By Audria Low.
Say goodbye to influencer influenza.
If you’ve regularly been keeping up to date with recent marketing trends, you’ll know that Influencer Marketing has been catching on real fast in the industry. In fact, it is booming. According to a study, influencer marketing generates a high return on investment (ROI), as much as 11 times that of online display ads.
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So what exactly is influencer marketing? Wikipedia defines it as “a form of marketing in which focus is placed on specific key individuals rather than the target market as a whole.” In other words, brands are paying for influential figures on social media platforms to market their products for them.
Say the word “influencer” and the mental image of glitzy, high-exposure shots of pretty faces holding products and captions stating “quote MYNAME for 20% OFF of this product” probably comes to mind.
It’s been known that not everybody thinks the best of influencers, but make no mistake. Whether you like it or not, influencer marketing is still one of the most highly relevant types of marketing today.
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And here’s why: consumers’ trust and reliance on traditional media is declining. The decrease in viewership rates of television and radio broadcasts, combined with the introduction of ad blockers means that traditional advertisements are a lot less effective than they used to be.
Alternatively, consumers then turn to social media platforms for content they perceive to be more engaging and authentic, from individuals they can relate to. The effectiveness of these advertisements stems from the fact that the products are tried and tested by a trustworthy 3rd party source and verified for its quality, making the ad more reliable than traditional commercials hard selling products that consumers are barely interested in.
The effectiveness of influencer marketing also relies on high user engagement and peer influence. Every time your favourite influencers share a giveaway post or rave about their #holygrail products, fans tag their friends in the comments, share the posts via DM, and it goes on and on, maximising outreach for brands working with influencers. See? that’s how brands get the moolah rolling in.
Yet, influencer marketing can also be tricky. People have been getting their knickers in a twist because of the negative stereotypes surrounding influencers.
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Remember the FAVES Asia drama that erupted in Singapore last year in which the company created a video that portrayed influencers to be materialistic, shallow, fame-hungry wannabes? It was very poorly received and simply added fuel to the already-bad reputation of influencers in the industry. As influencer marketing goes mainstream, people are being increasingly picky over the influencers whom they choose to follow and engage with.
Now you know, it can be tough to navigate the Influencer Marketing minefield. With that being said, sit tight as we give you the lowdown on 5 brands that did it right.
YSL Singapore
French luxury fashion house Yves Saint Laurent doesn’t just do killer haute couture fashion; they also have significant presence in the luxury fragrance and cosmetics market, with their lipstick making the Harper Bazaar’s list of Iconic Lipsticks to Try Before You Die.
Let’s zoom in on the map to somewhere closer to home: YSL Beauty Singapore. In an effort to expand their influence locally, the brand engaged some of the bigger names in the local entertainment industry (like actress Oon Shu An and ex-radio DJ Rozz) to market their products.
Sexy, adventurous, fearless and versatile, these women are the perfect fit as influencers for the brand, whose runway aesthetics take influence from both edgy street fashion and pop culture as well as more classic, timeless styles.
Furthermore, YSL Beauty’s main target market would also be smaller in order to maintain a sense of exclusivity that gives the brand its status as a luxury beauty brand, probably that of a more mature audience as opposed to brands such as Tarte Cosmetics and Too Faced. Which proves our point about Shu An and Rozz being an appropriate choice for influencer partnerships: Being in the age range of 30s, the content they create and their follower demographics are probably more geared towards a mature audience than some of the fresh faces in the industry.
And this leads us to… Pro-tip #1! When working with influencers, always make sure your influencers embody your brand values. This makes your branding more uniform and gives the public a clearer idea of what your brand is all about.
You should also evaluate their followers to see if the demographics are the same as the target audience your brand sees the most potential in attracting consumers from. That way, you can decide if your influencer marketing campaign is truly worth the time, effort and money.
Revolve
When trying to engage influencers to work with your brand, it’s always the right time to exercise the golden motto of “put others before yourself”. Don’t sell your influencers a business model where the only one who benefits is your brand. You need to convince the influencer – show them what’s in it for them. The trick to that? Creating a brand community that everyone, no less every influencer, would be dying to be a part of.
Take Revolve for example. A Los Angeles clothing company that is a growing fashion powerhouse, Revolve has some of the biggest influencers under their wing, including Jenn Im, Chrissy Teigen, and Elle Ferguson, amongst many others. But that’s not their only recipe for success. We constantly see influencers who are part of the Revolve family giving us exclusive peeks of their get-together moments during exciting trips and events. And there’s always an emphasis on family and camaraderie amongst the influencers and company.
Just take a look at this video which was sponsored by Revolve. The FOMO is real. Right?? When posts or videos like these go live, viewers see a colourful community of fun-loving, fashion-forward individuals that they’re just dyin’ to be a part of. Taking the effort to build rapport with your influencers simultaneously strengthens your partnership with them and at the same time, effectively reaches out to a mass audience that are now acquainted with your brand!
Dominos
Admittedly, in Singapore, bulk of the influencers utilise Instagram as their main platform for sharing, but that doesn’t mean all of them only use Instagram. Dominos Singapore, for instance, linked arms with the team at The JianHao Tan company to create a video advertising for Domino’s new Daebak Spicy Menu – The Spicy Mukbang Challenge.
Domino’s Pizza is one of the go-to places for delivery pizza in Singapore, and students probably constitute a major proportion of their sales. We’re talking pizza at class chalets, parties and even school events. And the age range of Jian Hao’s viewers on Youtube happily coincides with that of their customers, making it a smart move for Domino’s to move their advertising to Youtube as well.
Here’s something to learn: don’t just stick to one platform! Utilise various social media platforms for your influencer marketing campaign to maximise audience outreach.
Cheap Tickets SG
We gotta say, it’s getting more and more difficult to up our Instagram game visually nowadays, with everyone spending hours editing their photos and getting the right layouts in order to perfect their feed. Well, we’ve got a secret for you: sometimes, it’s not just the visuals that win the game. The narrative matters too.
We’ll use CheapTickets.sg as a reference. An online site that helps you to compare destinations, airlines and itineraries so you can plan the perfect trip at the most valuable prices, they also run an Instagram account for publicity purposes. And they’ve shared a constant partnership with Instagram influencer “girleatworld” for a while now.
Not your typical Instagram account, “girleatworld” is a food and travel log, with a seamless feed of perfectly framed images featuring a single hand holding up food in iconic places all over the world.
But wait, she takes it up a notch with her captions that make readers feel like they’re getting an exclusive look into a traveller’s diary. It sure invokes the wanderlust in us – and it’s great, subtle publicity for the brand.
With that, here’s another tip to note: When engaging the help of influencers, it’s important to allow them some free reign for creativity and authenticity.
While the end goal is for your product to sell, it is still crucial to ensure that the content created is organic and interesting. Only then will your audience actually be convinced that your content is not a carbon copy of the advertisements they always scroll past or send to their junk mail, and be enticed to know more about your product!
Mastercard Singapore
Newsflash: the Chainsmokers came to Singapore on the 28th of March for a private concert. Say whaaat?
Though it was a rather hush-hush affair, the event was still a large success and many had fun dancing all night to hits like “Closer”and “Sick Boy”. Organised to promote the use of Mastercard’s digital wallet, Masterpass, it was great publicity for the brand, especially as competition in the digital wallet arena heats up.
While engaging influencers like The Sam Willows to bring significant traffic and hype for the event was a smart move, Mastercard didn’t just rely on them for the promotion of the Mastercard Digital Wallet. In this instance, the tactic of event marketing was combined with that of influencer marketing to maximise audience impact.
Which gives us our last point: relying on influencers alone may not be enough to publicise your brand. Assuming that the budget is a non-issue, using a variety of marketing tactics is a good way to bring people together to experience your brand in a whole new way.
Aaaand with that, we’ve come to the end!
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Still need a hand in formulating your digital marketing campaign?
Drop us an email at hello@alto.sg for a free consultation!
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