Aspire Talks - Influencer Marketing Event Wrap Up.

​Trust is undoubtedly a critical parameter that drives marketing strategies. Unless your brand wins the trust of the buyers, you will not be able to sell. No wonder, influencer marketing has emerged as one of the most popular digital marketing strategies as the word of an influencer can get your brand all the trust that it needs.

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With influencer marketing all set to cross the 10 billion mark by the end of the decade, it becomes an exciting prospect for businesses, and they are paying more attention to it than ever before.

The Aspire Talks - Influencer Marketing Event, held at The Gridiron, in London on June 4th, had some of the industry leaders sharing their expertise about this trending strategy.

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The event was well attended, with some great speakers coming up with an enlightening conversation about influencer marketing. The prominent names on the speakers’ panel included Harry Hugo, Co-Founder, and Chief Campaigns Officer, Goat Agency; Ben Jeffries, Co-Founder and CEO, Influencer; and Lisa Targett, General Manager at TRIBE.

Harry shared his views on the Myths about Influencer Marketing. He talked about how brands think only big influencers can drive the buzz, but highlighted that this is far from reality, and explained how brands can get higher performance on this channel in comparison to the other conventional ones and also stated that brands are now shifting trends and increasing spend towards influencer marketing. Harry said “Not all influencers are the same, and its myth that influencer marketing is for young, finding the right influencers is the key to making a successful campaign”

Ben talked about how to have specific measurable targets for influencer campaigns so that they become ROI-driven and how influencers can also be used to drive brand performance. He went on to share some key sights from the past work that their company has done, and stated, “It is important to work in synergies with influencer audience, but the brand should still have some level of control to make sure they get the key message across.”

Lisa was the last to speak but came up with an enjoyable presentation. She spoke on how brands have used the power of this medium to increase the reach at scale and how their platform has delivered value back to influencers as well. No wonder, her company has Keith Weed as one of their investors. Lisa said “Listening to your customers and crafting a product they love is key, real customers drive authentic word of mouth and that is the key”

The panel discussion was joined by Caspar Lee, CMO & Co-founder of Influencer.com. There was a great debate with different insights and stories into the platform. The discussion centered on how brands have approached this new area of marketing and how it can be an effective tool to gain engagement on social media and also increase the reach and ROI. Caspar mentioned "Creators need to be authentic to their audience and engage with the audience, and brands should look at engaging with creators in different ways and make styles with creators and"

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My biggest take away from the event was there is no perfect formula or recipe for a successful influencer campaign and it is all about understanding your marketing objectives and crafting a campaign around it. Influencer marketing is here to stay and can drive both brand awareness, and last click sales, delivering great ROI back to businesses. The execution will obviously look different based on these objectives and audience target.

It was an amazing event and I thank the speakers and attendees for making it a success. There was great networking in the end. We look forward to hosting more of these events for our marketing and clients in the future.