Going viral in a new market

Challenge

Fredman, a staple in the Finnish market, wanted to grow their brand awareness in Germany. However, how were they supposed to build trust with a notoriously particular and scrutinizing populace?

Well, influencer marketing is an excellent way to do just that. By tapping into the influence of trusted individuals, Fredman could strengthen their brand in Germany and continue growing.

“Our goal was to increase awareness and build local credibility in the German market, where our brand was not yet known,” says Riikka Raatikainen, Chief Marketing Officer at Fredman. “Influencer marketing was an excellent way to reach consumers through authentic and natural content, especially in the context of kitchen and cooking products.”

But that led to another problem - who were these trusted individuals? And how could Fredman contact them?

“We had experience collaborating with influencers in Finland, but Germany was a new market for us. We had no idea which influencers to contact,” says Raatikainen. “And while Fredman is well-known in Finland and we often receive direct contact for collaborations, no German influencers reached out to us.”

Another issue was the language barrier between Finland and Germany - Fredman had limited ability to communicate in German.

“On top of the challenge of seeking influencers in a new market, there was also the language barrier - we had limited ability to communicate in German, and in order for our content to perform, it needed to be in German,” says Raatikainen.

Influencer marketing is one of the most effective ways to enter new markets, but without local knowledge, it’s challenging to make it work. Whether it’s understanding which influencers are best to understanding the langauge they speak, your potential ROI plummets if you spend a ton of manual time managing things yourself.

Luckily, Boksi was here to help!

Solution

First of all, Fredman had to know that their influencer marketing spend was going to good use. They had a detailed list of criteria for every potential partner under consideration.

“The most important criteria for us were: local knowledge, strong network of influencers in Germany, high content quality, easy schedule management, proactive communication, and budget-bound objectives,” says Raatikainen.

That’s a tall order for any partner! But to make influencer marketing simple, it’s more than just providing a network of influencers. It’s vital to make the rest of the work simple too, from briefing, planning posting dates, handling contracts and payments… the list goes on.

“Our decision to use Boksi was influenced by Boksi’s ability to offer a comprehensive service in which campaigns are planned and implemented in line with our objectives,” says Raatikainen. “We were pleased with Boksi’s service that handled the selection of influencers, campaign coordination, and content production in a centralized manner. The results promised by Boksi for our given budget was also a major factor in our decision.”

No matter if influencer marketing is old hat to you, or if you’re entering a new market, Boksi was made to make influencer marketing simple. You can search for creators according to specific criteria, like follower count, follower demographics, or even lookalike creators if you have certain people your radar. But a huge draw of our platform is the ability to have influencers contact you directly for collabs.

How does it work? Well, you create a brief on our platform which you can then share to our creator network. You can then see which creators are best for you by viewing their Instagram and TikTok profile stats and content style, then negotiate on a suitable price and accept them to your campaign.

All of this happens on Boksi - no emails cluttering your inbox or tons of DMs pouring into your accounts. And we even handle all contracting and payments so you can focus on running a top-notch campaign.

"Each campaign has produced good content that fits well with our German-language Instagram account (@fredman_de)," says Raatikainen. "One of the campaign videos even went viral!"

We also provide our service as-is in a self-service format, or you can also enlist the help of an experienced Customer Success Manager who will help you manage briefs, communicate with influencers, and take even more of the load off.

All of this is created to save you and your team valuable time.

How much time, though? We asked Fredman if they had an estimate…

“I would estimate that Boksi saved us around 50-70% of the time we would have spent coordinating campaigns and searching for influencers.”

What would you do with 70% more time to put into the high-impact facets of influencer marketing?

“I highly recommend Boksi to marketing managers who want to outsource influencer marketing in a controlled and effective manner,” says Raatikainen. “Boksi is particularly suitable for international launches, where local knowledge and influencer networks play a key role.”

Influencer marketing can bring great results. But running it in-house takes a lot of time and resources that could be spent on the many other parts of your marketing machine.

So take the stress out of influencer marketing with Boksi. We provide local knowledge, ease of use, and guaranteed results for your influencer marketing strategy.

Book a call with us today and we’ll give you a demo of our platform!