We came together with Chris McCormick, Zeynep Mutlu Bigalı, Volkan Akyüz, Ömer Acar and Ceren Türkben Kaya to talk about how different industries benefit from influencer marketing and which strategies are suitable for those industries. Watch the video for the full panel or read along for the highlights!
Over the past few years, there has been a lot of merging into one homogenous blob of influence. What does it take to make me push myself further down the customer decision journey and how do you differentiate Samsung to make that experience different?
Volkan Akyüz: As Samsung, we heavily invest in the influencer marketing and it is not only about brand equity or reputation but also data driven. If you evaluate report and optimize your data very well, you can expose your own marketing communication through influencers very efficiently. The differentiation point is data driven.
We have four steps for customer decision journey: Awareness, consideration, purchase intent, and retention. For every touch point, we look for different KPI sets. In the purchase intent, you have to convert your customers directly to your own offline and online sales platforms.
How does MasterCard differentiate its influencer marketing in the finance industry where people are quite private?
Ceren Türkben Kaya: Obviously, we have evolved in time. From one-way communication like observing priceless moments that you may have as a consumer; we have evolved into enabling you to have your priceless journeys and experiences. For us, influencer marketing comes in that part. Rather than a static one-way communication, we want to create connections for you so that you have your own experiences. Here comes the social media and the influencers because we believe they help us to create these trusted connections.
Can you tell us about how you work in the hotel industry to make the most of “Instagramable” moments and get the best visibility for your venues?
Ömer Acar: When they come to the hotel, most bloggers don’t know what the hotel services are. It has to look natural because that’s the authenticity of the experience. I think hotels need to create stage experiences to make sure that everything that should happen is indeed happening. They need to prepare in advance and not just say “Hey! Here is the hotel. Experience it.” but give something directly.
The world has changed. Hotels are important, but destinations are more important. How the hotel or the blogger sees that destination actually touches the customer more.
Other than hotels, there are more functional sides of the travel industry. How does Skyscanner go about creating impactful content with influencers that will engage their audience rather than just being a paid placement?
Zeynep Mutlu Bigalı: In the past year, we launched “branded content” within Skyscanner. We work with influencers as well as other brands in order to create native content on and off site. This allows us to make sure that we are serving the right content in the right context.
Data is a huge part of this. We have audience segments created by the data we’ve generated through Skyscanner search along with using data from platforms like Facebook and Twitter, and we make sure we tap into their minds at the right time.
You can watch the whole video to learn more about how to adapt influencer marketing in different industries. Enjoyed this? There’s more coming on our YouTube channel!