How do you create a win-win influencer marketing contract that protects your budget and expectations?

Define the scope of task clearly: The contract should specify deliverables, expectations, content type, frequency, promotion channels. Ask the influencer, “directly and openly” for their expectations and communicate your own. Scope definition ensures that both the brand and influencer are aligned on the goals

Your success starts and ends with your campaign brief. Spend a lot of time (at least 1-2 days) producing a thoughtful, comprehensive campaign brief that you can share with influencers as soon as you reach out to them. A good campaign brief will tell an influencer everything they need to know about your brand and partnership. Here are a few must-have sections: - Introduction to your brand (who you are and what you do) - Examples of previous partnerships or other inspiration - Deliverables - Detailed explanations for each deliverable (i.e. do they need to say certain words? avoid certain words? include a hashtag?) - Timelines - Payment details - A description of your entire process, from end-to-end

It's important that you are upfront with your offer: if you're offering a flat-rate compensation, say that. If you're only able to offer free product in return for promotion, say that. My personal opinion is that you should always compensate influencers in currency for their work. A free T-shirt simply is not adequate payment for their hard work and expertise. My best tip for negotiating is: ask influencers for their rates upfront. Many have pre-prepared rate cards with all the details you're looking for. A pro tip: if you find that your budget is too low for an influencer's rates, that's ok! Be honest and let them know. Sometimes, you might be able to work something out.

Establish fair market compensation! The brand should know a ballpark rate of contract before approaching an influencer. The contract should clearly state the compensation for the influencer's services, whether payment, free products or services, or other incentives are used. The pay should be appropriate with the extent of the work and the influencer's level of expertise.

You should have a pre-prepared contract that was drafted by your legal team that covers all of these points. If you don't, a quick Google search will return a number of helpful templates. I personally prefer to have a comprehensive contract prepared by our legal team and present that to every influencer partner. This next point is key: remain flexible! Different influencers may ask for different edits to the contract. Try to be as flexible and accommodating as you can. Your flexibility here can be the difference between entering a partnership or losing it.

One critical thing to have in your contract that is often missed: A clause that requires the influencer to remove the post, should you request it. There are scenarios beyond your control that may arise that might prompt you to un-post the sponsored content. Without this clause, an influencer is not obligated to do so. One real world example of this is: if an influencer posts a controversial piece of content after your sponsored content, your brand may be exposed. You might want to request the removal of your sponsored content to avoid this situation. It's a rare scenario, but it's always wise to be prepared.

The contract should include terms that protect both the brand and the influencer's interests, such as confidentiality agreements, content ownership, and dispute resolution methods. It should also include the payment timeframe and expectations, as well as any cancellation or termination terms.

It's important to be flexible! Even though you are deploying a single, legally-approved contract to all of your influencers, different partners will have different needs and may request different edits to your contract. I personally prefer to oblige these requests whenever it is possible and does not expose the brand legally. If you can be accommodating and flexible, it makes a huge difference to your influencer partners and they will undoubtedly appreciate it. If you're a smaller brand, this is your arbitrage opportunity! You have more flexibility than a large brand with a huge legal department and a lot of corporate red tape. Use that to your advantage!

An example of this in practice can be found in long-term influencer partnerships. Some partnerships may last months and deliverables may vary across channels and formats. To allow for landscape changes, and to use insight from previous posts, it’s worth regularly reviewing the contract to produce maximum outputs on social.