Why influencers should take media budget

Posted In: Hidden by Dan Howard,
January 30, 2018

We’re full-service for a reason. Nothing is as clean-cut as media buying, digital marketing and PR anymore – everything crosses over, and doing the full suite of paid, owned and earned marketing comms allows us to be truly strategic.

Rather than accepting ‘media’ budget from a client, we like to adopt a ‘marketing’ budget and devise a strategic way to spend it. Historically (and still to this day in some companies…) a marketer will allocate budget to media, digital and PR depending on how the best see the ratio working – usually based on historical performance – but opportunities will be missed.

There an abundance of examples of PR and media crossover, but in this instance I’m focusing on influencer engagement.

My core discipline is PR, and in its most simple form PR is the method of liaising with influencers – when I first graduated this was a relatively straightforward case of dealing with journalists for print titles and dealing with planners for broadcast. As time has gone by, our routes to media exposure and consumer engagement are now far broader with the dominance of ‘online’ and social media paving the way for a whole new set of influencers, behaving in very different ways.

Marketing has become more bespoke, and a one-size-fits-all advertising campaign no longer exists in a strategic marketplace. Marketers are beavering away devising bigger and better campaigns in an effort to genuinely engage with their audience, not just shout at them.

Five years ago if I’d seen somebody take a photo of every meal, or posed for selfies on a beach, I’d have presumed the meal was en route to a parent and the sexy selfie en route to Facebook to strike envy in an ex. Now, I find myself wondering if they’re running a successful blog, championing their social feeds or finding fame vlogging. Today’s influencer landscape is so huge and so varied – I can’t stress how much we still value our journalists and broadcasters, but we’re also proud to be involved with modern-day influencers, finding new touchpoints and tapping into the powerful audiences that they’ve amassed.

For us, it’s a no brainer if you’re confident in what you’re promoting. Make your budget work harder and funnel it down a more engaging route, with rich content that’s highly relevant, bespoke and available for longer. What better way to market to your audience than with brand ambassadors. Third party endorsements rule.

Engage with your audience, don’t just shout at them.

PR is built on the power of third party endorsements and influencer marketing is a prime example of how huge this has become. We live in a society with a lot of noise so relevance is key. Spend time finding your best fit (or allow us to do this for you…) – there’s always going to be a place for siloed media, digital and PR but a blended approach allows greater flexibility, superior strategy and better results.