We have analyzed the overseas KOL ecosystem and found 5 key strategies for overseas KOL marketing

Global KOL marketing has reached its peak, but the KOL environment in China and abroad is vastly different. In comparison, the overseas KOL economy is on the eve of a major explosion. This article will explore the "overseas KOL ecosystem" system to find overseas KOL marketing strategies suitable for domestic brands going overseas. Let's take a look.

As time came to the 20s, global KOL marketing reached its peak moment.

In essence, KOL marketing is to use the celebrity effect, which has the same origin as the past marketing methods such as celebrity advertising, celebrity endorsements, and authoritative expert recommendations. While the 20s of the global population were being played by a sudden epidemic, new social media platforms exploded, giving rise to countless new formats. The communication distance between people and people and between people and brands has been drastically shortened, and KOLs have played an important role in this. Brand owners at home and abroad have invested more and more budgets in KOL marketing.

Impact.com points out that “today, a large number of consumers tend to refer to the advice and content of KOLs before making purchasing decisions.”

However, the KOL environment in China and abroad is worlds apart.

The new consumer industry in China, a trillion-dollar market, has grown to a huge scale with the help of the KOL economy; there are tens of millions of KOLs active on social media platforms, and almost all segments of the consumer field have grown complete head, middle and tail KOLs.

In comparison, the overseas KOL economy is on the eve of a big explosion: they are competing with brands for greater creative freedom, a group of full-time KOLs are emerging, and more diverse and clearer KOL cooperation methods are taking shape...

Morketing has noticed that impact.com and WARC have jointly released a "2022-2023 Overseas KOL Marketing Insight Report" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report"). Based on the insights of this report, we systematically explore and dig into the "Overseas KOL Ecosystem" to find overseas KOL marketing strategies suitable for domestic brands going global.

1. Why is KOL marketing particularly important for overseas brands?

Let’s first look at the two typical cases of KOL marketing mentioned in the report.

1. Jägermeister

The three-year pandemic has prevented people from gathering in bars and other business places, and the sales of alcoholic beverages have dropped sharply. But an important consumer psychological issue behind this is that different types of alcohol have different sense of occasion. In the past, Jägermeister represented a good product for parties and carnivals in the minds of the audience, and its sales were often opened in bars and nightclubs.

Therefore, in order to break the inherent brand image, Jägermeister invited a number of KOLs from different fields to participate in activities and record videos on the Internet. In the end, it not only stopped the decline in sales, but also improved the brand reputation and influence in the market of young people aged 18-24.

2. Renault Electric

In European countries where environmentalism is prevalent, the electric vehicle industry is a new brand, but marketing is not easy. Renault chose to cooperate with the well-known car review blogger Alex Bangula on YouTube, and "gained a lot of attention and recognition from fans" from the professional perspective of KOL. In the end, "sales in 2020 reached 30,376 units, of which nearly half of the sales were attributed to the fun video promotion of this campaign."

It seems that overnight, whether old brands are renewing themselves or new brands are trying to increase sales, they all start to seek cooperation with online influencers without exception. Is KOL marketing, which marketers are flocking to, a passing fad or a new marketing method with promising prospects?

Morketing believes that KOL marketing is in the early stages of development. Even if the current bonus period ends, it will continue to expand into different service contents and forms in the future, accompanying the long-term growth of brands in the online world. There are two reasons for this.

From a global perspective, a core feature of KOL marketing is "versatility" , that is, KOLs can better serve brands from multiple functional levels such as sales, PR, and branding. We also read a factual basis in the "Report": Due to different focuses, KOL marketing may be divided into different departments in different companies, such as social media, digital marketing, brand marketing, etc. This is ultimately because KOLs can collaboratively boost the influence of brands from multiple dimensions.

Moreover, from the perspective of short-term sales, KOL has become the most direct and fastest way to "sell goods". In a sales activity, the brand, consumers and sales staff are the three core roles. In the past, consumers often needed to bargain with sales staff (who might be sales, supermarket channels, or online e-commerce), and were skeptical about product functions and pricing. Even if they bought on a DTC website, they would not have a natural and unconditional trust in the brand.

However, the emergence of KOLs has improved this situation. The core value that KOLs give to brands is their close relationship with consumers, which allows consumers to build trust in brands in advance and greatly increases the possibility of purchase . In the report, a survey conducted by impact.com and WARC showed that both brand marketers and KOLs (up to 85%) believe that "higher trust/authenticity" is the biggest advantage of KOL marketing.

One point that must be emphasized is that the content produced by KOLs is irreplaceable for brands because of their strong and distinctive personal style. At this stage, the personal characteristics of KOL advertising content, the "social relationships" in the online world, and the credibility and authority accumulated in the hearts of fans are something that brands cannot achieve independently or by relying on public relations companies or the AIGC technology that is currently in the limelight. As mentioned above, automotive blogger Alex Bangula has a significant influence in the automotive field and is an important reference for consumers when buying cars.

In a nutshell, if we define their identity, KOL is the vertical sales of the new era - building a bridge of equality and communication between brands and consumers .

A report from Influencer Marketing Hub shows that more than 68% of brand marketers plan to increase their KOL marketing budgets. This figure directly confirms the rapid expansion and growth of brand owners’ demand for KOL marketing in overseas markets.

Speaking of overseas brands, why do we call on them to see the importance of overseas KOLs?

As Chinese companies go overseas, from e-commerce sellers relying on third-party platforms, to DTC brands in the website building boom, and then to the acceleration of offline entities in the post-epidemic era, the core motivation for continuously improving their foreign trade sales models is: I want overseas consumers to see me and trust me .

KOLs can help overseas brands do this. As mentioned above, one of their core advantages is their strong "authenticity".

Therefore, trust issues arising from cultural and physical distance, and communication issues arising from language and time differences can be resolved to a certain extent with the help of KOLs. At the same time, KOLs often keep up with the trend and are better able to seize the dividends of emerging network platforms, which can indirectly help Chinese companies going overseas better understand overseas markets and keep in touch with overseas markets.

2. The building is about to be completed, and overseas KOL marketing is entering the future amid challenges

It cannot be ignored that overseas KOL marketing, which is in its infancy, also has some problems. For example, the basic rules are not yet clear and fixed enough. This is because in the post-epidemic era, various new forms of social media platforms have emerged rapidly, the KOL industry has grown explosively, and the time lag in the formation of rules is caused by this.

Specifically, the report points out that there are no unified industry standards for KOL remuneration, accuracy of KOL marketing effect measurement, and communication between the two parties , which need to be resolved. So far, the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) has released KOL marketing effect measurement standards, which provide a series of standard definitions for the KOL marketing industry to improve industry efficiency. However, the specific practice process or more detailed issues in KOL cooperation will still need time to resolve.

So, it's all just the beginning.

Looking to the future, Morketing believes that the KOL marketing model still has huge growth potential and market space in overseas markets, and companies going overseas must pay attention to it. The reasons are as follows:

KOL marketing is becoming more and more systematic and standardized, and the industry will continue to develop rapidly . As the KOL marketing path becomes wider and wider, more professional influencers from around the world will surely enter the market in the future.

We have even observed that Chinese influencers have begun to develop overseas KOL markets. In April, Douyin’s top influencer “Crazy Little Yang” said in a live broadcast, “We will change our name to Three Sheep Holding Group in July to earn money from foreigners, because TikTok will also start e-commerce in the future.” Last year, Luo Yonghao’s Make Friends had already begun to develop TikTok’s overseas e-commerce training business.

Second, the overseas e-commerce industry lags behind the domestic one in terms of the diversity of forms, and the functionality of KOLs often coexists with online e-commerce platforms. In other words, the decisive factor for the long-term success of KOL marketing is not the rise and fall of a certain social platform, but online shopping. If the online shopping business is booming, KOL marketing will definitely not be bad .

As of 2022, we have seen in Morning Consult's survey results that "nearly 80% of Americans admit that they have never participated in live shopping", and the overseas short video e-commerce model led by TikTok Shop has just been built and is still in the bonus period, which confirms that the overseas e-commerce industry has huge room for growth. In the future, no matter which short video platform/live broadcast platform comes to the top, it will leave a huge and spacious runway for KOLs. When this new e-commerce model emerges, batches of overseas KOLs will surely start their careers.

In terms of the industry's macro-environment, we have reason to believe that the overseas KOL economy will encounter greater market opportunities.

III. Five key strategies for overseas brand KOL marketing

So in this situation, how do we suggest overseas brands play the KOL marketing card well? How to maximize the effect?

Morketing made the following five conclusions:

1. When it comes to cooperation partners, we attach great importance to the power of small and medium-sized KOLs

Among them, in areas where the internet celebrity business is underdeveloped, low price and large quantity is still a strategy that can be tried.

A straightforward fact is that KOLs’ fees are often negatively correlated with their number of fans. However, content quality and fan stickiness are not necessarily correlated with the number of fans. In other words, if you look carefully, non-head KOLs in mature markets such as Europe and the United States may have the same positive effect while charging relatively low fees. In addition, in regions such as Southeast Asia where KOL fees are relatively low, low prices and high volumes are also a common strategy.

In short, from the perspective of saving costs and getting twice the result with half the effort, overseas brands can try or look to the tail KOLs, or adopt a low-price, high-volume approach, casting a wide net while keeping costs unchanged, reaching different types of fan groups, and improving the overall publicity effect.

The report gives a clear explanation for this phenomenon: "In contrast, Generation Z prefers to follow small and medium-sized KOLs and brand 'die-hard fans' - their endorsements for brands are more authentic and credible, and can ignite consumers' true love for the brand."

2. Aim at the right target and focus on some key indicators

As mentioned above, one of the main features of KOL marketing is its multifunctionality. But this is also a double-edged sword. While covering all aspects, it also means that it is difficult to measure various indicators with clear responsibilities.

Therefore, we recommend that overseas brands first clarify the core purpose of KOL cooperation. Is it to seek sales? To seek interaction? To seek popularity? Or to seek direct traffic? In the marketing activities at a specific stage, find matching KOLs with a goal-oriented approach, and focus on key indicators and actual conversion effects during the cooperation process.

3. Establish an independent and complete KOL value matching formula, or seek professional external help

Overseas companies can formulate an internal "KOL matching formula" based on the brand's own cultural characteristics, communication needs, marketing themes, etc., and then look for suitable KOL candidates on different online platforms. Of course, this process also requires attention to the selection and balance of KOLs on multiple social media platforms, multiple content formats, and multiple niche fields.

The good news is that although the overseas KOL ecosystem and the business scope of MCN agencies present completely different industry standards from those in China, at least the overseas KOL business has achieved a deep and organic integration with the marketing industry - we have seen no less than 9 ways of establishing connections between brands and KOLs in the "Report".

4. In terms of content, stick to "truth" and maintain consumer trust

Success or failure depends on Xiao He. From the reputation of a KOL or a brand to the endurance of the entire KOL marketing ecosystem, they all rely on the cornerstone of "trust".

In particular, the younger generation of consumers are increasingly sensitive to whether KOLs are "making money", and overseas KOLs are also relatively more demanding in terms of creative freedom. In this case, it is recommended that overseas brands should supervise their internal teams and external KOLs during the KOL marketing process to ensure that the advertising content produced does not have any omissions or deviations in brand and product introductions, that there is no plagiarism in content and materials, and that consumers are informed that "this is a business advertisement", etc.

5. With content as the eternal core, continue to explore and innovate partnerships

In terms of content, we believe that overseas brands should pay attention to three details:

First, finalize the specific form of cooperation (the report introduces 6 types of cooperation models), and explore new forms of cooperation based on actual conditions;

Second, discuss and negotiate in advance the degree of freedom of KOL content creation;

Third, make good use of foreign influencers to integrate into local culture and improve the localization of brand content.

Author: Claire

Source: WeChat public account "Morketing (ID: Morketing)"