Power of B2B Influencer Marketing & Overcoming Challenges

Power of B2B Influencer Marketing & Overcoming Challenges

Dear Subscribers!

Whilst B2B Marketing Strategies such as Content, Video, Account-based, and SEO Marketing are still being used today, do you know that businesses are increasingly turning to B2B influencer marketing? It is a powerful strategy to push your business growth since connections and credibility are crucial parts of B2B influencer marketing. While you might not be familiar with B2B influencer marketing, it is undoubtedly becoming the next big thing, and for good reasons. It is not just about selling a product or service, but about building trust and relationships in a competitive marketplace.

People might wonder if there are such things as B2B marketing influencers and how they promote businesses to other businesses. The answer to “Why do influencers promote B2B businesses?” is straightforward: being a B2B influencer can be a unique and interesting career, allowing influencers to earn a salary on a per-project or monthly basis. To address “How do influencers promote B2B businesses?” we need to delve deeper into B2B influencer marketing.

What is B2B Influencer Marketing?

B2B influencer marketing involves partnering with industry experts, thought leaders, and respected voices within your respective fields to promote your brand, products, or services. Unlike traditional marketing, this approach leverages the influencer’s credibility and reach to connect with a highly targeted audience. It matters because, in B2B, decisions are merely made by a person; they involve research, comparisons, and a high level of trust. Partnering with respected industry influencers can significantly enhance your brand’s credibility and influence buying decisions. It is because B2B influencer marketing is worth 5 times more than B2C.?

When choosing the right B2B influencers for your business, there are a few things to be aware of because choosing the right influencers promotes your brand reputation and sales.

Core Benefits of B2B Influencer Marketing

1. ?Building Trust and Credibility: Influencers must be trusted voices in their industry. Their approval can lend significant credibility to your brand, making it easier to gain the trust of potential clients.?
2. ?Expanding Reach: Influencers have highly engaged audiences. Collaborating with them brings your business awareness in new markets and reaches potential clients.
3. ?Lead Generation: The influencers can convey qualified leads through their recommendations, leading to higher conversion rates. Most of their audience trusts their advice, which can result in benefiting sales for your business.
4. ?Cost-Effective Marketing: With high ROI, B2B influencer marketing can be more cost-effective than traditional marketing channels, and often return higher results by 520% on investment. Influencers can create high-quality content for your brand, terminating the need for in-house content creation resources.

?Then, how do we strategize our way into the B2B influencer marketing world? Here are -

?Key Strategies for Successful B2B Influencer Marketing

1. Identify the Right Influencers: Nano, Micro, Macro and Mega, are the different types of influencers, ranging based on the number of followers. Normally Businesses will choose based on their company budget and it mostly occurs in B2C Marketing. Meanwhile, when choosing the right influencers in B2B, you should not hire influencers with the intention of selling your product. It is true companies do these marketings for more sales but in B2B, you should be focusing more on brand reputation. Allow other companies to approach you with their offers. Because of this, hiring influencers based on their professionalism is more important than the amount of followers they have.?

To give you an idea of who these influencers might be, here is a list of the B2B marketing influencers:?

• Industry Thought Leaders (CEOs, Founder, Authors and Speakers)
• Subject Matter Experts - SMES (Consultants, Advisors, Academic and Researchers)
• Talented Content Creators and Bloggers
• LinkedIn Influencers (Live Hosts, LinkedIn Content Creators)
• Analysts and Journalists
• Tech Specialists and Developers
• Corporate Executives

2. Build Authentic Relationships: Approach influencers with a personalized message that reflects your understanding of their work and the value they can bring to the brand. Instead of collaborating one-off, consider building long-term partnerships. This will help in developing a more authentic and ongoing relationship that resonates with their audience.

3. Clear Objective and KPIs: Just like everything you do, determine what you want to achieve. For instance, lead generation, content creation, etc. Clear Objectives will guide your strategy and measurement. Try to establish key performance indicators (KPIs) such as engagement rates, lead quality, conversion rates, or content reach to measure the effectiveness of your influencer campaigns.

4. Analyze and Optimize: Regularly track the performance of your influencer marketing campaigns against your KPIs. It is crucial to use analytics tools to gather data on engagement, traffic, and conversions. Then, based on the data, refine your strategy for future campaigns. This will help you to identify what worked well and what can be improved to optimize results.

Keep in mind that it is not always easy to run an influencer marketing campaign, especially in B2B Marketing.? There will be obstacles to overcome eventually. Noting that there are

Challenges in B2B Influencer Marketing

1. Finding the Right Influencers: The reason suggested for finding the right influencer was because it is challenging in its own matter. B2B Industries often have a smaller pool of influencers compared to B2C Markets. It can be hard to hire someone who is both knowledgeable and has a good reputation. The wrong influencer can harm your brand’s credibility.
2. Measuring ROI: B2B Sales processes are often longer and more complex, making it hard to directly link sales to influencer marketing efforts. Unlike B2C, where results can be immediate, B2B influencer marketing often leads to indirect benefits such as brand awareness and trust, which are harder to quantify.?
3. Content Control and Alignment: Balancing the influencer’s authentic voice with your brand messaging can be misleading. If you take too much control over the contents, it can suppress creativity. On the other hand, ensuring the content created by influencers meets your brand’s quality standard and overall marketing strategy can be challenging.?
4. Longer Decision-Making Process: Rather than immediate sales, B2B marketing focuses on long-term brand building. This requires patience and a long-term strategy, which can be a challenge for companies if they want immediate results. For other businesses to choose your company, it involves multiple decision-makers. This results in influencers only being able to influence part of the decision-making process.

Ready to Transform Your B2B Marketing Strategy?

Now that we’ve discussed challenges, strategies and the power of B2B influencer marketing, it is time to take action on your own business. By carefully selecting the right influencers, setting clear objectives and building long-lasting relationships, you can overcome the challenges and unlock the full potential of these strategies.?

If you’re looking for a creative marketing team to supervise your business, our team at SalesEra is here to support you. Visit SalesEra now for a free consultation and discover how we can help you grow your business!