As the sting of the cost-of-living crisis takes hold, data suggests that Christmas sales are due to be among some of the lowest recorded in recent years, with new research from HyperJar and Retail Economics finding that 51% of Brits are limiting their Christmas spend this year.

Retailers are facing a tough period ahead, with sales expected to decrease by £2.51bn compared to Christmas 2021, falling below 2019’s pre-pandemic results of £83.1bn – according to industry research. At a time when 56% of Brits will spend less per person this Christmas in a bid to cut outgoings, the need for retailers to find a balance between driving sales with a sensitivity towards the current financial gloom is more prevalent than ever. A new concept of the ‘barter economy’ has come to the fore, providing savvy brands with an innovative way of reducing costs but still engaging in crucial marketing activities. Through this approach, brands offer goods or services that content creators then post about, solely in exchange for receiving them as opposed to money. In relation to traditional, paid influencer marketing, founders of Room Unlocked Alex Payne and Tanya Hamilton-Smith argue this form of value exchange is far more cost-effective for brands with proprietary research revealing brands save on average £7,000 per opportunity versus paying for it. In addition to this, they will achieve 15:1 ROI on their marketing spend, which is way above the 5:1 ratio that is considered as strong for most businesses.

This also differs greatly from aimless gifting in which brands send unsolicited products to influencers in the hope that they’ll post about them. By operating in this way, retailers end up with billions of pounds of excess, unsold inventory with returns creating over a staggering 2 billion kilograms of waste in landfills each year, and more than 15 million metric tons of carbon dioxide – according to CNBC.

By targeting the correct influencers that have a genuine interest in your brand, partnerships can be created purely based on passion, which can then be turned into value. Room Unlocked provides the most effective form of influencer marketing, with proprietary research revealing influencers are three to four times more likely to share more authentic pieces of content when they have actively searched out the product or experience they’re advertising – further highlighting the benefits of this approach. Brands also have instant access to diverse advocates from A-list TV talent to macro and micro-influencers, eliminating up to 200 hours of outreach to the wrong people, while also fostering relationships underpinned by love and not currency.