Search Results for: influencer marketing

How to Scale B2B Influencer Marketing: Operations, Process and Technology

B2B Influencer Marketing Operations

As a relationship driven business, influencer marketing for B2B companies can be resource intensive and time consuming. To scale while maintaining quality, creating processes and using software are as essential for influencer identification as it is for managing ongoing communications and performance reporting.

In our research for the State of B2B Influencer Marketing Research Report, we found B2B marketers that document an influencer marketing strategy and engagement approach, define processes, use software and elevate their internal operational expertise are much better suited to scale a high quality and successful influencer marketing program.

This post will dig further into the findings from the State of B2B Influencer Marketing concerning influencer marketing operations on everything from top challenges to best practices and process to software.

How to Scale B2B Influencer Marketing: Operations, Process and Technology

A Year in Blog Posts: TopRank Marketing’s Most Popular Influencer Marketing Posts of 2016

top-influencer-marketing-posts-2016

If you’re a marketer and haven’t been living on another planet for the past few years, influencer marketing is a term that you’re familiar with. The increasing popularity of influencer marketing has brought every person out of the woodwork sharing their “expertise” and trying their hand at building a program.

In fact, 84% of marketers plan to run influencer marketing programs within the next year. If you fall into that 84% or have already kicked off your influencer marketing initiative, there are some things you need to know.

First and foremost, you need to have a strategy for your influencer marketing program. That strategy should include building relationships with influencers that have mutual interests, audiences and goals.

A Year in Blog Posts: TopRank Marketing’s Most Popular Influencer Marketing Posts of 2016

7 Influencer Marketing Trends That Will Rule 2018

While influencer marketing boomed in 2017, it’s been on the rise for a full decade. In fact, we first posted about it in 2008 after we attended a session at SES San Jose on social media analysis and tracking. Ten years later and influencer marketing has evolved from a rising trend into a proven marketing strategy, causing more and more B2C and B2B companies to start influencer programs of their own.

As influencer marketing has gained steam, it’s earned a more dedicated spot in the digital marketing mix and become more approachable in the eyes of marketers. As our own CEO Lee Odden, a longtime advocate for influencer marketing, regularly says:

“Everyone is influential about something.”

7 Influencer Marketing Trends That Will Rule 2018

Influence 2.0 – The Future of Influencer Marketing Research Report 2017

What does “influencer marketing” mean to you?

Are you thinking of celebrities posting product photos to Instagram? Or having a famous YouTuber run a contest for a meet and greet at an event? Why not send products to bloggers in the hopes that they’ll do a review and say nice things?

Surely that’s not all enterprise marketers think of when it comes to the possible outcomes with influencer relationships.

The promise of brands collaborating or outright paying influential individuals to create content that lifts the brand’s credibility and reach to sell more products is something that companies of all sizes have been hot on – especially in the past 12 months.

With a groundswell of interest, there are many divergent interpretations of what influencer marketing really means.

Influence 2.0 – The Future of Influencer Marketing Research Report 2017

Learn Influencer Marketing 5 Ways

A quick look at Google Trends comparing Influencer Marketing to other marketing disciplines shows a near hockey stick growth trend. Since my team consults and I advocate, write and speak about influencer marketing so often, people often ask me: “Is influencer marketing a real trend?”.

Google Trends Influencer Marketing

Looking back on my experience in digital marketing over the past 20 years with the advent of disciplines like SEO, social media and content marketing, I’d say the momentum around influencer marketing has many of the same characteristics. It’s here, it’s still early and will continue to grow.

While working with influencers isn’t all that new, my experience talking about influencer marketing with B2B brands (and many agencies) has taught me that many B2B marketers are not fully aware or confident about where working with influencers fits in their marketing mix.

Learn Influencer Marketing 5 Ways

The Key To Unlocking the ROI of Enterprise Influencer Marketing

Unlock Influencer Marketing ROI

Influencer marketing gained substantial attention and momentum amongst marketers in 2016. Judging by the start of this year, it will be an even hotter topic in 2017. But for all the potential of adding influence to the marketing mix, there are also significant challenges.

With pure pay-to-play and one-off campaign practices distracting marketers from finding the true value of influencer relationships, misconceptions remain.

To bring clarity to the hype, our content marketing agency, TopRank Marketing, along with influencer relationship management software company Traackr, teamed up to investigate how the practice of influencer marketing is evolving within leading enterprises around the world. We surveyed 102 brand strategists and marketers from companies that include American Express, 3M, and Microsoft. We also commissioned Brian Solis, principal analyst at Altimeter Group, to analyze the data and outline what’s working with current influencer marketing practices, what’s failing, and, most importantly, to predict their evolution.

The Key To Unlocking the ROI of Enterprise Influencer Marketing

45 B2B Influencer Marketing Statistics to Optimize Your 2021 Marketing

We’ve finally turned the corner to 2021 and like many other marketers in the B2B world, I am ready to make this year better than ever. One source of inspiration I’ve found effective are the insights from industry research. That’s one of the main reasons we conducted the first research survey around B2B influencer marketing.

Having watched the growth of influence in marketing for B2B companies closely over the past 9 years, 2021 represents a significant opportunity for marketers to connect with the trusted voices in their industry to co-create content, inspire meaningful engagement and community, motivate authentic brand advocacy and boost influence of brand executives and subject matter experts as well as the brand itself.

The data for B2B influencer marketing are compelling:

45 B2B Influencer Marketing Statistics to Optimize Your 2021 Marketing

Lessons From Our Top 10 Influencer Marketing Posts of 2019

2019 saw the continued rise in influencer marketing’s power and scope in both B2C and B2B industries. This continued the explosion of interest in the practice over the past two years, and with more practitioners than ever going all-in, influencer marketing has been a primary focus of what we have explored on our blog throughout the year.

We’re lucky to have some of the strongest B2B influencer marketing professionals contributing to the TopRank Marketing blog, including our CEO Lee Odden, Ashley Zeckman, Joshua Nite, Caitlin Burgess, Anne Leuman, Nick Nelson, Tiffani Allen, Debbie Friez, the author of this post, and Alexis Hall, among others.

Lessons From Our Top 10 Influencer Marketing Posts of 2019

20 B2B Influencer Marketing Pros to Follow from Top Brands

Recently we published the 2020 State of B2B Influencer Marketing report after surveying hundreds of B2B marketers about their experiences, best practices, tools, budgets and plans for the future.

In an environment where B2B marketing is decidedly digital and marketers are hard pressed to squeeze more productivity out of fewer resources, credible information about marketing best practices, operations and trends for the future are in high demand. Judging by the response we’ve had to The State of B2B Influencer Marketing Report so far, we’re definitely meeting a need.

There is both optimism and an unrealized opportunity with influencer marketing for B2B companies. For evidence, check out these stats from the report:

78% of B2B marketers believe prospects rely on advice from influencers

20 B2B Influencer Marketing Pros to Follow from Top Brands

The Future of Influencer Marketing: Top Predictions for 2017

2017-influencer-marketing-predictions

The buyer journey has changed, and will only continue to evolve. Clean funnels that marketers used to use to determine their digital marketing strategy are a thing of the past.

Today’s consumers can take many different paths (at their own pace) to discover the products and solutions that work best for them. This can create a lot of unpredictability for marketers struggling to keep their head above water.

For marketers trying to do more with less, or connect in a more meaningful way, influencer marketing can be an extremely effective method.

Influencer Marketing is the practice of developing relationships with connected internal and industry experts to co-create content of mutual value to achieve measurable business goals.” – TopRank Marketing

The Future of Influencer Marketing: Top Predictions for 2017

Why to ROI: Proving the Value of B2B Influencer Marketing with Lee Odden

Last week at Marketing Profs B2B Forum it was pretty clear B2B marketers are more interested in influencer marketing than ever before.

Lee Odden’s session – Why to ROI: B2B Marketing Case Studies for Success– promises to deliver not only why influencer marketing is something we should all be talking about, but also how to use ongoing influencer marketing to deliver ROI to your business.

Some of us may still be thinking about influencer marketing as a B2C tactic. A Kardashian on Instagram touting the newest vitamin.

This isn’t exactly relevant to those of us in the B2B space.

Why to ROI: Proving the Value of B2B Influencer Marketing with Lee Odden