With the small business market growing exponentially every year, it’s important for some to differentiate themselves in their respective industries. And now, with influencer marketing booming into a 13 billion dollar industry, small businesses have found success spending their marketing dollars on carefully selected influencers. But what’s the cost?
Here, we’ll help break down the influencer marketing space and dive deeper into the cost of influencer marketing.
What is Influencer Marketing?
To put it simply, influencer marketing is a form of marketing in which influencers promote brands, products, or services within a campaign. It’s a great way for small businesses to tap into larger yet specific audiences under a creator they trust. Recently, we’ve seen the rise of several huge spenders in the space that have focused on brand awareness, diversifying their content while capitalizing on less marketing dollars that traditional campaigns would cost.
With the space continuously expanding and capturing larger, more diverse audiences; many marketers are looking for the right influencers to spend their marketing dollars on. And in niche markets, these businesses have a newfound appreciation for micro and nano-influencers, who we’ll explain more about below, as they can benefit from dedicated fanbases in focus areas the brand might be targeting.
There Are Influencer Tiers?
While large influencers still dominate the space and rake in more marketing dollars from brand deals than other smaller influencers, the influencer marketing industry has definitely opened its eyes and pockets to those with smaller, but more engaged audiences. The cost of influencer marketing varies widely amongst these 4 tiers, and here, we’ll break them down:
Nano Influencers: <10K
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- Despite having a rather small following, nano-influencers might be exactly what a brand is looking for. With a very strong and devoted following, brands looking to target a niche market might look towards these nano-influencers for a personal recommendation of a product as a result of the close relationship they have with their following, rather than the typical advertisement brands may receive from larger influencers.
- Another advantage of marketing through nano-influencers is the price. The truth is these influencers charge a fraction of the price that macro and mega influencers would ask for while still receiving great engagement and success from marketing campaigns. If the brand is a great fit for the influencer, they may also market it in return for free products, which we’ll talk more about in the sponsorship section.
Micro Influencers: 10K – 50K
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- With a greater following and possibly more experience in creating content, micro-influencers are more than likely to have good knowledge within the influencer ecosystem. That being said, their experience coupled with their devoted following make them eye-catching for many businesses, especially small businesses, that fit a specific niche like fitness or beauty.
- With high quality content boosted out to smaller audiences, the price is also fairly cheaper than marketing through macro and mega influencers. Micro-influencers are also quite picky with who they partner with in order to stay on brand with their audience, but with the right fit and a hyper-specific audience, these influencers have become a focal point in the influencer marketing domain.
Macro Influencers: 50K – 1M
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- Spanning between a wide range of followers (50k-1M), macro influencers fit into the “celebrity” category, but on a lower scale than those within the mega influencer realm. They have excelled at providing content and impact in order to garner their large followings, but engagement rates may not always match that.
- Simply put, the cost of influencer marketing through macro influencers isn’t cheap. The reach an influencer campaign can reach within the higher echelon of these influencers is great, however, their fanbases are sporadic and usually not invested in a specific area. Because of their high followings, they may expect a large brand deal which is not ideal for small businesses unless the package and output is carefully curated.
Mega Influencers : 1M+
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- With the largest range of followers, one thing that mega influencers share is the fact that they have at least 1 million followers. Depending on who you ask, mega influencers can be actors such as The Rock, athletes like LeBron James or huge content creators like MrBeast, with largely developed yet diverse fanbases.
- While marketing through mega influencers can be great to reach that wide, diverse fanbase; the fact of the matter is that they are expensive for less content than what you’d get from micro or nano influencers. On top of that, once influencers reach this status, they usually don’t interact and create personal relationships with their followers which is definitely something to think about as a small business.
Influencer Marketing Sponsorship Styles
There are 5 distinct types of sponsorship styles to look for when developing a plan for influencer marketing. The cost of influencer marketing for each style varies widely both in style and the size of the influencer a brand may choose to go with. Here’s a quick look at the styles to look into.
Product Gifting
Depending on the size of the influencer, brands can gift products in return for amazing content. Think of it as great user-generated content (USG) but projected an audience a business or brand is targeting. In this type of deal, brands work together on putting together a gift package to send to an influencer or influencers in return for in-feed content. This way, the products can be enjoyed by the influencer, especially if it’s on-brand, and the brand benefits from extended reach.
This sponsorship style is great for small businesses that want to test out the influencer marketing waters while also receiving some sort of return on investment. Another thing to note is the fact that most larger influencers expect a larger package including compensation, so investing time searching for the right nano or micro-influencer realm might pay off exponentially.
Influencer Takeovers
Unlike the majority of these sponsorship types, takeovers don’t involve a product the brand or business is selling. Instead, the influencer is given access to the brand’s social media account (can be via multiple platforms) for a specific amount of time.
Many takeovers include influencers showing “a day-in-the-life”, interacting with some of the brand’s products and developing a relationship with the brand’s audience via Q&As or polls! With the right influencer, this can really make waves for a brand and create a long-lasting relationship with the influencer for future marketing opportunities.
Giveaways
Giveaways are a fun way to get an influencer’s audience engaged and excited about a product or business. Typically, a brand would offer a free product to the influencer to give away to the fan, and the easier it is for the audience to join in the fun, the better the turnout.
Competitions and giveaways can include:
- Engaging with the influencers’ post itself:
- “Liking” a post
- Commenting
- Tagging friends
- Engaging with the brand outside of the post by:
- “Liking” or following the brand on their social media channels
- Going to the brand’s website and signing up via form or email list
- Submitting photos, stories, or other types of entries to be judged by the brand
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Sponsored Posts
As the most commonly used influencer marketing style, sponsored posts are a great way for brands and businesses to reach an audience. Sponsored posts are usually set up by brands reaching out to influencers or their agents in order to set the terms, which normally includes cash and, depending on the size of the influencer, free products to review. The influencer is then given guidelines by the brand, but also the creative freedom to curate content such as a photo, video or blog post that fits with both their personal brand and their audience.
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Depending on the type of influencer and the package agreed upon, sponsored posts are really where the price of influencer marketing can reach great heights. For that reason, small businesses might look towards nano, micro or even smaller macro influencers with good engagement rates to head their campaigns.
Brand Ambassadors
Here’s the cream of the crop for most small businesses. Brand ambassadors are influencers whose personal brand and audience truly resonate with the brand itself and tend to create long term relationships with a brand. Choosing the right influencer goes a long way here as brands typically work with ambassadors for 6 months, a year or even longer. Ryan Garcia (pictured below) has been a GymShark ambassador for over 5 years!
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Influencer size also plays a part here. Smaller influencers might accept a package that includes discount codes for the brand’s products for the lifetime of the ambassadorship. Larger or more seasoned influencer ambassador packages might include cash compensation and free products.
Pricing Breakdown
Although we can’t guarantee any specific price based on the influencer tier, we can try our best to address it based on specific metrics on various platforms. Factors such as engagement, industry and whether or not the influencer is native to more than one platform play into the cost of influencer marketing.
As the most common platform for influencer marketing, Instagram has become the go-to app for businesses to gain traction and expand their reach. As explained above, a lot of planning should be done before going into an influencer marketing campaign such as crafting a strategy, determining market spend and choosing the influencers that best fit with how the brand wants to be represented. While prices aren’t set in stone and can change over the course of negotiations, here is a concise breakdown of what prices you can expect through each influencer tier.
| Influencer Level | Follower Count | Pricing Per Post |
| Mega-Influencer | Over 1M | Varies |
| Macro-Influencer | 500k – 1M | $10,000+ |
| Mid-Tier influencer | 50k – 500k | $500 – $5,000 |
| Micro-Influencer | 10k – 50k | $100 – $500 |
| Nano-Influencer | 1k – 10k | $10 – $100 |
Tiktok
As one of the new emerging platforms in the social media space, TikTok has become very eye-catching for businesses who are looking to attract young audiences. Because it is quite new, TikTok influencers might have migrated from other platforms such as Instagram or YouTube and adopted large followings as a result. So looking deeper into their TikTok engagement metrics can help determine how popular they truly are via the platform.
| Influencer | Follower Count | Pricing Per Post |
| Mega-Influencer | Over 1M | $2,500 + |
| Macro-Influencer | 500k – 1M | $1,250 – $2,500 |
| Mid-Tier influencer | 50k – 500k | $125 – $1,250 |
| Micro-Influencer | 10k – 50k | $25 – $125 |
| Nano-Influencer | Less than 10k | $5 – $25 |
While the pricing guide is great for a general understanding of what to expect, there are multiple different advertisement types that businesses can look into on TikTok.
YouTube
Because of the multitude of different advertising styles brands can implement through a YouTube influencer marketing campaign, YouTube has been known to be the most expensive platform to implement a campaign on. However, it is for good reason. With a multitude of choices brands can choose from such as where they would like the ad placed, how long they expect it to be and what their goal is; influencers have to dive deeper into their creative mindset to build out that campaign. According to InfluencerMarketingHub, this is a general breakdown for the YouTube ad pricing.
- Nano-influencers: $20–$200 per video
- Micro-influencers: $200–$1,000 per video
- Mid-tier influencers: $1,000–$10,000 per video
- Macro-influencers: $10,000–$20,000 per post
- Mega-influencers: $20,000+ per post
Some YouTube influencers may also decide to charge based on video views (charging $50–$100 per 1,000 views), but at the end of the day, all of that can be discussed between a business and influencer throughout the negotiation phase.
Working With an Agency
When a business is new to the influencer marketing world, it can seem overwhelming to learn all the ins and outs while receiving the best return on investment (ROI) possible. That’s where working with experts, like an influencer marketing can serve a business well.
Expertise can go a long way in influencer marketing in terms of pricing, content creation, databases and softwares to expedite the search for influencers and performance tracking. Because of an agency’s expertise, one can expect:
- Knowledgeable negotiations and contracts with influencers
- Strategic management of a brand’s budget and campaign
- Advanced creation for content strategy alongside influencers
- A concise schedule for posting to optimize ROI
- Another set of eyes on a campaign performance
Some agencies might be expensive, but if one is chosen within a brand’s marketing budget, it can save a lot of the backend.
About the Author: Adam is a writer at NeoReach and a current undergraduate at the University of Southern California. He has a keen interest in digital marketing, and is an avid follower of the creator economy. In his free time, Adam loves to read, work out and play basketball.
