From blogger to influencer

By Mr. Ajay Kudva, Founder, en:lyft

From the blogger era back in 2010 to the Influencer term being coined in 2016, it has been a rollercoaster ride in the evolution of the term “Influencer Marketing”. But why did it grow to such an extent for this? I would like to quote the following, “They saw money, we saw money, and both of us lived happily ever after”. The “they” refers to the people who made a career out of being an Influencer, and the “us” is the brands who saw influencers as another channel of marketing and brand advocacy. Obviously, if both parties involved wouldn’t have benefits, we wouldn’t have seen such exponential growth. So from a brand’s point of view, let’s talk about the benefits AKA ROI.

The same can be defined in 2 ways:

1. How to Achieve it
2. How to measure it

Now I am not going to tell you that you need to find the right person according to your target audience as I believe, that is already established, and we all know it. Let’s go a step further and understand how we can be more effective in achieving it:

1. Endorsement vs Experiential midground: Generally, this is the make or break for the campaign. The brand has a set of rules, guidelines and communications that it wants to be put out. Let’s sum it up as the brand knows its product/service. On the other hand, the Influencer has his rituals, personality and style let sum this up as the Influencers know its audience. Between these parties getting a balance while creating content is key to receiving a good ROI.
2. Quality over quantity: This can be summed up in the following way if I had a budget of 1 lakh. I would divide by budget among 10 Influencers rather than giving the entire budget to one influencer. Simply, we cannot predict which content pieces can go viral and get us sales. Instead, I bet on 10 people than to put all my eggs in one basket. The 1 person strategy may work in celebrity marketing, but it’s a different ball game in Influencer marketing. Also, the worst case but a high probability one what if that 1 content piece does not perform?
3. Check on the competition: 95% chances of you and your competition choosing the same sub-set of Influencers. There is a better chance of gaining ROI if the influencer of the particular sub-set does your video first. Even if it’s a month duration post the influencer making the competitors videos and you make a video with him, the results will not be optimum.

Now, how do we measure it? Again the below 3 points will help you with the same:

1. Brand Awareness: Repeat after me. Influencer marketing at its first level is and always will be a branding activity. The same can be measured in the following sense as to after viewing the content piece, how many people came to the website or How many people searched for your product on Amazon, Google, Flipkart and even YouTube for that manner. But the best is, word of mouth, when you get random people buying/installing your products/Apps from sources, not from the link you provided the influencer. Know that it is working.
2. Sales/Downloads: If you set out a goal to achieve sales and we accomplish the same, it’s working. This is your primary goal, the reason why you set out to get the budget approval for this campaign in the first place.
3. IGC to UGC: If influencer generated content gets you user-generated content, then know that the campaign has gained success. The same can also be called second-degree reach. E.g., if one Influencer creates a short video on a particular song and 10 of his followers use the same song, then know that you have achieved second-degree reach. Suggestions for the same would be that brand should have a referral system ready, so that anyone who wants to create content around the product/service also has the means to earn from it.

The above being said, you never know what the future holds for Influencer marketing; maybe influencer marketing turns out to be a performance-based activity, or the legalization of Influencer marketing begins, or how to be an influencer being added to the future syllabus you never know. I would like to end this conversation with something interesting I read on Reddit that I can write a book on marketing; that’s not the issue, but the problem is by the time I publish it, the book would be outdated.

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