We then also managed to win the CSK contract for IPL in dubai in July 2020. That one tweet by CSK also gave us some more fillip on awareness as an objective. this was another small addition to our confidence. H2 2020 we decided we will look at instagram for pure awareness.
Hari, Founder of PYT
PYT was bootstrapped for 5 years – unit economics was something that we grew with. But influencers hate to be made answerable to deliverables. Over 2019, many PYT folks tried to make influencer marketing work, but it just didnt take off. Org could not shrug off its ROI focus. 2/n
one of the many things that we unlearnt and improved thanks to the pandemic pause (you heard it here first) was being open to experimentation. We started Travel Cafe series where were got santa claus from Finland, travel photographers to share their journey on insta 3/n
We then also managed to win the CSK contract for IPL in dubai in July 2020. That one tweet by CSK also gave us some more fillip on awareness as an objective. this was another small addition to our confidence. H2 2020 we decided we will look at instagram for pure awareness 4/n
this was also the time staycations were becoming a thing. Rem august 2020? a lot of domestic resorts were willing to sponsor influencers to build awareness. this was the big break – we doubled down and got a few influencers for indian resorts. it worked. gave us confidence. 5/n
Maldives opened up in october. and our spade work for domestic influencers came in really hand as we pitched to resorts in MLE. @DhivyaDharshini was gracious enough to agree to be our first paid cum influencer (ROI habits change hard). and boy it worked thanks to her charm. 6/n
this success bought us enough cred internally to run a few more influencer campaigns were we would still pay but slightly lesser (cos resorts also started seeing this work for them & were clamouring for celebs/influencers). By then we had a decent understanding of the funnel 7/n
The beauty about this channel is that once you have a few rolling, ur target audience (influencers) is seeing the content being created by influencers & organic reach outs happen. The key is to deliver a good exp (end of the day the influencer is also your customer) 10/n
Some learnings –
1) Be clear about deliverables from the start
2) Celebs are not the same as influencers. Do not make that mistake. be wise when you choose. Celebrities are a 11/n
celebrities are a different breed, are a lot more demanding & can work or not work. no guarantee. But influencers are a safer bet + more accessible
3) choose influencers with 1.5% min engagement rate on their posts.
4) if you are working with celebs, pls be ready to take a 12/n
take a larger group as celebs want to travel with family. thats the only time with family. this can (and has) pinch your pockets a little. be open.
5) Some influencers love creating content on the go, some like to have it all planned out. you need to be adaptable 13/n
Overall, what started as a simple experiment – “why cant we look at it as a awareness channel, why ROI” combined with some good luck along the way has helped us grow from ~6k to 60k followers & social contribution to top line has moved from inconsequential to a healthy 10+%.
