Preeti Sarkar is a content material creator and proprietor of the clothes model, Peetizen.
Courtesy of Preeti Sarkar
Preeti Sarkar began posting on YouTube on the age of 18. Today, the 24-year-old has amassed a following of about 1.6 million on each Instagram and YouTube, and has launched her personal clothes model.
She’s a part of the rising wave of influencers in India who’ve began their very own businesses since establishing a social media presence.
Many high creators in India are leveraging their current fan bases to construct direct-to-consumer businesses —from Nitibha Kaul’s beauty brand and Kusha Kapila’s shapewear brand to Gaurav Taneja’s sports nutrition brand.
“It’s a very recent trend for the influencers [in India.] … Historically, we’ve seen successful entrepreneurs in India who have become influencers, and not the other way [around],” Amiya Swarup, who heads advertising advisory and is a accomplice at EY, advised CNBC Make It.
India’s creator economy has seen a giant surge in recent times. According to a May report by Boston Consulting Group (BCG), there are actually over 2 million monetized content material creators influencing greater than $350 billion in shopper spending within the nation.
Direct income from the creator ecosystem is additionally projected to develop from about $20 billion to $25 billion within the 2024 fiscal yr to greater than $100 billion by the top of the last decade, in line with the report.
Creators as we speak aren’t simply entertainers — they’re additionally shaping shopper preferences and buy selections. The ecosystem is projected to drive greater than $1 trillion in “creator-influenced” consumption by 2030, in line with the BCG report.
Authenticity is forex
Sarkar says she began creating YouTube movies in 2018 about skincare, vogue and extra. She’s primarily based in Kolkata and most of her content material is in Bengali.
“At that time in our … town, [YouTube] was not so famous, and people did not know what content creation actually is and what potential it holds,” Sarkar advised CNBC Make It.
Her authentic filming setup was quite simple. It consisted of a bucket, which she flipped the other way up and used as a tripod for her telephone. “Every day for eight to 10 hours, I just sat down and edited the videos. So it was a very long, tiring process that I did for five years, and there was no success,” Sarkar stated.
“But one day, I just decided: ‘What if I just take my mask down and I just show people who I actually am?’ … So I just started making videos without makeup, without any filter, just kept my phone in my hand and started talking, and that became my brand. My identity is very authentic,” she added.
“People connect to me because they see themselves in me. I am that clumsy girl … So I would say that my personal brand is all about being genuine, and whatever flaws I have, I just show it to the world,” she stated.
It’s that very technique of exhibiting up authentically on-line that Sarkar and lots of different influencers have credited for attracting their loyal followings.
Today, Sarkar is utilizing an identical technique to market her clothes model, Preetizen. Instead of hiring skilled fashions for her advertising marketing campaign, Sarkar determined to launch a social media marketing campaign in February asking her followers to use to grow to be fashions for her clothes line.
Preeti Sarkar along with her fashions for her clothes model, Preetizen.
“We made [it] a community driven brand … I told them: ‘If you want to become a model, I do not care about your height, skin tone, or however you look … I just want you to write [that you are] interested on this post, and I will select 10 people to become the face of my brand,” she stated.
“And you won’t believe [it.] There were 60,000 plus comments … I was getting calls. It was crazy, and we went through most of them, and we selected 10 people,” stated Sarkar, including that the advertising marketing campaign was a giant turning level for her firm.
Similarly, influencers have grow to be an integral a part of many advertising campaigns in India. That’s largely as a result of content material creators have audiences that belief them and their suggestions — which is essential for gross sales, Swarup stated.
Influencers in India are creating personalised content material that may enchantment to particular areas and hyper-local preferences. That may be very troublesome for conventional media to do, so content material creators are bridging that hole, Swarup added.
“I think … brands have also realized that authentic and transparent influencer engagement [can] benefit the brands significantly,” he added.
It has lengthy been widespread to see creators within the U.S. leverage their audiences to create revenue streams, however the development is comparatively nascent in India.
It’s come by the use of pure development, Swarup stated. In current years, smartphones and information have grow to be extra accessible and affordable in India. “In 2008, there were 346 million registered mobile SIM cards in India. Between 2008 and 2024, this number more than tripled,” in line with Data for India.
Data utilization in India has grown from about 12 gigabytes a month within the 2020 fiscal yr to about 27 gigabytes a month within the 2024 fiscal yr, in line with BCG.
“It’s all about demand and supply … Data consumption has really skyrocketed thanks to low [cost data] packages which consumers are [using],” Swarup stated.
“So influencers have grown subsequently, and as their paychecks increase, their wallet size increases, right? They are obviously looking [into] other avenues of monetization, beyond just the content on YouTube or Instagram,” he added.
Notably, the Covid-19 pandemic additionally gave a giant enhance to the business, Swarup stated.
“We are at an inflection point where the influencer marketing [industry] has really grown during the Covid and the post-Covid time, because [many people] went digital, and that was the only form of engagement, interaction, or … communication that was happening,” he stated.
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