The Future of Marketing, simply termed, Influencer Marketing is gaining popularity as the preferred choice for brands to grow awareness and drive conversions. We can safely assume that influencer marketing is re-shaping the marketing and digital world as we know it. However, it is the D2C arena that has spiked our curiosity, especially with numerous D2C brands investing in content and influencer marketing platforms to amp up their growth. It’s not a shocker that India’s influencer market is expected to reach Rs 2,200 crore by 2025. And we can all agree its numbers that matter, but how did influencer marketing create this dynamic impact across all D2C niches? Get your tea/coffee, we’re about to embark on an illuminating journey.

The Era of Creator Ecosystem

The digital world was no stranger to the rising relevance of influencers and brands identified it swiftly, turning it into a driving force of communication strategy. Fast forward to 2022, influencer marketing has opened up a new world for brands, a world of limitless growth possibilities, a world with millions willing to engage with the content crafted by their trustworthy creator. The consumer, now led by these creators with garnished opinions on certain products and services across all niches like skincare, makeup, fitness, technology, and more, helped brands re-define their credibility, engagement, and recall in efficient and effective ways.

An influencer, when onboarded by a brand can curate game-changing content for D2C brands, allowing big brands to attract more customers and helping small brands to scale up while providing increased ROI. Don’t believe us?

Take a glance at the campaign strategies by the following leading brands:

Neeman Shoes: With their first influencer campaign in 2021, featuring Vir Das, this brand known for its eco-friendly and reliable products has since partnered with hundreds of influencers to strengthen brand awareness and reach, resulting in massive growth in their consumer base. Guess someone is living up to their reliable tagline.

Daniel Wellington: One of the top brands when it comes to shaping an influencer marketing campaign, Daniel Wellington uses social media influencers in an empowering way by teaming up with micro and macro level influencers. Their strategy is based on reviews and unboxing experiences posted by their selected influencers. Can we take a moment to appreciate their boldness? As per reports, Daniel Wellington made $200 million with influencer marketing

boAt: KBC recently asked one of the contestants a question about boAt, now that’s organic marketing. However, our focus is still on this brand’s partnership with India’s first meta influencer - Kyra to launch an aesthetically pleasing film to introduce their new products. Now they termed those products as the #FutureOfAudio but we term their creativity as the #PicasoOfInfluencerMarketing

Adobe: When Adobe observed one of the employees driving higher revenue through his social media, the brand immediately embraced influencer marketing in the form of brand ambassadors. The brand launched an Adobe Social Shift Program for their employees to drive traffic as brand ambassadors. The resulting traffic was indeed mindblowing with a jump from 400 to 10,000 monthly visitors.

Of course, pros aside for leading brands, influencer marketing leaves no stones unturned even for small businesses. So, if the budget has been a concern, hold your wallets, we have pocket-friendly insights!

Economical Growth Route

Limited resources? Limited funds? Limited time? Influencer marketing understands smart selling and to that end, it is the route for young D2C brands to collaborate with nano (100-10,000 followers) and micro-influencers (10,000-50,000 followers) to reach a larger audience base cost-effectively and promptly. Reaching out to micro-influencers is a smooth and rewarding process. Small brands can often contact nano or micro-influencer directly and try a personal, friendly communication style to come up with mutually beneficial strategies and arrangements for product promotions. Influencer marketing as a marketing strategy has all the elements, it has entertainment, it has authenticity, it has reliability and it has the potential for organic, viral growth. How can it be surprising when we point out that it is potentially replacing the need for Facebook and Google’s expensive advertising to boost a brand’s growth and visibility? Influencer marketing is selling its efficiency quite well and we can already see the headlines for 2025 ‘Influencer marketing dominates D2C industry’.

Now, to further our conviction ‘Influencer marketing poised to dominate D2C marketing by 2025’ let's explore how influencer marketing has evolved and emerged as the leading contender against any other marketing including performance marketing.

Redefining Marketing Strategy 

From the royal endorsement in the 18th century for ‘Queensware’ pottery as the first phase of influencer marketing, followed by Coca-Cola’s iconic use of fictional characters like Santa Claus in 1932 that aimed to remind customers of good times and jolly memories of the company.

The Hindi phrase ‘Jo dikhta hai, wahi bikhta hai’ stands true for influencer marketing. Today, brands can develop everlasting relationships or build a community of loyal customers by relying on influencer marketing to target the audience. Influencers have carefully forged bonds with their audiences and their needs. By tapping into this relationship, your brand can attain a trusted position. 95 percent of customers are more likely to purchase a product based on a recommendation from a trusted influencer over a banner ad or billboard.

As influencer marketing continues to grow, D2C brands have started contemplating if this is a must-have marketing strategy for the brand. Influencers can help drive traffic to their website, make sales, increase followers, and so on, it’s just about the right strategy and execution. In fact, in India, over 600 D2C brands have actively embraced influencer marketing as a core part of their marketing strategy and are now looking to explore other aspects of influencer marketing like Influencer commerce as a growth platform.

It's not the end. If one thing is certain, it's positively transformative disruptions in the marketing industry. Influencer marketing has been one such disruption and we can't wait to see how it unfolds and continues to become an integral part of any brand's growth strategy worldwide.