Influencer marketing is booming and has become an essential component for brands. 93% of marketers have used influencer marketing in their overall marketing efforts. All their digital marketing strategies are majorly around influencers. Isn’t it quite obvious?
Influencers provide substantial value to their audience and have the potential to persuade them to buy a particular product or service.
While many brands tend to go for paid collaborations, some also opt for barter campaigns. What is the difference between the two? Let us break it down for you.
Paid Collaboration v/s Barter Collaboration
Paid Collaboration – In paid collaborations, brands pay influencers for every post or video they promote on their social media channels.
Barter Collaboration – In barter collaborations, the influencers can promote brands’ products in exchange for free product samples.
Paid collaborations are generally used to work with Macro influencers and Key Opinion Leaders where the focus is on reaping the maximum benefits of the strong following of such people while on the other hand barter collaborations focus on working with influencers at scale and reaching out to masses at the most optimum costs.
Should You Be Saying Yes to Barter Collaborations?
It’s a big yes!
Although 63% of brands use paid collaborations and only 35% use barter campaigns, the latter is an ideal choice for brands. Do you know why?
The pandemic has created turmoil for businesses all over the world. Considering barter campaigns as your marketing strategy will serve two purposes: Brand growth and solving financial problems.
Small and mid-sized businesses may find it challenging to pay a hefty amount to influencers every time; however, offering sample products will save your finances and even encourage the influencers to use them and post a review about the same. These positive reviews may lead to an increase in customer loyalty and drive sales for your brand.
Influencers have become the buzzword on social media because they enhance your overall performance, improve conversion rates, and resonate better with consumers. Thus, bringing together the power of barter campaigns and influencers can be a game-changer for your brand.
Barter Campaigns – Benefits for Brands
- Larger Reach
The essence of word-of-mouth marketing remains the same. All brands need to do is bring the products to the influencers and ask them to promote them uniquely. Such promotions often get a better response from the audience because influencers promote their products.
When they start trusting and using their recommendations, customers are more likely to share their thoughts about your product with their friends and family. It will increase your brand awareness and also improve your brand reputation.
- More Economical
Barter collaborations are an ideal marketing strategy for you, especially if you are low on finances. Moreover, it even removes the pressure from brands and influencers as there are no monetary contracts.
Send free product samples to your influencers, so they can start creating content around the product you want to promote.
- Identify What Works For You
With barter collaborations you can try out different strategies to understand what works best for your particular brand. For instance, you might discover that influencers from a certain niche perform better when it comes to targeting your audience.
Since barter collaborations are more economical and less rigid you can experiment without any hesitation and come to a solid understanding of the best influencer marketing approach for your business before taking on paid campaigns.
Barter Campaigns – Benefits for Influencers
- Open the door to future collaboration opportunities
There is intense competition in the influencer marketing space as the number of influencers popping up on social media is increasing. It is challenging to stay ahead in the game, especially for nano and micro-influencers.
As an influencer, you will be offered free product samples and asked to share your opinion about the same. Honest product reviews and authentic content will help you increase your credibility and boost your engagement rate. Moreover, brands are more likely to share your testimonial or content on their page, which will help you build your fan base.
- Gain a first-hand experience of amazing products & services
As an influencer, your followers trust your recommendations and it’s essential to maintain that trust as you grow your community. A good way to do so is barter campaigns as they allow you the opportunity to really test out the product/services for yourself before having to post any content about it.
Audiences will appreciate you more if they know that regardless of it being sponsored content you will be giving your actual thoughts and a genuine review.
They will be more likely to finalise a purchase based on your recommendations.
- Get invited to exclusive events
Once you build up your reputation and rapport with brands they will start to invite you to their events whether that be launches, parties, or other special events. These events are a great place to socialise with other influencers and network with high-level brand representatives that would be present.
Look at How Colorbar Generated Brand Awareness Through an Influencer Barter Campaign!
The beauty and makeup space is quite competitive with international and Indian brands battling for the same consumers. To stand apart and reach the masses in an authentic and engaging way the company opted for a barter collaboration with 1000+ influencers in partnership with Badshaah. They asked nano and micro female influencers to dance to the song ‘Bad Boy Bad Girl’ and integrate their products.
Result – Although Colorbar is already a well-established company, this specific campaign helped them generate a reach of 17+ million and engagement of 2.5+ million. Their goal to reach new audiences and increase sales was definitely accomplished.
How to Begin With Barter Collaboration?
- Set your campaign objective – Before you start pitching the influencers about the barter campaign, be clear about your goals. This way, you can tell the influencers your expectations from them. Your goals can be anything from brand awareness to gaining more sales.
- Identify relevant influencers – Social media consists of a pool of influencers. You need to search through them, understand their profile, type of content, engagement rate, etc., to choose the one that fits your brand perfectly. Also, make sure you select influencers from your niche for higher relevance.
- Select the right channel – After selecting the right influencers, choose the right social media channel to carry forward your barter collaboration. Furthermore, mention the type of content you expect from the influencers.
- Begin your barter campaign – In the end, communicate the date and timings of the brand campaign to the influencers.
How Can the Sehaye Influencer Marketing Platform Help You?
In recent years, barter campaigns have gained immense popularity. Many brands are already leveraging it, and some are yet to adopt it. It’s a win-win situation for both brands and influencers. While brands can ask for their product promotion in exchange for a free sample, influencers can boost their visibility and create a loyal fan base.
That being said, barter campaigns can be challenging to execute. Sehaye as a platform streamlines barter campaigns making it easier than ever to increase brand awareness and drive conversions.
Sehaye has a sizeable influencer database where brands can easily search for and categorise influencers they want to collaborate with. Additionally, you can easily submit a campaign brief with all the necessary details to bring your vision to life. Influencers will then apply to collaborate if they are interested in your campaign. Now all you have to do is decide which influencer best fits your brand and campaign requirements.
If you are an influencer, all you need to do is download the application and sign up. You can find a variety of campaigns and apply to the campaigns you’re excited about. If selected, the brand will then directly get in touch with you regarding the collaboration.
