Cracking the Code on Your Influencer Marketing Budget and ROI

Influencer marketing is a new practice. As for anything new, things go wrong more often than they go right. And too often, one can tell from the onset whether an influencer marketing program will succeed or fail based on the level and type of resources allocated to it.

Over the last 7 years, we have learned a thing or two about influencer programs set up for success and, well, those that aren’t. We’ve made that knowledge available to our clients and today we’ll start exposing it to all, starting with the budget.

Budgeting Helps You Think Through Your Influencer Marketing Plan

Budgeting is a great catalyst for marketing executives to think through their influencer marketing plans. And because it’s budgeting season, we decided to create a framework to help you build your budget for your 2017 influencer marketing program and answer these questions in the process:

• What are my goals?
• What activities should I prioritize?
• How will these activities scale through the year?
• What team and technology do I need in support of the program?
• What kind of return can I expect?

Cracking the Code on Your Influencer Marketing Budget and ROI

To help marketing executives set sail with a successful influencer marketing program, we developed an Influencer Marketing Budget and ROI Frame. For the first time, CMOs will have the ability to budget for their initial influencer marketing efforts. This includes accounting for growth, understanding which activities and expenses need to be accounted for, and estimating the return on influencer marketing efforts.

The budget model is built around three core expense categories:

• Resources to run the program (internal or external)
• Technology
• Influencer spend (either in the form of payments to perform work or budget set aside to cater to influencers)