The company is an all-women new age influencer marketing agency that is committed to driving transparency and addressing the existing disparities in the influencer marketing industry. Its vision is to disrupt the space by making Influencer Marketing affordable for even the young startups.It has already executed over 500+ campaigns for 50+ brands.
The team at Lets Influence maps the right influencers for a brand based on detailed data analysis, thereby ensuring higher engagement and conversion. In less than 2 years of inception, the company has worked with some marquee brands (across startups and established companies) and has successfully executed high-impact campaigns around new launches, brand awareness etc.
Bhawna Sethi, Founder – Lets Influence, speaks to us on the Influencer marketing trends during this Pandemic, the company’s vision and way forward……..
Take us through the journey of Lets Influence from its inception. Its mission, vision and values etc.?
A Lets Influence is one-of-its-kind of influencer marketing firm that works with brands across industries and helps design and executes high-impact influencer marketing campaigns. Since its inception in November 2018, the company has executed over 500+ campaigns for 50+ brands. It has managed and hand-picked 2500+ influencers across platforms including Instagram, TikTok, YouTube as well as emerging channels. Lets Influence is an influencer powerhouse with renowned and celebrated names on its list.
The company is committed to bring transparency and address the existing disparities in the influencer marketing industry. Its vision is to disrupt the influencer marketing space by making Influencer Marketing affordable for even young startups.
What about Lets Influence completely differentiates the agency from other agencies in the market?
Lets Influence is one-of-its-kind of influencer marketing agency that works with companies, irrespective of their size or scale of operations. The company’s key differentiator is the fact that it works closely with startups and helps them reap the benefits of influencer marketing, as per their available budgets.
Our USP is that the company deep-dives into data across influencers to churn out the best fit for the brand. Also, we design and run successful influencer marketing campaigns in line with a brand’s budget, thus giving an opportunity to young brands to get a flavor of Influencer Marketing.
Tell us about your journey with Lets Influence and how has the experience been?
It has been a great experience building a company like Lets Influence from ground zero. We have faced our set of challenges, during our early days. These included building brand credibility by communicating the brand’s USPs, as well as convincing startups about the benefits of influencer marketing and how it can deliver high ROI. Initially, we managed to convince startups to start out with conservative budgets and pilot projects. But, the confidence of these brands increased overtime when they saw the impact of Influencer Marketing and some increased their budgets, while others decided to work with us for a longer period of time. Today, I can confidently say that our retention rates are amongst the best in the industry.
What were some of the learning’s from your previous organization that has held you in good stead at Lets Influence?
In my previous stints, I had worked with numerous startups while I was at Entrackr. My interaction with entrepreneurs across industries helped me realize the potential of social media and digital marketing for brands. Post Entrackr, I took a few freelance projects and helped startups with their social media strategy. These projects helped me understand the gaps that existed in influencer marketing with regards to price disparity as well as limited awareness of influencer marketing amongst startups. I started Lets Influence to address these challenges.
How is the business shaping up in times of Covid-19? What has been the impact of COVID on your business?
We did see a dip in the first-month post lockdown. However, the business has been scaling up well ever since and we have actually witnessed about a 3x increase in business in post COVID times, as compared to pre-COVID months. We have seen brands investing more in influencer marketing, not only for lead generation but also to drive brand awareness. These trends are very encouraging and we are confident that FY21 will be a great year for us.
How have brands changed or modified their communication strategy? And what has been your advice to all your clients?
When the lockdown happened, brands were initially not keen on investing funds in influencer marketing. However, this trend did not last long and we saw brands coming to us to run their product launch/ lead generation campaigns across channels. Brands were willing to experiment across new channels so as to reach a new set of possible customers.
An interesting development was that the brands started exploring the Influencer Marketing route for creating brand awareness, during the COVID times. Brands understood that digital and influencers will be the best medium to establish connections as well as ensure continued engagement with customers, during COVID as the digital eyeballs have exponentially increased with customers spending most of their time online.
Where are your bets? Chingaari? Roposo? Or Insta Reels? What will takeTik-Tok’s position?
I believe all channels are set to benefit from the ban on TikTok. The new channels will lead to the emergence of a new set of influencers.
I have some interesting observations on Instagram. Over the last few weeks, we have seen 1.6x growth in likes on Instagram. Also, the use of Instagram has increased by almost 1.8x. This has primarily happened because of two reasons- 1) the pandemic as well as 2) the ban on TikTok.
How have you helped your influencers navigate through the Covid-19 crises? Is there a case study you would want to share with our readers?
When Covid started making an impact in India, we saw brands cancelling the planned campaigns. This negatively affected the influencers who depended on such campaigns for running their expenses.
With lockdown hitting in for weeks together, we decided to revisit the strategy with our team as well as influencers. The objective was to ensure that influencers could stay afloat and relevant and also continue to engage their followers. Post deliberations, we realized that this is a good time to increase engagement around health, fitness, gaming, food, tech etc.
We realized that digital brands are still keen on influencer marketing, as lockdown did not have any adverse impact on their business. So, we reached out to digital brands like Helo app, Ludo, MPL etc. for influencer marketing engagements. The strategy worked and within weeks we were 3x the business we were doing pre-Covid.
During these hard times, how are you keeping up the morale of your teams that are working remotely? How are you making sure about the mental health of employees?
COVID-19 pandemic has been a challenge for all of us. As a Founder of an organization, I believe it is important to support your team in such critical times. In order to keep the morale of my team high, I believe in increased conversations and also being open and honest about the way ahead for the company. Also, I try to be empathetic and flexible wherever possible.
Technology has been the saviour as we have been leveraging Zoom and Google Meet to collaborate as we all work from the confines of our homes. I try to keep in touch with my team using multiple channels. A daily morning call with the team helps plan better and ensure higher productivity. Also, we try to unwind as a team via virtual ‘Happy Hours’.
