Here's how D2C brands can ensure effective Influencer Marketing

While the number of Instagram influencers has grown immensely in the past few years, the number of D2C brands has also sky-rocketed in the same time frame and especially through the pandemic. Instagram today looks more like a marketplace than a social media platform to connect with people.

According to reports, the D2C industry is going to cross $100 billion by the year 2025 and influencer marketing is an effective way of marketing the brand which is cost-effective as well as helps the brand to reach the targeted audience. However, there is the problem of clutter and all the noise on the platform through which brands have to cut through in order to be heard and seen.

Rather than pushing ads over social media, brands are more likely to integrate themselves in the content in order to attract more customers and create a mark in the mind of the audience. Influencer marketing gives brands the liberty/power to reach out to the audience through effective content and the power of influencers. The influencers have created an easy yet a little chaotic way to reach the audience. 

Ambika Sharma

Although influencer marketing is one of the major tools for a D2C company, companies should not solely rely on it, as per Ambika Sharma, Founder & MD, Pulp Strategy. Sharma said that the right strategy would be a sweeping term, it should be a part of the strategy and not a standalone action. Influencer marketing alone is neither scalable nor can it drive a full sales funnel and ideally, it should be combined with other digital mediums of advertising to ensure ROI, as per Sharma.

Many a times influencers end up promoting competing brands, however, the audience doesn't receive the same as impactfully as it should have been. In a post shared by Harshit Gohil, Co-founder at 365veda, he said, “There are about 125K influencers on Instagram - identified by their number of followers and promoting brands. Interestingly, 72% of them are micro-influencers having anywhere between 10K-200K followers. They get about 6-7 brand collaborations every month. When the same influencer starts promoting brands in a similar space, their followers start losing interest, thereby impacting their engagement.”

Shivam Agarwal

Whereas, there are some companies that are taking steps to differentiate themselves from the clutter and make the most out of their influencer marketing activities. Shivam Agarwal, Founder of Deckster.Live, spoke about repetition of brands in a similar category and said, “That’s an actual problem and one can avoid such a situation by having exclusivity rights with the influencers for their category or niche.”

“We have this rule where we do not work with influencers who have advertised a similar product in the last three months. Recently when we were working on a product in the water filtration category, we were able to get six months' rights from the influencer as well. Most influencers don’t mind this because they understand this also means repeat business for them from the same brand,” he added.

Pranav Panpalia

There are marketing agencies to help brands choose influencers perfectly, Pranav Panpalia, Founder of OpraahFx, shared the factors which should be kept in mind while choosing the right set of influencers. He said, “Do not jump on the bandwagon just because your competitors are doing so. Take some time and understand which influencers suit your brand the best. Smart integrations are extremely necessary. Bluntly promoting products isn’t of much use.”

There are challenges in every marketing campaign/tool. Some of them being choosing from the multitude of influencers available on the social media platforms, changing trends, algorithms of the social media platforms, and the challenges that are faced related to influencers and D2C collaborations.

Rachit Juneja, Co-Founder of Sheeko, shared some of the challenges and solutions for D2C brand collaborations with influencers, he said, ”In order to eradicate the clutter, brands should think about long-term collaborations. I also think these D2C brands should have Gen-Z people in their teams who have an idea of what is trending and communicate the same to the company as well as the influencers.”

Influencer marketing is an effective tool for companies but the companies have to be smart while doing these activities to create a mark in the mind of the audiences. Juneja also said that Instagram has already become a marketplace for influencers, and it will grow even further in the coming days and brands might find alternatives to differentiate themselves from the clutter.