During the COVID 19 pandemic, we have seen digital penetration and content marketing becoming trending over the audience. One day 2 of e4m Content Jam 2020, speaker session, and industry experts through panel discussions has spoken about the importance of influencer marketing for a brand campaign, and how brands can drive to the desired reach an outcome by using influencers accurately.
The second day of the panel discussion was on the topic ‘Trust- Building brands via influencers, Expertise, and Authentication’. On the panel were Sadar Pushp, CEO, Clan; GB Sridhar, Regional Director, India, South Asia at Singapore Tourism Board & Middle East; Bahaar Dhawan Rohatgi; Vivek Sharma, CMO, Pidilite Industries; and Lakshmi Balasubramanian, co-founder, Green Room. The session was lead by Ajay Mehta, Senior Vice President, Mindshare + content.
Speaking about the challenges Mr. Sharma said, “The challenge is to select the right influencers, you have to work hard with these small cohorts of people because of segmentation is far more then we anticipate, you have to choose an influencer based on two things, one is trust and engagement which is qualitative and the other is ‘reach’ which is quantifiable, their tonality and personality also matters, the marketing team of the brand needs to have hands-on involvement, Marketers need to leave the temptation of hard-selling through influencer marketing because that backfires”.
While talking about the measurement, Sharma said, “Like other digital media, we can attract the marketing campaigns if we have an e-commerce link, after awareness and consideration, we can measure performance through likes, retweets, comments, etc, but the right balance of what they bring to the table in qualitative engagement and trust and quantitative reach leading to sale is a better approach”.
While stating about the importance of micro-influencers in driving business, Sridhar pointed out, “Micro-influencers are very passion-driven in the niche they are in, it is about looking at those kinds of passion rich influencers that resonate with the brand”.
Concluding the discussion, Pushp said, “AI and Machine Learning are a very important tool which is going to build the entire decision-making process for influencer marketing and will make it very easy for brands to select influencers”.
