Influencer marketing across the border: UK edition

In this first series of influencer marketing across the border, we crossed the channel to the United Kingdom! In our latest Clubhouse session, we discussed the state of influencer marketing within the United Kingdom along with influencer marketing experts from Wildfire the agency and mega content creator Alex Hobern. In this article you’ll read more about the industry in the UK, and what it will take for you as a brand when you want to target British audiences through content creators.

The United Kingdom, frontier when it comes to influencer marketing has taught us a lot about the industry. The country is known for world-famous content creators like Zoë Sugg, Alfie Deyes and Felix Kjellberg who all started out in their small bedrooms, making videos behind a camera. Moving fast forward, there are now over 200.000 content creators active on Instagram alone. With the British industry still growing it offers a big opportunity for brands to take advantage of.

The industry in a nutshell‍

When it comes to the influencer marketing industry, the United Kingdom used to be an early adapter compared to most other countries within Europe. Over the past ten years, more brands have accepted and implemented influencer marketing success in their marketing strategies. Looking at the Netherlands or Belgium for example, it’s only been 5 years since brands really started to acknowledge the importance of influencer marketing.

Markets that have grown the most over the past year were fitness and family. However, most sponsored posts that have been published on Instagram were in collaboration with fashion and lifestyle brands. Followed closely by beauty and food brands.

Within the United Kingdom, there’s much more competition going on among agencies and creators. This results in higher budget brands willing to spend on influencer marketing. Creators themselves also tend to value themselves higher compared to Dutch creators and therefore asking. According to studies, 40% of the marketing budgets in the United Kingdom are for influencer marketing. ‍

Budgets‍

Taking a closer look at what to expect for the kinds of budgets, the most famous mega creators (those who have at least 100.000 followers), earn up to £1.000 to £10.000 for a partnership. Nano creators earn up to £3.000 to £5.000 annually by doing collaborations. However, as Aline stated during the Influentials Talks, there’s no “one size fits all''. It’s more common to have a budget set up in your mind and ask creators their fee and input. This makes budgets regarding financial fees higher than in the Netherlands or Europe. Other factors that play a crucial role in setting up the right budget is how much you want to work with a certain creator or if there are similar creators that can do a good job as well.

Cultural aspects

It makes sense to say that every country has its own culture which can be translated into our campaigns and marketing outings. In other words, some concepts make work in your county whereas it would have a totally different result in another. It’s therefore important to research your new market. Look back at small details as well, for example, the way content needs to be approved will also benefit a smooth transition to a new market. ‍

Trends and Forecasting

According to Alex, gaming is the next big thing among creators in the United Kingdom. This sector has been noticed by many brands recently who is now trying to get involved with it. Thanks to the rise on its own and covid, the whole market has driven this further. New platforms like Twitch also stir up the trend by allowing creators to do live streams on big scales.

Another topic that has been absorbed in British influencer marketing a lot over the past years is sustainability. This is partly thanks to TikTok, where our younger generations can be found. They and the creators of today are more spoken about issues like fast fashion. However, the trend can also be seen under some lifestyle and fashion creators who’ve been on the run for a couple of years. They’re more talking about the importance of sustainability and skipping the Shopping hauls like they used to do a couple of years ago.

Within the United Kingdom, mental health is another topic that’s pretty big at the moment. Lots of brands are trying to get involved in health and try to spread more positivity.

The biggest challenges from a British perspective‍

As for the British, one of the most difficult challenges they face within the Influencer marketing industry is that the market itself is highly developed. Making it more challenging to find the right creators as it’s not that there aren’t enough. Also overseas developments in the market in terms of tracking and measuring ROI show that the British industry is slowly adapting to these opportunities. For example, in the US, they’re already working on a method on geo-location tracking on influencer marketing. Making it possible to track where someone clicks or views a post. Something that’s still not applied within the United Kingdom. These new technologies offer opportunities for the United Kingdom.

Get started

If you want to plan your first campaign for the United Kingdom, it’s important to understand how the market for your brand moves. Research trends, how other brands set up their campaigns and who they’re working with.
Keep in mind that budgets aren’t similar to Dutch or Belgian prices and be open to starting the conversation with the creators about this

Let creativity flow to see what works best to reach your British target audience by not staging the content too much. Let creators have control. Think about setting up a small group of creators to get them to create the briefing around your product and get full market insights. It’s often the case that those who set up the briefings and marketing strategies are too far away removed from the creation process. And therefore not understand the best way of what fits your target audience or jump in on the latest trends. To ensure your brand message is delivered in the most authentic and relevant way possible, you’ll need the help of these content experts.

Don’t forget…‍

Spreading your wings to different markets abroad carries a lot of preparations and research. On the other hand, we’ve seen how trends and developments may take some time for them to reach other countries. Like we’ve seen with TikTok for example! TikTok started in the US and UK and now it’s slowly taken up here as well. So, our advice is to stay up to date on what's going on abroad and see if there’s already a possibility to apply it here. This will helps to give you a better understanding of the market.

‍Start the buzz!‍

Do you want to join our next Clubhouse event? Every month we’re hosting our Influentials Talks in which we discuss different topics about the world of influencer marketing. We’ve already talked about paying out creators, diversity and inclusivity in influencer marketing and much more!

Please contact our customer success manager Layla for more information about the next session.