding the perfect influencers for your brand.

Have a Specific Look in Mind

According to Brandon Adcock, CEO of Nugenix, having a specific look in mind is needed when searching for an influencer for a product. Nugenix is a Men’s health and wellness brand that manufactures markets and distributes dietary supplements direct to consumers, as well as in major retail chains. The company has over 300 employees across its 4 offices in Boston, Bethesda, Salt Lake, and headquarters in Charlotte. The company was recognized as the #1 fastest growing company in Charlotte in 2012, as well as Mr. Adcock being named to the Charlotte 40 under 40 in the same year. In 2019, the Charlotte Business Journal ranked the company as the #2 fastest growing middle-market company. Mr. Adcock is a 2006 graduate of Appalachian State University, where he also served as a Director on the University’s Foundation Board for over 7 years. He currently serves on the board of trustees for the Novant Health medical System, the 2nd largest health system in North Carolina. Take a look at Brandon’s influencer marketing tip below:

When searching for an influencer for your products, have a specific look in mind. Are you wanting to go with a smaller, niche influencer who may not have the largest following but all of their followers are your target audiences? Or a big-name influencer who has a broad reach to find new audiences for your business? The smaller influencers will have smaller fees, the average being between $3-$10 per 10,000 impressions. For example, You want to reach 1 million impressions and the industry CPM is $3, you pay around $3,000. It completely depends on your strategy.

Mircoinfluencers and Collaborations

According to Janice Wald who is a blogger, freelance writer, and also CEO of Mostly Blogging which itself is a blog platform. Janice would like to share her thoughts on influencers. Here is her tip:

Brands used to pay influencers but consumers had no way of knowing if the influencer actually used the product. There are other ways to pay an influencer. For instance, brands approach me on Instagram about promoting their Instagram marketing tool. In exchange, I received a free tool that would normally cost money. Also, I collaborate with other influencers which grows my brand. Micro influencers such as myself are definitely used by brands and compensated in what that don’t involve financial payments.

Co-create Content with the Influencer

According to Robb Hecht, Creator Productivity Coach at Baruch College, co-creating the content with the influencer makes their content more genuine. Take a look at Robb’s experience in influencer marketing:

Influencers with 60,000 to 75,000 followers get expect to obtain around $250 to $300 per post

The price point changes based on the advertiser’s needs and the increase in reach of the influencer’s follower base. A key point we have learned, is that the more you co-create the content with the influencer, the more genuine the content is and the more engagement the brand obtains from followers. Eg. have brand goals, but be open minded to let influencers be authentic

Work with the Same Influencers Repeatedly

According to Jonathan Zacharias, Founder of GR0, using the same influencer repeatedly allows more brand loyalty. GR0 is a focused, dedicated, and committed digital marketing agency that will grow your brand online. Jonathan has over a decade of experience working in organic SEO and his agency was named the Fastest Growing Company of the Year by the American Business Awards. Here is Jonathan’s influencer marketing experience and tip:

Here’s the simple truth: influencer campaigns are tricky. However, for small and large businesses alike, I recommend focusing your initial efforts on 2-3 micro influencers (<20K followers), and 1 macro influencer (>100K influencers). Ensure that each and every one resides in the same city, and has similar interests. This will allow for multiple customer touchpoints with the same customer, and provide greater long-term brand trust + validation.

Moreover, I recommend giving away products to micro influencers, and paying macro influencers anywhere from $250-$500 in exchange for 1-2 Instagram + Facebook posts.

More than anything else, however, be sure to use these influencers repeatedly. This will create a sense of community, while also allowing for more brand loyalty,

Different Variables of Influencer Marketing

According to Mykola Tymkiv, COO at MacKeeper, use different variables of Influencer marketing along with the size and budget of the campaign. Here is Mykola tip:

Influencer marketing has a lot of different variables, so it all depends on your goals. The budget will depend on the size of your campaign, its length, and the influencer’s reach.

If you’re just starting with Instagram, I would highly suggest engaging with micro-influencers in your niche. I would start by experimenting with different influencers and paying them anywhere between $100 to $300 just to see the initial results. Once you find the one influencer that works great for your brand, offer them a long-term $1000+ deal to promote your brand. At this point, you can expect to get a lot of quality feedback about influencer marketing and decide whether or not it is worth increasing your budget. New Instagram brands should expect to spend anywhere between $1000 to $3000 a month on influencers and scale up from there.

Pay Influencers Based on Their Interest in the Brand

According to Tucker Besch, a Social Media Specialist at Right Rope, paying influencers based on their interest in the brand helps the brand to become excellent and worth talking about. Tucker handles all things social media at Right Rope by posting regularly, engaging with their following, initiating partnerships with influencers, and running paid advertisements with the goal of growing their following and ultimately sales. In the world of influencer marketing, it’s important to remember that some of the biggest and original influencers are TV personalities. Associating your brand with these well-known figures by advertising during their shows can be a powerful strategy. Moreover, this approach can be more affordable than you might think, thanks to remnant ads. If you’re interested in exploring this avenue, The Remnant Agency specializes in leveraging remnant ad space to maximize your advertising ROI across multiple platforms, including TV shows featuring influential personalities.

Here is Tucker’s influencer marketing experience and tip below:

We have partnered with influencers to grow our Instagram accounts and sales, especially in the macrame community. Brands should pay influencers based on their interest in the brand and the value of the influencers’ following. Finding influencers who already love your brand or your product makes everything easier because they are already willing to talk about it and will be more authentic. This is a win-win because it forces the brand to become excellent and worth talking about or distinguish itself in some way. Ideally, the brand should consider paying the influencer through free or heavily discounted products or services.

The benefit of a heavy discount is that the influencer still has some ‘buy-in’ so you aren’t just buying their opinion. We have found that giving a discount and offering to run a giveaway on the influencers page gives them more of the product they love, helps both sides grow their followings, and creates more exposure for the influencer and for our brand. One giveaway grew our account by over 200 followers, which is a big deal for a small account!

When brands are starting their first influencer marketing campaign they should try and start with their own followers. They already love your brand and it is a safer way to get your feet wet, even if they don’t have the biggest following.

Factors of Influencer Marketing

According to Martin who is a senior editor and marketing strategist at Lab Grown Diamond, the Influencer marketing budget depends on the brand size and limit of the influencer exposure. Lab Grown Diamond is a diamond manufacturing company based in Surat, India. It provides a huge collection of various diamonds at wholesale prices. Martin has to share some tips regarding Influencer Marketing:

At first, paying an influencer depends upon the brand size and influencer’s limits of exposure towards the customers and the audience. Sometimes, influencers go with the basic decided prices as per the market needs and demands for the same from various brands. Also, it highly depends on the brand’s image and goodwill as well as its profit-making capabilities.

It costs from $1-$1000 for the marketing influencers to market any products or services on Instagram.
There are two types of influencers: micro and macro-influencers who can market various brands. Micro-influencers have around 50,000 followers whereas macro-influencers have 1,00,000 followers or more, which states about the choice of businesses as well.

That is, macro-influencers are more in demand as expected with a greater audience and various large brands approach them. The micro-influencers that are still growing are approached by smaller brands and get paid accordingly. Influencers’ payment must be strategized according to the number of followers that have been acquired by the time and should be paid on this basis.

It is an easy process to plan and strategize about the marketing terms and payment for the influencer to attain most of the benefit in anyways. Marketing is not an easy task and attracting the audience towards your brand is also pretty laborious due to the increasing competition, so joining hands with the influencers can be effective for the business and they must be paid their worth.

You must also provide extra benefits to the influencers over the limited payment given. It will boost up their self-initiation towards working hard for your brand. It requires many efforts as already mentioned and should always get motivated to keep the work going. For not letting them stop or meet any obstacles, brands must initiate towards working with them on various projects which could make their work easier.

Influencer Affiliate Program

According to Zubair Jeewanjee, CEO of G1G Travel Insurance, using an affiliate program can help a lot in paying influencers. Zubair has been in this field for many years and knows how to deal with travel influencers. This is what Zubair would like to share:

G1G recently launched a B2B travel insurance brand called WayPoint. We have an affiliate program that pays influencers each time a traveler purchases a product using their link.

But we don’t only focus on the affiliate program. We also focus on compensating influencers in exchange for educational content that brings both brand and product awareness. To answer your question, how much should you pay? It depends. We aren’t a huge travel insurance brand, we’re a POC-led, family-owned company looking to scale, so the arrangement has to be mutually beneficial. But we also know the importance of uplifting marginalized voices, and you aren’t doing that simply by giving them a shout-out or affiliate commission. You also need to pay them for content that they themselves create, and they get set the value on the content. We’ll sometimes negotiate, depending on budgets but we never ask someone to devalue their work.

One thing we do for the influencers we work with is ensure they’re traveling with trip insurance or travel medical plans, so a part of these types of relationships for us is making sure our partners are covered.

Final Thoughts

Establishing a mutually beneficial relationship with an influencer is vital to your company’s success. The more established the person, the pricier they will be and the higher-quality of social media content you can expect from them. However, there are also lesser-known but promising individuals who may not command as high a price tag but could still provide great value for what you pay if their audience aligns well with yours. We hope this blog post answered all your questions and will be able to help you in the future to make decisions regarding the respective matter. Stay tuned for more!