Yulia Aslamova on DRIM’s plans to revolutionise influencer marketing

In this interview with Adgully, Yulia Aslamova, Head of Asia at DRIM Global, shares her insights on the key professional lessons learned from their successful campaign with McDonald's, the future of influencer marketing, and how DRIM Global is disrupting the industry in India with their innovative and data-driven approach. She also shares her thoughts on the potential impact of AI influencers and the company's growth plans for 2023. Excerpts:

Please enumerate some of the key professional lessons you learnt throughout the McDonalds campaign, which helped you in making it a successful venture?

I strongly believe in a data-driven approach, and this campaign has helped us collect valuable data on how a regional campaign can work on a CPA model with social media creators. We discovered that it is possible to run regional-based campaigns while focusing on sales in South and West India. However, it is challenging to control the geographic reach of influencer marketing activities. While we can identify influencers with the majority of followers in selected regions, ads may still be visible to audiences in other locations.

To overcome this challenge, we had to strike a balance between meeting the restrictions and ensuring a profitable partnership between the brand and creators. Scaling the channel and understanding the best-performing influencer cohorts requires time and a significant amount of data. With every campaign we undertake in different segments such as food tech, marketplaces, e-commerce, finance, or travel, we gain more insights about the latest social media platform algorithm updates, users, and best-performing segments.

Do you think influencer marketing will be the next big step for brand awareness, visibility and sales by influencing consumer behaviour?

I can confidently say that influencer marketing has already become a vital part of brand awareness, visibility, and sales strategies for businesses around the world. A study by Nielsen found that 92% of consumers trust recommendations from people they know, and 70% trust recommendations from strangers. Influencers have become a trusted source of recommendations for many consumers, and this has led to significant increases in sales for brands that partner with them.

At DRIM, we connect all the dots and ensure that influencer marketing works for brands at every stage of the pipeline, from awareness to orders. Through our experience working with top brands like McDonald’s, we have found that the traditional approach to influencer marketing, which focuses solely on brand awareness, can lead to influencers being selected based on personal preferences and brand projections.

We have discovered that glamour type content doesn’t always result in sales because the audience may not connect with it. By analyzing our data, we have found that it is crucial to choose influencers who can not only create engaging content, but also drive conversions. We believe that influencer marketing should be viewed as a holistic approach that focuses on the entire customer journey, from awareness to consideration to purchase.

As more and more businesses recognise the potential of this strategy, we can expect to see continued growth in the influencer marketing industry in the coming years.

How do you see trends and scenarios in performance marketing changing by the end of 2023?

Marketing is becoming increasingly personalised, with messages tailored to specific audiences. Customers are not only choosing brands based on product value, but also the brand’s mission, social impact, and overall positioning. The emotional aspect of choosing one product over another has become crucial and is difficult to identify through AI tools.

I strongly believe that the current trend we are seeing is people being led by other people. This is why I consistently assert that platforms like DRIM are the next big thing in marketing. We’re also noticing the rise of social commerce as a trend.

How is DRIM Global disrupting the industry in India and how is it different from its competitors?

At DRIM Global, we believe in revolutionising the influencer marketing industry in India with our innovative and data-driven approach. Our focus is on driving real results for our clients, and we achieve this by leveraging the power of AI and machine learning to identify the best influencers and channels for each campaign.

One of the things that set us apart from our competitors is our rigorous influencer selection process, which involves analyzing a massive pool of data to identify the best-performing influencers for each campaign. Additionally, our proprietary technology allows us to track and measure the success of campaigns based on actual results, rather than just metrics such as likes and followers.

Our recent collaboration with McDonald’s India (South and West) is a testament to the success of our strategy. By working with a diverse range of influencers and using a cost-per-action model, we were able to generate 27,000+ new orders for the brand.

What is your take on AI influencers entering the industry, how do you see their growth?

AI influencers are a relatively new development in the influencer marketing industry, and their potential impact is still being explored. On the one hand, they can be programmed to be available 24/7, and they don’t have the potential for human error or controversy.

However, there are also some potential drawbacks to using AI influencers. They lack the authenticity and relatability of human influencers, and it is unclear how consumers will respond to them in the long run. In addition, there are concerns about the ethics of creating and using AI influencers, as they blur the lines between real and fake, and raise questions about the use of technology to manipulate human behaviour.

I’d say it is still unclear how they will be received by consumers and how they will fit into the larger landscape of marketing and advertising. As with any new technology or trend, it will take time for their impact and potential to be fully understood and realised.

What are your growth plans in 2023, where do you see DRIM by the end of this financial year in terms of turnover and revenue?

Our goal is to reach a turnover of Rs 90 crore in India and expand our presence in the MENA region.

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