The influencer marketing platform Collabary

Collabary mediates between brands and influencers. At Brandsom, we specialise in marketplaces. Now, what exactly is the connection between Collabary and marketplaces? The answer is twofold. You can look at the Collabary platform as a marketplace for influencers. From large to small - if you’re looking for an influencer to promote your product or brand, you’ll find one on Collabary. You can choose a small influencer at a low price or, if you have the budget, partner up with an influencer with a large number of followers.

The other association with marketplaces is the fact that Collabary is an initiative of Zalando, the fashion marketplace. Their aim is to connect brands and content creators. Together they can communicate the brand story to the target audience. In this article, you can read all about Collabary and what it can do to positively impact your business.

Contents:

• What Collabary is;
• How the platform works
• Why influencer marketing can work for your product or brand
• The blurring line between e-commerce and social media
• What the costs are for influencers

Are you looking for advice on influencer marketing for your product or brand through Collabary? Our marketplace specialists at Brandsom can help you with setting up and implementing the right strategy. Click on the arrow below and get in touch with one of our marketplace consultants to learn more about the possibilities for your brand. 

What is Collabary?

Zalando Media Solutions, which nowadays is called Zalando Marketing Services, launched Collabary in 2016. Initially, the platform started as an online shoe shop. The idea was to focus on clothing with Zalando, while Collabary’s focal point would be shoes. However, because of Zalando’s platform growing so fast, they decided to centralise both clothing and shoe sales through Zalando. 

The brand has always done a lot of campaigning to increase brand awareness in combination with data-driven sales campaigns. Zalando Marketing Services found that using influencers was effective for both these marketing purposes. The foundation of Collabary is made up of the software they built to manage their influencer marketing efforts internally. Because of this, the proceedings for selling shoes to a SaaS marketing platform flow into each other. Big shoe brands, such as Nike, Diesel, Vans, and Timberland, quickly signed up for the beta version of the marketing platform.

How does the influencer marketing platform Collabary work?

Collabary works on the premise that many small amounts accumulate to make a large amount. Brands that use the platform can use different small influencers, giving them the opportunity to try out in which niche segment they score best. If an influencer wants to work with you, this means that they will use their social reach to promote your brand. The reach of multiple influencers added together can easily equal the reach of a fashion magazine.

At Brandsom, we specialise in finding the right influencer for your brand. By listening carefully to the needs of our clients, our consultants are able to match your brand with a suitable influencer. Contact us to discuss the possibilities.

Why influencer marketing can work for your brand

A few years ago, many brands were still sceptical about influencer marketing. Nowadays, social influencers are taken a lot more seriously. This is because this relatively new way of promotion has shown many benefits. We have listed some of these below.

#1 Your brand is known for authentic content

Influencers specialise in creating beautiful and authentic content. When in collaboration, influencers use their skills to give a product or service an authentic role in the storytelling. This way, they communicate your brand or product to the target group in a credible manner.  

#2 Ensuring the target group’s commitment to your brand

Through authentic content, you invite your followers to share, like, and respond to the message you’re sending out. It also ensures that the influencer’s followers will organically end up with your brand, eliminating the need for extra advertising. Influencers with a loyal following provide valuable interactions with your brand. You want people to really talk about your brand instead of just generating reach with posts. These conversations about your product or brand provide word-of-mouth advertising and ultimately lead to conversions.

#3 Personal recommendations create trust

As many as 92% of consumers trust a personal recommendation from someone else. If you want to generate business impact, a ‘personal touch’ is essential. Influencers are real people who create trust through their authentic content.

#4 Reaching a relevant target audience

Influencers are no longer the girls who only present fashion on their social media channels. Most influencers are focusing on a particular niche, such as art, beauty, fitness, technology, or finance. Whatever their focus, they are considered by their followers to be experts in their field. Influencer marketing, therefore, makes it possible to communicate in a targeted way with a relevant audience.

#5 No problems with adblockers

The use of adblockers continues to increase. Google Chrome, the most widely used web browser in the world, even has an adblocker built into the browser itself. Brands find it increasingly difficult if they continue to use pop-ups and banners. With influencer marketing, you can bypass the adblockers and still make an impact on the target group.

Blurring the line between e-commerce and social media

The objection to engaging with influencers is that influencers are only good for generating brand awareness. This is no longer true - the line between e-commerce and social media is slowly but surely becoming blurred. This is due to the expansion of options within a social media platform such as Instagram. For example, it is currently possible to add Instagram Shopping to a post.

With this, you get a direct link to the brand’s webshop or the specially created Instagram Shopping feed. It is even possible to link to a product in the stories. As a follower, you only need to click on the link sticker in the post to be directed to the product you are interested in. This link sticker is a replacement for the swipe-up function that was previously used to offer products via Instagram Stories. Initially, this link sticker, just like the swipe-up function, was only available to verified accounts that had more than 10.000 followers. Nowadays, all accounts get this option.

What are the costs for influencers?

Influencer marketing is not expensive compared to more traditional forms of marketing. The rates for a post vary from 100 to 10.000 euros. Some micro-influencers are even willing to do a swap deal. As a brand, you send the products and they make the content for you. How expensive an influencer is, depends on the size of the support base, how much content you want, and what the average interaction is. By interaction, we mean that followers do something with the post that your brand shows, such as sharing, liking, saving and/or responding.

At Brandsom, we look for the best influencers for your brand and make an overview of the average costs. In addition, we list all the relevant data, so you can see at a glance which influencer best suits the needs of your brand.

Want to know more about Collabary? Get in contact with one of our consultants at Brandsom

Are you curious about how Collabary works and what it can do for your business? Get in touch with us, and learn more about the positive effects of influencer marketing for your product, brand, or service. Our marketplace consultants can help you implement a successful strategy that helps you sell on marketplaces. Find more information on our homepage, check out our service page or contact us at contact@brandsom.nl / 030-2270520 and request a no-obligation consultation