1、1 State of influencer marketing in India REPORT Talkwalker 2 Table of contents 1. Introduction 2. Top Findings 3. Method 4. The WOW Factor 5. Influencer marketing is a top priority 6. How important is Influencer marketing for your brand/agency 7. Why do brands collaborate with influencers? 8. How do

2、 brands select influencers to collaborate with? 9. What are the main criteria for selection of influencers? 10. Why dedicate a person to influencer marketing? 11. What is the budget for influencer marketing? 12. Measuring ROI 13. Looking Ahead 14. The Sponsored Tag 15. Fake Followers 16. Trends in t

3、he Influencer marketing industry Talkwalker 3 2019 has been a great year for Brands, Agencies and Creators alike. With quirky campaigns around established occasions like Game of Thrones, IPL, emerging moments like the launch of iPhone11, rise of mature bag, Brand Wars and Banters like Amul vs Britan

4、nia, Netflix vs Hotstar vs Amazon Prime brands have grown increasingly innovative and experiential. Its now the time for brands to engage in friendly banter on Instagram and Twitter and theyre doing a great job with influencers, quirky posts and much more. Influencer marketing is a trend that seems

5、to have only grown over the last 5 years and doesnt show any signs of slowing down. In fact, this year shows record highs. But how do everyday marketers actually do influencer marketing? We conducted a survey with Social Samosa to find out. This report contains the findings of the survey with over 8

6、00 participants from every corner of the country. The goal is to provide actionable insights that can help to take your influencer marketing strategy to the next level. Introduction Talkwalker 4 respondents look at Influencer marketing as an important or top strategic priority. respondents have no t

7、ools for measuring their influencer marketing respondents believe that the “sponsored” tag is more transparent and authentic - all brands would need to start abiding by it soon. respondents work with about 50 (or less) influencers. feel that the “sponsored” tag reduces the association with influence

8、r marketing Fake followers is a major problem for influencer marketing - since India is a market with the third largest number of fake followers, the industry as a whole could be threatened. respondents will increase the amount of money they invest in influencer marketing greatly in 2020 respondents

9、 have a defined Influencer marketing program so kickstarting their program is a problem. Most influencer marketing professionals are unable to measure their influencer marketing efforts easily so proving ROI is difficult. Survey Results ChallengesStrategic Insights 75% 72% TOP FINDINGS 63% 61%80% 49

10、% 51% Talkwalker 5 The information and results presented in this report are based on a survey conducted by Talkwalker and Social Samosa between July and September 2019. The survey was taken by 800 respondents from all over India. Please note that none of the participants of the survey were compensat

11、ed in any manner. Most of the participants are from the world of Digital or Social media (49%), followed by Marketing (31%) and then communications, PR and more. Additionally, the largest percentage of respondents come from an agency background (35%). Therefore, the audience surveyed is really relev

12、ant to the field of influencer marketing. Additionally, weve managed to get Industry experts to contribute with their opinions on the best practices for influencer marketing in order to enrich the report with their perspectives. Methodology Which Department do you work inWhich Industry do you work i

13、n Agency 35% Media/Entertainment 18% Consumer Goods 7% Retail 5% Technology 5% Education 5% Travel/Hospitality 3% Professional Services 3% Finance 3% Others 16% 49%31%6%5%8% Digital / Social Media MarketingCommunicationPROther Talkwalker 6 Influencer marketing is on the rise. 72% of respondents will

14、 increase their budget for influencer marketing in 2020, yet 61% - a large majority doesnt have the tools to measure their efforts for Influencer marketing, forget just ROI. So, what is it about Influencer marketing that makes people so ready to throw away marketing dollars on it, without measuring

15、the impact? Is it a guaranteed cash cow? The answer is no. But Influencer marketing does provide a higher ROI compared to other channels (11x, according to AdWeek), so people dont hesitate to delegate a large portion of their budget to it. The WOW factor Do you use a specific tool to manage your inf

16、luencer marketing program? How will your 2020 budget for Influencer marketing compare to 2019 YES 38% 38%61% 34%20%4%2% NO It will greatly increase (20%) It will moderately increase (20%) It will remain the same It will moderately decrease It will greatly decrease It will continue to increase, and w

17、ill be aligned to the marketing objectives, then. I believe the scope of influencer marketing will increase as long as the relevance is kept intact. Chandramohan Mehra Chief Marketing Officer Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance and Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Talkwalker 7 Influencer marketing budgets a

18、re changing every year driven by ROI, measured for impact and quality vs. quantity always. And 2020 is going to be no different. Brands will be choosing their influencer associations as carefully as their brand ambassadors, especially on social media. Where the budget for the influencer campaigns wi

19、ll still largely depend on the nature of the association and the activities, I dont think it is going to come down. I believe that influencer marketing is here to stay. Marketers propensity towards the influencing marketing has significantly increased from the previous year. With seeing the current

20、trend, brands marketing spend in this space will increase positively. However, we will also see a lot of one-time transaction relationships converting into long term strategic ones between brands and influencers. 2020 for influencers will be a year of value and accountability. It will be about drivi

21、ng association and exclusivity and most importantly understanding the ROI from them, which could be in terms of brand value and actual business. We are trying influencer marketing for Diwali, 2019 and we plan to allocate more budgets in 2020. Influencer led marketing is the fastest growing segment u

22、nder digital, and were seeing brands in India, now across sectors, become serious about it. Budgets are moving from experimental to planned/ dedicated spends which is great for the ecosystem to further grow. While we see influencer budgets at an average grow 2x, whats most exciting is the way its be

23、ing utilized. 2020 is where it becomes a lot more strategic than tactical; with creative campaigns & content being built around influencers, v/s influencers being an almost after thought to amplify content. Aakriti Sinha Gurpreet Singh Gaurav Midha Pranay Swarup National Head-Social Isobar Co Founde

24、r and COO One Digital Entertainment Senior Manager Marketing Tanishq Co Founder Chtrbox Talkwalker 8 The short answer is that budget will go up. Now for the long answer. Consumers are a lot smarter today than they were yesterday. They do not necessarily care if the content is paid for, as long as it

25、 is relevant to them. Hence it is more important to identify and work with the right influencers. Also, the way brands are using influencers is changing. Initially, most brands only used to focus on influencers running contests in order to get a brand trend. Now, brands are looking at doing long ter

26、m tie ups with influencers to drive brand consideration and other brand metrics Influencer marketing is an impactful subset of marketing. We often see people visiting a store or buying a product just because they saw it on an influencers social media. Influencers help create awareness and garner vis

27、ibility for the brand, so much so that it often leads to driving sales. Acting as a more lucrative option as opposed to direct/ paid marketing, shelling money for influencers is becoming critical for the brands. The catch here is to optimise the right money for the right influencers. Considering the

28、 outcome achievement aligned with the set KPIs, 2020 will witness brands having higher budgets for influencer marketing Kosal Malladi Jivesh Gupta Head of Digital GM-West Madison World COO One Impression Talkwalker 9 75% of all respondents who have an influencer marketing program said that influence

29、r marketing is an important or top strategic priority for them. However, its almost an equal split for those who have official influencer marketing programs and those who dont with 49% of people having a defined influencer marketing program only. Of course, 94% of marketers find influencer marketing

30、 as a really useful channel for promotion, so this number is set to increase. Influencer marketing is a top priority How important is influencer marketing for your brand/agency? Top strategic Priority ImportantNeutralNot importantNot important at all 39%36%19%3%1% Talkwalker 10 Most brands collabora

31、te with influencers in order to gain visibility. No surprises there, and our survey reinforces this since a whopping 56% of the people believe that the main objective of an influencer program is brand visibility. The next most popular response was direct leads/product purchases at 17%. This is also

32、in-line with our global responses from our survey earlier this year where 65.8% of respondents cited brand visibility, followed by 16.9% who cited direct leads as their objectives for influencer marketing. Other answers were related to creative, more-engaging content, higher loyalty and battling soc

33、ial media crises. Most respondents we spoke with collaborate with 10-50 influencers (34%) which is no mean number. Therefore, it follows that influencer marketing is on the rise and the remaining results show that brands generally collaborate with a lot more influencers than we would think. Why do b

34、rands collaborate with influencers? Why do you work with influencers?How many influencers do you work with? More brand visibility More direct leads/product purchases More creative campaigns More loyalty from customer base Battle a social media crisis Other 56%17%13%9%1%1% 500-2000 5% Over 2000 5% 10

35、0-500 10% 50-100 15% Less than 10 29% 10-50 34% Talkwalker 11 Largely, it is to enable brand engagement by aiding delivery of relevant message to a desired target group, eventually impacting both, brand and business objectives. Brands need to get closer to and connect with their audience in a subtle

36、 way, avoiding invasive marketing techniques and obsolete commercial messages. They also need to humanise their brand and present themselves as beneficial to their target audience. Chandramohan Mehra Gaurav Midha Chief Marketing Officer Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance and Bajaj Allianz General Insuranc

37、e Senior Manager Marketing Tanishq Talkwalker 12 Its really tempting to go with big numbers so historically influencers with the largest fan following have always enjoyed a high level of popularity. However, this has slowly and gradually changed particularly in light of the fact that followers can b

38、e bought on Instagram. The number is a whopping 16 Million fake followers for Indian influencers! However, the good news is most respondents have rated the quality and creativity of the content as the most important factor for selecting influencers to work with, followed by engagement levels and coh

39、erence with brand messaging and finally size of their community. The interesting thing to note was that the budget/costs involved were the least important priority amongst all. This could be in part due to the fact that celebrity endorsements are still very much a thing in India and the budgets invo

40、lved for them are always huge. How do brands select influencers to collaborate with? What are the main criteria for selection of influencers Quality and creativity of the content EngagementCoherence of content with brand message Size of community (followers) Costs 53%48%48%38%30% Talkwalker 13 Influ

41、encer marketing has been proven to be an effective marketing channel time and again. Therefore, just like it makes sense to have a dedicated person for content marketing, it would make sense to have a dedicated person for influencer marketing. Its great to see that influencer marketing has evolved i

42、nto a sub discipline of marketing with 69% of respondents having one or more people dedicated to influencer marketing in-house. In addition to this, another 12% outsource influencer marketing to an agency. Moreover, 34% of respondents spend over 2 hours a day on their influencer marketing program wh

43、ich means it is a major part of the day for them. This is of course for those who have a defined influencer marketing program (49% of the total number of respondents). Why dedicate a person to Influencer Marketing? Do you have a dedicated person for your influencer marketing program? How much time d

44、oes your team invest in influencer marketing? Yes, more than 1 person More than 2 hours a day Yes, 1 person Several hours throughout the year I outsource work to an agency More than 5 hours a week No, and I am not planning on hiring someone More than 10 hours a month No, but I am planning on hiring

45、someone 35% 34% 34% 27% 12% 22% 10% 15% 7% Talkwalker 14 Budget is a very important area of focus when it comes to Influencer marketing since more often than not, most influencer collaborations are paid partnerships. Influencers have a finger on the pulse of the audience and are therefore the best p

46、eople to create highly engaging posts that are relevant to your brands target audience. According to our survey this is generally one of the areas of influencer marketing that are on the rise, with the default amounts already quite high. 32% of respondents spend between INR1,00,000 and INR 10,00,000

47、 on influencer marketing every year and 24% spend over INR 10,00,000. Additionally, 72% of respondents mentioned that their budget for influencer marketing is set to increase in 2020. Even though a lot has to be done in terms of tracking measures for influencer marketing, people are not hesitant to

48、increase spends because of the rich returns. What is the budget for Influencer Marketing? What is your annual budget for influencer marketing? 32%24%16%14%12% Between INR 1,00,000 INR 10,00,000 Over INR10,00,000 Between INR 50,000 INR 1,00,000 Less than INR 50,000 None Talkwalker 15 ROI is the magic

49、 word that every marketer is supposed to be on top of at all times. With influencer marketing ROI is always tricky. But at the same time, the biggest challenge for the industry is clearly measurement since 61% of respondents actually do not have the tools to measure their influencer marketing efforts. It seems as though marketers and PR professionals seem to still be on the lookout for the perfect solution to help them measure their influencer marketing efforts, since at the moment, it is quite challenging