Discover if influencer ambassador programs fit your brand goals

By James Nord

As we’re inching towards the end of the year, I am sure many of you are planning your 2020 plans and budgets and it's worth talking about longer-term influencer contracts, or ambassador programs. 

Where they make sense, we love longer-term influencer programs for a few reasons:

1.  Economies of Scale: Influencers can only charge so much for each subsequent contracted post, and if you know you want more than four posts out of an influencer in a given year, the saving potential is huge with a longer-term project.
2. Poor man's exclusivity: While it is increasingly difficult to afford full category exclusivity i.e. haircare, or foundation, longer-term programs associate you more tightly with that influencer, making it less likely for an influencer to take a comparably sized deal from one of your competitors. 
3. Lock in rates: If an influencer has 300,000 followers and is growing at 5% a month, that means they will have over 500,000 followers by the end of the year. So contracting a high growth influencer in January for December posts could save you thousands of dollars PER post. 
4. Bonus posts: Influencers who know they are working with you for the full year could give you bonus content, and if you're smart about your gifting strategy, it creates moments for them to continue to naturally incorporate your brand into their feed outside of your contracted posts. 
5. Sales funnel: A person needs to hear a message at least seven times before they begin to retain that messaging and consider purchasing. If you're purchasing one post from an influencer you'll have to be pretty savvy with your marketing mix to hit those other seven touchpoints. Long term contracts ensure that the influencer’s audience is repeatedly exposed to your brand messaging enough times to move them through the funnel. 

Not every influencer is perfect for a long term ambassador program, but get it right and you can save a lot of money and drive a lot of value with your influencer spend. 

This was originally sent as an email on November 28, 2018 (and it’s still relevant today). To learn more on how brands can better navigate the influencer space, sign up to Fohr CEO James Nord’s weekly email.