KFC is building a performance marketing channel via influencers. Blink Digital partnered with us to create this scalable performance marketing channel.
DRIM has delivered over 9700 orders, over 149,000 clicks, and over 2900 publications in the past year. The payment to the influencers was made on a CPO basis
Image: Posts published, CPA Results achieved and Clicks generated last year
Our award-winning technology makes us the most transparent, measurable and scalable solution for brands. Blink Digital trusted our aligned vision about how to achieve results for KFC.
Challenges with the project:
DRIM tests hypotheses to see what works, and our analytical dashboard removes ineffective methods to create a results-oriented plan. The learning phase may be long, but the long-term benefits are worth it.
In the pre-launch phase, we test several hypotheses to find the best approach. Many of them may fail. We undertake this labour-intensive and time-consuming task for the brand. We mobilised and managed a large team of influencer talent managers and influencers to test around 15 hypotheses. Here’re a few hypotheses that didn’t work and what we learnt from them.
1) Initial focus on metro cities:
We first thought metro cities would deliver, but campaign data showed that regional influencers got better engagement. So, we shifted to working with regional influencers and improved our outreach. We adapted our strategies based on data and consumer behaviour.
2) We promoted vegetarian food too:
Initially, we promoted vegetarian food too along with KFC’s non-vegetarian offerings. We soon realised it was better to focus on the brand's strength: fried chicken and non-vegetarian offerings.
3) Segmentation of food influencers based on content:
Our analysis made us shift focus to engaging influencers who weren't limited to promoting vegetarian dishes. We leveraged the authenticity and relatability of our micro-influencers. Our dashboard effectively sorted food influencers based on their content - vegetarian or non-vegetarian food.
During the process of testing marketing hypotheses, the brand benefits from targeted views without additional cost. They only pay for actual conversions.
In our testing phase, the brand gained over 9,700 orders and more than 76 million organic views in under a year!
Achieving these results with affiliate marketing alone would require an extremely high budget.
DRIM delivers to brands:
- An expert team of performance-oriented marketers
- Precision targeting of the brand’s ideal customer
- Hypothesis testing that trains our ML dashboard
- Data about converting influencer segments
- Powerful data-driven technology that enables us to make decisions in real-time.
- Free boost to brand awareness
- Seamless scalability upon cracking the winning formula to bring conversions.
Trendy content that brought conversions:
Matching the right audience with the brand proposition:
While planning our approach, we had to be mindful of the sentiments and preferences of the influencers’ audiences since India offers a very diverse market. We then picked the influencers from converting influencer segments and valuable insights that our proprietary algorithm generated.
Image: Deep analytics on the DRIM Platform for matching the right audience and scaling the campaign
Leverage technology to make content go widely viral:
Our analytical technology and extensive experience with top brands has taught us what makes content go viral. This knowledge helps our influencers to create engaging, impactful content that follows brand guidelines.
Check out this reel that got 8.9 million ORGANIC views!
Embed: https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cy0v_tmILfC/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%
Optimise and focus on creating a community of brand advocates
We built a network of brand advocates whose content brings conversions. Influencer marketing isn’t a “set it and forget it” strategy; it’s an investment in brand building.
This reel drove great conversions because it creatively presented the brand's offer in an engaging way.
Embed: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6EYu74xdnv/?igsh=MTdnaGtsMXVoendjdw%3D%3D
1.9 Million viewsOur CPA method motivates influencers to boost their earnings, so they come up with unique ways of promotion. More conversions mean more money for them!
The brand benefits from the engaging user-generated content which would otherwise be costly to procure, that too with no guarantee of results.
Our PRIMARY SECRET - treat influencer marketing like any other performance marketing channel:
We got 2,900 engaging publications, managed 776 influencers for the brand, and generated over 9,700 orders.
Without our CPA approach, executing a campaign of this scale would be very expensive for any brand. While the brand saves money, we refine our strategy using ML feedback.
The influencer marketing industry is expected to reach $22.2 billion globally by 2025 (Statista.com). However, managing an influencer marketing campaign is time-consuming and too expensive unless managed by a tech-driven platform like DRIM, which has the experience, expertise, technology, and teams to make it work.
“DRIM did a great job in acquiring new users at a very reasonable CPA. Keep up the good work and help us scale further!” said Harshit Anand, Growth Strategist at Yum! Brands
“Throughout our collaboration for KFC, DRIM has demonstrated ingenuity that garnered over 76 million views from KFC’s target audience. We look forward to the next phase of the project when this brand awareness translates into conversions.”, said Sadhvi Dhawan, Group Media Director of Blink Digital.
Project team from DRIM:
- Senior Marketing Manager- Guzalia Voronova
- Senior scout - Mihajlina Olga
- Key Account manager - Yash Dhawan
The most challenging phase of testing hypotheses to formulate a fail-safe strategy to bring conversions is behind us.
We are now well-equipped with the knowledge and strategy for this project to turn brand awareness into conversions.
Stay tuned for part two of this exciting case study. Know how ML-powered performance marketing helps DRIM deliver scalable performance marketing to brands—our journey from 9k orders to 90k orders!
Also read: How to Break Brand Fatigue using Influencer Marketing
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