B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®

B2B Marketing views, news and interviews.

Lee Odden

9 Questions to Ask When Hiring a B2B Influencer Marketing Agency

top questions when hiring a B2B influencer marketing agency

Confidence amongst B2B marketers in the role of influence, both externally and internally, has grown substantially in the past year. Following that growth is the number of B2B influencer marketing success stories inspiring marketers to investigate collaborative content strategies that include influencers.

At the same time, the pandemic has had its effect on marketing budgets and one of the trends over the past year that has stuck is the need for greater accountability and demonstration of ROI for marketing investments. While research shows that 96% of B2B marketers that engage influencers consider their program to be successful, 60% of marketers overall do not feel they have the skills or expertise in-house to execute on influencer programs.


9 Questions to Ask When Hiring a B2B Influencer Marketing Agency

5 Things B2B Content Marketers Need to Know About Working with Influencers

B2B influencer content marketing

Given the rapid increase in influencer engagement amongst B2B brands over the past year, the opportunity and impact from working with influencers has become clear, especially with influencer content marketing according to the B2BIMReport:

  • Results – 63% of B2B marketers agree that marketing would have better results if it included an influencer marketing program.
  • Always-On Wins – 12X more marketers who run alway-on influencer marketing programs are very successful vs those running periodic campaigns.
  • Impact on CX – 74% of B2B marketers agree that influencer marketing improves customer and prospect experience with the brand.

1. B2B Content Influencer Marketing defined:

The practice of engaging internal and industry experts with active networks to collaborate on content in a way that drives mutual value and helps achieve measurable business goals.


5 Things B2B Content Marketers Need to Know About Working with Influencers

Brandfluence – Why Growing Executive Influence is Essential for B2B Marketing

Brandfluence B2B Executive Influence

If there was one thing 2020 showed us in the B2B marketing world, it was the growing importance of influence in all aspects of the customer lifecycle from awareness to advocacy. People want to connect with other people, not some faceless brand.

The good news is that smart B2B marketers are putting a face to their brands through employee advocacy programs and building the visibility and influence of their key executives. But how should B2B brands approach the task of growing their brandfluence? At TopRank Marketing we deal in the business of influence and content in the B2B marketing world every day and here are 3 key trends we’re seeing drive an increase in focus on building executive influence:


Brandfluence – Why Growing Executive Influence is Essential for B2B Marketing

20 Ways to Build B2B Executive Credibility and Thought Leadership

B2B thought leadership

The pandemic driven digital transformation of B2B marketing to digital first has created all new levels of competition for time, attention and trust. In this environment, the importance of building credibility is essential in order to deliver stand out customer experiences. But how?

B2B brand Thought Leadership certainly plays a role and as the trends in trust focus more on individuals over companies, the opportunity to optimize content experiences through executive thought leadership and influence are growing. The more influence B2B brand executives have, the more credibility the brand has.

But how? How can B2B marketers build awareness, credibility and influence of their key executives with content? Here are a few tried and true tactics that continue to work in today’s digital B2B environment:


20 Ways to Build B2B Executive Credibility and Thought Leadership

B2B Influencer Marketing Strategy: 5 Questions to Ask First

5 Questions for a B2B Influencer Marketing Strategy

It’s no mystery that we’re big fans of influencer marketing where B2B brands engage with industry experts and key opinion leaders to drive conversations, consideration and conversions.

Marketing leaders at B2B companies large and small are realizing how much influence can play a role in virtually every customer communication. As 2021 picks up steam, the practice of influencer marketing presents unique opportunities to optimize digitally transformed B2B marketing.

That said, while the role of influence can be universally present in content and communications, the approach that will work for any given B2B brand is by no means cookie cutter. Influencer engagement is not simply an advertising buy or some kind of programmatic marketing tactic. It’s simultaneously dynamic and open to certain kinds of optimization and scale through process, operations and expertise.


B2B Influencer Marketing Strategy: 5 Questions to Ask First

How B2B Brands Can Boost Confidence in Livestream Video, Podcast and Clubhouse Marketing

confidence b2b content audio video
Without a doubt, the challenges and changes of 2020 have pulled business customers towards digital formats more than ever, especially with video and audio content.

Is Text Content Dead? Of course, text will always have its place in content marketing like this very blog post, but video and audio in recorded or live formats have emerged as a top preference for customer engagement. Whether livestreaming on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook or publishing podcasts and hosting rooms on breakout audio social network, Clubhouse, content marketers have a significant opportunity to create more engaging experiences to meet the evolving expectations of their customers in 2021.


How B2B Brands Can Boost Confidence in Livestream Video, Podcast and Clubhouse Marketing

5 Ways B2B Marketers Sabotage Influencer Marketing Success

Sabotage B2B influencer marketing

It is the nature of marketers to continuously evaluate the effectiveness of their efforts. The problem with this approach to marketing optimization is that it assumes effective execution of marketing strategies, which we all know, is often not the case. Poor execution is as often at fault for poor performance as much as the effectiveness or appropriateness of the tactic.

For nearly 10 years we’ve been engaged in influencer collaboration for B2B content marketing programs (like this one for Content Marketing Institute in 2012) and have worked with a wide range of B2B brands during that time. We’ve fielded multiple times that in inquiries and questions from B2B marketers about influencer marketing as well as conducting the first ever dedicated research study into B2B influencer marketing.  This depth of experience has provided unique and far reaching insight into how B2B brands understand and implement content marketing efforts in partnership with influencers – good, bad and otherwise.


5 Ways B2B Marketers Sabotage Influencer Marketing Success

10 Marketing and Communications Leaders to Inspire You in 2021

10 inspiring women in marketing 2021

Even the best of marketers can be challenged in times like those we’ve all experienced over the past 12 months. But it is those who rise above those challenges that fuel the inspiration we all need to succeed in our industry.

On this blog, we’ve made a point to highlight inspirational marketing voices with lists of top marketers by discipline (B2B marketing, social media marketing, content marketing) and our famous lists of Women Who Rock in Marketing since 2010. Over the past few years, we’ve tried (not hard enough) to be more inclusive in these lists to represent women and people of color.


10 Marketing and Communications Leaders to Inspire You in 2021

How to Elevate B2B Marketing with Always-On Influence

Elevate B2B Marketing with Always-On Influence

While 96% of B2B marketers we surveyed in or State of B2B Influencer Marketing Report are confident about influencer marketing, the majority are still approaching influencer engagement on a periodic or campaign basis vs. Always-On. That short term approach is costly:

12X more B2B marketers are very successful by running Always-On influencer programs vs. those engaged in intermittent campaigns.

With all the challenges brought by the pandemic and uncertainty in the world, an increasing number of B2B marketers are working with influencers on an ongoing basis to create more trusted content with credible distribution and authentic engagement.

But it’s important to understand that there’s nothing wrong with running influencer campaigns. When a message, available experts and readiness of an audience all align with the right approach, you can see influencer content campaign outcomes like:


How to Elevate B2B Marketing with Always-On Influence

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

How Successful B2B Marketers Integrate Influence in the Marketing Mix

B2B Influencer Marketing Integration

Influencer Marketing is a fast growing discipline for B2B marketers and while many brands view it as a stand alone tactic, mature marketers realize that influence can play a role across the customer lifecycle in virtually any business communication, content type or publishing channel.

There’s plenty of evidence to show that business customers do not limit their information discovery and consumption to single communication channels or content types. Neither should business marketers. That’s why savvy B2B marketers integrate influencer content across marketing disciplines from ABM to Public Relations to SEO to create the kinds of customer experiences that create credibility, reach and engagement.


How Successful B2B Marketers Integrate Influence in the Marketing Mix

How to Accelerate 2021 B2B Marketing Success with Influencer Optimized Content

Influencer Optimized Content for B2B Marketing

According to the State of B2B Influencer Marketing Report, 96% of B2B marketers that engage influencers consider their program to be successful and 90% expect their budget for influencer marketing to increase or stay the same over the next 12 months.

Why the confidence? 77% of marketers say their prospective customers rely on advice from industry experts with 84% engaging influencers to create brand awareness and 69% counting on influencers for lead generation.

Influence plays a role across the entire B2B customer lifecycle from awareness to advocacy and with B2B marketing going decidedly digital during the pandemic and research showing few signs of reverting back to the old ways, the importance of peer, expert and influencer recommendations through social and digital media are more important than ever.


How to Accelerate 2021 B2B Marketing Success with Influencer Optimized Content