Online Marketing Blog

7 Top B2B Influencer Marketing Trends for 2020

Lee Odden on May 20th, 2019 B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing

While there are some who think the expression “influencer” is an expired term, the role of influence on B2B buying decisions is irrefutable.

According to the World Federation of Advertisers, 65% of multinational brands will increase influencer marketing spending in the next 12 months and there’s good reason for increased confidence: The 2019 Content Preferences Survey from DGR reports 95% of respondents favor credible content from industry influencers as a top preference, a 30% increase compared year over year.

Earlier this year in a post about The Business of Influence for 2019, I shared 5 influencer marketing trends including:

Micro AND Macro influencers
Centralizing Influencer Operations
Always On Influencer Engagement
Focus on Quality vs. Quantity Metrics
Influencer Marketing Software Investment

7 Top B2B Influencer Marketing Trends for 2020

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Digital Marketing News: Google Ad Auction Changes, Instagram’s Chronological Likes, & 3 New Marketing Studies

Lane Ellis on May 17th, 2019 Online Marketing News

2019 May 17 Sprout Social Chart

Google shares details on how first price auctions in Google Ad Manager will work
Display and video ads sold with Google Ad Manager, Google’s ad server and publisher exchange, will get additional auction functionality aimed at removing Google’s “last look” outbidding advantage, while also bringing new minimum pricing strategies and rules, the search giant recently announced. Marketing Land

Instagram Separates New Likes on Posts, Adds Unfollower Stats for Creator Accounts
Instagram has tested showing most recent post likes first, along with adding unfollower statistics to Instagram Creator analytics data, features that could prove useful to digital marketers when eventually rolled out. Social Media Today

Digital Marketing News: Google Ad Auction Changes, Instagram’s Chronological Likes, & 3 New Marketing Studies

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Content Curation Inspiration: Types, Examples, & Use Cases for B2B Marketers

Caitlin Burgess on May 16th, 2019 B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

If you create and share content, curation is part of your B2B marketing strategy. From seasoning a blog post with key third-party statistics to sharing an interesting article from an industry publication or influencer across your social channels, you’re curating.

But content curation has a place beyond adding an insight or two to your content.

With large volumes of information available today and short attention spans, curation allows content marketers to create more convenient, valuable content experiences for their target audience, while growing thought leadership, bolstering their content calendar, and increasing production efficiency.

What types of curation exist? How are B2B brands doing curation? When does it make sense to do curation? Let’s dive in.

Content Curation Inspiration: Types, Examples, & Use Cases for B2B Marketers

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Do Your Homework: Selecting the Right Influencers for Your B2B Brand With Tips from the Experts

Caitlin Burgess on May 15th, 2019 B2B Marketing, Interactive Marketing

The influencer identification, validation, and recruitment process is time consuming, resource intensive, and high stakes. Without the right mix of influencers to drive awareness, intrigue, conversation, and action, your marketing initiatives will miss the mark with your audience and fall short of expectations.

But how? How do you artfully and strategically find, vet, and entice industry experts to partner with you?

You need to do your homework—and fortunately, insights from several seasoned B2B influencer marketing experts can provide some great guidance.

Read on to get perspectives and advice from leaders serving a range of B2B brands, as well as some of our own resident experts.

Do Your Homework: Selecting the Right Influencers for Your B2B Brand With Tips from the Experts

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Trust Factors: The (In)Credible Impact of B2B Influencer Marketing

Nick Nelson on May 14th, 2019 B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing

Trust is a currency. It’s arguably the most valuable currency in today’s B2B marketing environment. And much like real money, it needs to be earned; the risks of attempting to counterfeit trust are grave.

In the first installment of our Trust Factor series, we discussed how creating best-answer content serves a long-term trust-building strategy. Today we’ll examine the ways in which partnering with influencers can provide a dramatic boost to your brand’s credibility and authority in the eyes of your audience. We’ll also share some examples of companies that are already doing this effectively, and the lessons we can draw from them.

There are no shortcuts when it comes to developing genuine trust with your customers. But that doesn’t mean you can’t take the shortest possible path, so long as you know where you’re going. Walking this road with the right influencers at your side can expedite the journey.

Trust Factors: The (In)Credible Impact of B2B Influencer Marketing

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Less Is More: Time to Cut Content Bloat & Create Content Connections

Nick Nelson on May 9th, 2019 B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

When it comes to the craft of writing, my favorite luminary is the late William Zinsser. His book, On Writing Well, is — in my opinion — the definitive work covering its stated subject.

On Writing Well is an essential read for anyone who wants to elevate their prose. Zinsser’s primary focal area is word economy. “Look for the clutter in your writing and prune it ruthlessly,” he implores. “Be grateful for everything you can throw away. Reexamine each sentence you put on paper. Is every word doing new work?”

That last question is especially pertinent to B2B marketing writers. The reader should always be our top concern when penning copy, but in this case, the stakes are even higher. Attention is at a premium with business professionals, so wasted words are especially costly. Content bloat leads to audience abandonment.

Less Is More: Time to Cut Content Bloat & Create Content Connections

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How to Promote Your B2B Podcast

Joshua Nite on May 8th, 2019 B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Online Marketing

Over 1/4th of the entire population of the United States listens to podcasts at least monthly. That’s over 81 million people. What’s more, the most avid listeners log six and a half hours a week of listening time. Eighty percent finish every episode in its entirety.

There’s enormous potential here for engaging an audience. Think about how long someone might stick with a 1,000 word blog post (like this one). Five minutes? Ten? But they might listen to a 25-30 minute podcast on the same topic.

Podcasting holds a lot of promise for marketers, especially in the B2B space. Our agency has helped multiple B2B Fortune 500 companies produce and find an audience for their podcasts. It takes strategy and coordination, but the barrier to entry is relatively low. Of course, “making” the podcast is the easy part. As with any content, the challenge is successfully getting it to your target audience.

How to Promote Your B2B Podcast

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6 Ways to Bring More Boom! & Less Boring to Your B2B

Lane Ellis on May 7th, 2019 B2B Marketing

Is your B2B marketing on the boring side? Here’s how you can ignite a powder-keg of inspiration and burst forth with new content marketing energy to bring more boom and less boring to future B2B marketing efforts.

We have six boom-including content marketing antidotes to replace the status quo with inspiration, joy, laughter, energy, enchantment and other powerful marketing elixirs that can help you create relevant, informative, and — above all — memorable content.

#1 — Get An Inspiration Infusion From Experts

via GIPHY

Oftentimes you don’t have far to go to find inspiration for your B2B content marketing.
Inspiration abounds if you look to your heroes, past mentors, and the industry influencers and business associates whose work you admire the most.

6 Ways to Bring More Boom! & Less Boring to Your B2B

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Content Marketing Fitness: Are You Ready to Integrate, Optimize and Activate?

Lee Odden on May 6th, 2019 Content Marketing

I’ve always thought of content marketing as a fast paced, agile and high energy approach to engaging the modern buyer.

So why does so much of the B2B content marketing that’s out there feel sluggish, low energy and bloated?

eMarketer recently reported that B2B decision makers’ top issues with marketing content reveal that marketers are clearly “out of shape” when it comes to a focus on what’s most important. The top issues shared by B2B decision makers were that content is too fluffy, not relevant, not personalized, misleading, behind a form or hard to find.

For the marketers behind these issues, a quick look in the mirror makes it easy to see why: Bad habit strategy, low metabolism execution, overly processed tactics and sugar high shiny object software that doesn’t get used properly if at all.

Content Marketing Fitness: Are You Ready to Integrate, Optimize and Activate?

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Digital Marketing News: Brand Trust, B2B Content, LinkedIn’s Rising Engagement, Digital Video Ad Spend Growth, & More

Lane Ellis on May 3rd, 2019 Online Marketing News

2019 May 3 MarketingCharts Chart

B2B marketers acknowledge the need for quality content
72 percent of B2B marketers intend to create more social content over the next 12 months, and 98 percent see the performance of content marketing as justifying its cost — two of many insights containing in newly-released report data. CMO.com

LinkedIn Engagement Continues to Rise, According to Latest Update from Microsoft
LinkedIn (client) saw revenue growth of 27 percent for the quarter, a 24 percent increase in on-platform sessions, and record engagement and job posting levels, according to recently-released report data from parent company Microsoft. Social Media Today

Digital Marketing News: Brand Trust, B2B Content, LinkedIn’s Rising Engagement, Digital Video Ad Spend Growth, & More

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