Influ.ai is a start-up Bulgarian company, founded in 2020 by Lachezar Mladenov, Victoria Lazarova and Alex Gramatikov. The influencer marketing platform connects brands with influencers to build successful marketing campaigns. With a database of over 250 verified influencers, Influ.ai helps advertisers run, track and measure influencer campaigns, saving up to 90% of the time spent before, during and after campaigns. Influ.ai is an influencer marketing platform in which influencers collaborate with appropriate brands. They run their business with convenient tools.
Challenge overview
The spread of COVID-19 has transformed nearly every aspect of our world. Living through a global pandemic has driven dramatic shifts in our jobs, eating habits, childcare, and even our collective sense of time and time management. Many businesses have had to transform their operational models to meet the new reality of digital-based interactions with customers and audiences. This transition requires additional resources and expertise, which can be a challenge for many business sectors.
Influencer marketing platforms provide other organisations with an end-to-end solution for discovering social influencers, managing influencer-generated content, and analysing influencer marketing campaigns. Influ.ai is a platform where influencer marketing flourishes with the right tools. The company meets the expectations of the business in preparing online marketing strategies and campaigns.
Establishment of the organisation/initiative/enterprise
Influ.ai was founded in 2020 by Lachezar Mladenov as the first influencer marketing platform in Bulgaria. Lachezar Mladenov is an entrepreneur and innovator with a passion for new technologies, marketing, business development and digital products. He has 3 years of experience as a software engineer and another 3 as a junior entrepreneur. He has made several attempts to start a business, going through everyday difficulties, mistakes and small victories. One of his previous business projects was a coffee shop, where anyone could “print” a digital picture or photo on the milk foam of cappuccino and latte using a mobile application.
Much of his marketing job was working with influencers, and then he saw that there were a lot of pitfalls in the whole process. His interest in technology, marketing and artificial intelligence, as well as his experience in programming, made him think about how he could solve the problems in influencer marketing processes. Problems that turned out to be experienced by big brands and agencies as well. Thus was born influ.ai – the first Bulgarian software platform for influencer marketing. With the help of artificial intelligence, Influ.ai’s software analyses personality traits of brands and creators in order to match the brand values with the most appropriate influencers. Latchezar and his team help brands and influencers to run successful influencer marketing campaigns.
Management structure and governance
Latchezar Mladenov (CEO) and Victoriya Lazarova (COO) are the co-founders of Influ.ai. Currently, they work with 8 experts who are developers, both frontend and backend engineers, business partners, a social media manager and an advisor.
Principles of work, objectives and activities
Influ.ai is a platform that allows Brands (companies that advertise a particular brand) and Influencers (content creators) to connect and identify with each other, to enable them to send and receive requests for marketing campaigns and to conclude marketing campaign agreements. Influ.ai provides services to both the Brand and the Influencer, including facilitating the conclusion of campaign agreements between the Brands and the Influencers and facilitating payments. Influencers create profiles and provide them to Brands. Brands review Influencers and send them campaign requests.
What can influ.ai do:
- Influ.ai presents data about influencers, including information about their audience and indicators of their marketing performance: Search influencer by: name, category, audience age and gender, hashtags and others. The platform analyses the content and performance of each influencer quickly and efficiently.
- Influ.ai manages campaigns with streamlined work processes: Operate effective influencer marketing campaigns and control the processes while saving time and avoiding issues with collaborators. Influ.ai provides all of these features in one place.
- Influ.ai tracks campaign performance: Calculate performance at the end of the campaign, track the return on investment metrics, analyse and optimise campaigns.
The team also organises webinars on influencing campaigns that are aimed at businesses and influencers.
Target groups
Other businesses (brands) that seek advertising and influencers to promote their products or services.
Innovation
Influ.ai is an all-in-one influencer marketing platform. With a pool of verified influencers and optimised processes in the preparation, execution, tracking and evaluation, the platform saves up to 90% of the time spent before, during and after campaigns.
With influ.ai brands can connect with relevant influencers quickly and efficiently, save time with decisions based on concrete data and manage influencer collaborations in one place, easy performance tracking and optimization.
Key partners
Influ.ai works with different Bulgarian and International brands and companies. Some of the key partners are Nedeliya – a cake company, Olympus, Nivea Bulgaria, Pick&Dazzle, SOS Detski Selishta, Telenor, Nauchi.bg, Acer, Press Start and others.
Influ.ai is a member of IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau), the largest global association of media, media and advertising agencies, technology companies and advertisers responsible for digital business.
Impact and Evaluation
Influ.ai is the first platform and complete software solution in Bulgaria, which facilitates the connection between companies and over 300 verified influencers. The platform facilitates the processes of campaign preparation, search and connection with influencers and makes it possible to predict and monitor results and returns in real time. The right solution for B2C companies: food, beverages, cosmetics, hygiene, fashion, telecoms, hotels and more.
The platform can be used to find the right influencer for any branding and build profitable campaigns. From media to digital and PR agency – influ.ai’s software will help you scale your influencer marketing campaigns for your customers. The platform can be used when working with clients or all the work can be delegated to Influ.ai.
Recommendations
Influencer marketing is relatively new and very popular among influencers and companies seeking to promote their products and services and increase their buying actions. In general, the practice can be replicated in other countries and regions.
Lessons Learned
Covid-19 crises have taught us to be more creative and innovative. The main lesson learned from implementing the best practice is that entrepreneurs should not be afraid of failure. Lachezar believes that after several failed attempts, success is much sweeter and more satisfying than if you succeed the first time.
References
BESCO (Bulgarian StartUp Association) (2021). InfluAI: Първата инфлуенсър маркетинг платформа в България [InfluAI: The first influencer marketing platform in Bulgaria], 14 May, BESCO.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.