Influencer marketing is not just for B2C brands. B2B businesses can also leverage the power of influential experts, thought leaders, and niche influencers to reach and engage their target audience, build trust and credibility, and generate leads and sales. But how do you develop a B2B influencer strategy that aligns with your goals, budget, and industry? Here are some steps to guide you.
Before you start looking for influencers, you need to define what you want to achieve with your influencer campaign. Do you want to increase brand awareness, generate leads, drive traffic, or boost conversions? How will you measure your success? What are your key performance indicators (KPIs)? Having clear and specific objectives will help you plan your strategy, select the right influencers, and track your results.
The next step is to understand who your target audience is, what their pain points are, what content they consume, and where they hang out online. This will help you find influencers who can reach and resonate with your ideal customers. You can use tools like Google Analytics, social media analytics, and surveys to gather insights about your audience's demographics, behavior, preferences, and challenges.
Take this a step further by conducting 1:1 interviews with your customers. This is the best way to capture deep levels of quantitative and qualitative information with the flexibility.
Once you have a clear picture of your audience, you can start searching for influencers who match your criteria. You can use different methods to find influencers, such as using hashtags, keywords, industry publications, social media platforms, or influencer marketing tools. However, not all influencers are created equal. You need to vet them carefully to ensure they have relevant expertise, authority, engagement, and reputation in your niche. You also need to check their content quality, tone, style, and values to see if they align with your brand.
After you have a shortlist of potential influencers, you need to reach out to them and pitch your collaboration proposal. You should personalize your message, explain why you chose them, what value you can offer them, and what you expect from them. You should also be transparent about your budget, timeline, and deliverables. Remember that influencers are busy professionals, so be respectful, polite, and patient. Don't treat them as mere tools, but as partners. Build rapport and trust with them, and show appreciation for their work.
The next step is to co-create and distribute content with your influencers. You should give them some creative freedom and input, but also provide them with clear guidelines and expectations. You should also agree on the type, format, frequency, and platform of the content. Depending on your objectives, you can choose from different types of content, such as blog posts, podcasts, webinars, ebooks, case studies, social media posts, or videos. You should also leverage your own channels and networks to amplify the reach and impact of the content.
The final step is to monitor and optimize your influencer strategy. You should track and measure your KPIs, such as impressions, clicks, leads, conversions, or revenue. You should also collect feedback from your influencers and audience, and analyze what worked and what didn't. You should use the data and insights to improve your strategy, adjust your budget, optimize your content, and strengthen your relationships with your influencers.
You have to define guidelines and expectations upfront to ensure a mutually beneficial partnership. Part of that is compensating influencers appropriately for their work and audience reach. Get creative with influencer activations with things like podcast interviews, webinars, live streams go beyond basic content sharing. Give influencers early access to news and info to make them feel valued.
Make sure your marketing team has access CRM data. It is important to ensure that your marketing team is aware of the insights your CRM can provide. Segmenting customer lists based on factors like country, job role, industry, or revenue can greatly improve the effectiveness of marketing messages. It’s important to have at least one team member who can consistently provide relevant customer information to rest of the team.