Content marketing through a community of mom bloggers - beginning of confluence marketing?

Prashant Sinha, Co-Founder and COO, Momspresso shares first hand examples of how brands have been leveraging a community of mom bloggers and influencers, connecting with the TG through relevant content. Combining the power of bloggers and influencers with content - this could be the rise of confluence marketing.  

Increased internet penetration and the rise of social media has led to the genesis of Influencer Marketing or ‘Digital word-of-mouth’. Influencer marketing is a collaborative brand marketing strategy wherein retailers partner with social media ‘influencers’ to create authentic engagement around their products. According to research, Google searches for the term ‘influencer marketing’ increased by 325% over 2017.

Influencer marketing has become the fastest-growing online customer acquisition method. Influencers are extremely active social media users who have established great credibility in their industry and have access to a large, impressionable audience. They act as leaders in particular niche categories such as fashion & lifestyle, parenting, food and more, and have loyal followers and high engagement. When a brand appoints them to spread a message about their products, they relay this message to their vast group of dedicated followers.

Influencers vs. Celebrities: Why consumers trust influencers

As customers become smarter, they do not fall for glitzy celebrities promoting everyday products. They realize that celebrities are paid huge sums of money to use products on screen. Owing to these evolving consumer mindsets, brands are foregoing the traditional celebrity advertisement route and employing social media influencers to promote their products. Influencers, unlike celebrities, actually use the products they promote and share their experiences with their followers. They not only praise the pros but also enlist the cons of products so consumers know that the reviews are authentic.

When Mother Dairy, in collaboration with Momspresso, launched a campaign around Mother’s Day ‘Ma jaisi ma’, it hit the right chord with its target audience as it was created by a production team of mothers. The brand campaign conveyed that it takes a village to raise a child and acknowledged the role of every Moms 'support system'(her child's coach, the elder child, mother and mother-inlaw and so on), as mothers can’t be everywhere.

Another sanitizer brand used Mom bloggers to create the content calendar for them. It threw up many interesting and unexplored content ideas. One such was the connection with 3D films where mothers spoke of the need to wipe the 3D glasses with sanitizers prior to the kids wearing them. This is something that only mothers could have done as they deal with this situation all the time.

Also Read: 6 common content marketing mistakes that brands make

Yet another campaign, #GrowingUpWithDettol, gave moms important insights into the increased need for hygiene and cleanliness during the monsoons as more children fall prey to cold and flu during this season. Further, Momspresso partnered with Mother Dairy to bust myths around cow’s milk and help moms understand that it is a complete food for kids over the age of 2 and an important part of their diet.

This kind of consumer-to-consumer marketing does not rely on hard-selling. It focuses on building relationships, credibility and trust. Influencer marketing also helps brands target the right pool of customers by offering highly segmented promotions. Influencers help brands become household names by promoting them to people who are the most likely to require and purchase them. Their follower lists consist of people who are looking for relevant recommendations.  Needless to say, when influencers suggest a product, people go out and buy it.

Educating consumers through influencers

Numerous brands are now employing bloggers and influencers to spread awareness and enhance the brand recall for their products. This is especially true for innovative products that incorporate technologies that are new to the customer base. Influencers can create videos or host events to promote these products and demonstrate their working, usability and benefits. Influencers can also educate customers about the industry as a whole.

Recently, popular Ayurvedic beauty products brand, Forest Essentials, invited beauty bloggers from Momspresso to spread awareness and start a conversation about their newly launched mother and child care line of products. These influencers created content around the products and shared it across mother and baby micro-communities on Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter and Instagram. Through the campaign, influencers collectively reached over 1 million social media users, exceeding the objective of the brand. Evidently, influencer campaigns have the potential to drive very high engagement and increase brand awareness across the target market.

Using regional languages to reach potential customers

Brands that recognize the power of influencers are now partnering with them to reach out to potential customers across the country.  Content creation platforms are collaborating with not just English language bloggers but also a host of Indian language content creators to spread the word about brands in multiple dialects. Through regional content about their offerings, brands are trying to cut through fierce competition in the industry. A report by Google-KPMG suggested that 88% of internet users respond more proactively to advertisements in Indian languages rather than those in English. Thanks to this trend, brands are able to grasp customer attention and affinity more efficiently through Indian language content and increase sales exponentially.

Interestingly, Hindi language internet users are projected to surpass English language users by 2021. Further, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu and Marathi are estimated to gain the highest traction among Indian language users. On Momspresso’ the consumption of regional language content is 1.5 times higher than English. Brands are therefore more inclined to tap these Indian language content consumers by promoting themselves in languages that a majority of users are more comfortable with. By providing local language content such as advertisements, brand blogs and reviews, brands stand a chance to strike a chord with more customers and escalate sales.

Also Read: #Infographic – The state of content marketing in 2018

Driving sales as well as recall through influencer marketing

Brands frequently contact influencers to review their product offerings and inform potential consumers about their USPs such as superior quality and affordable price. Brands also sponsor Giveaways that are contests run by influencers wherein winners receive the brand’s products as prizes. At the growth stage, brands tend to work with numerous influencers to tap into previously unaware groups of followers. Brands also disseminate news about new collections, special offers, seasonal product launches and more through influencers who drive more conversions than the brand possibly could using traditional methods. This not just increases sales but also spreads awareness about the brand, increasing brand recall among the target market.

The connection between social media and commerce is a strong driver of sales and profits for brands today. All brands need to do is to look for the right influencers with creative ideas that are aligned with their brand personality. Through carefully-curated content, influencers can help a brand reach unattainable heights, through nothing but likes, shares and comments.

A few supporting statistics 

• Moms are primarily on Facebook and Whatsapp and spend time on both these platforms on a daily basis Moms spend over 2 hours on Whatsapp and Facebook everyday.
• They are well-connected: Digital and social media is all pervasive, almost all moms own a Smartphone
• Of late Hindi and other regional languages have seen a tremendous increase in content creation and consumption on social media platforms. This is validated by the experience of our own Momspresso Hindi page where the engagement is twice that of the Momspresso English page.

The article is authored by Prashant Sinha, Co-Founder and COO, Momspresso.