Influencer Marketing News and Tips

Three Use Cases That Connect the Dots Between Influence and B2B Marketing Results

Lee Odden on Aug 23rd, 2021
B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing

Last week I talked about where B2B Marketers are seeing the most impact from influencer marketing efforts based on the research done with hundreds of marketers for the State of B2B Influencer Marketing Report. Three of those specific areas where influence can help B2B brands optimize for greater marketing impact include brand, growing the influence of key executives and driving leads / sales.

While just about everyone in B2B Marketing is aware of how working with influencers can add relevance, reach and engagement to content, not everyone makes the connection between their particular business problem and the influence solution. Here are three examples from many that can help you connect the dots.

Build Credible Awareness of Your Brand with Customers

Business Problem: The industry is not aware of your brand, solution or your category.

Three Use Cases That Connect the Dots Between Influence and B2B Marketing Results

Where B2B Marketers See the Most Impact from Influencer Marketing

Lee Odden on Aug 16th, 2021
B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing

Sophisticated B2B marketers understand that the effectiveness of a given strategy or set of tactics is tied to goals.

When it comes to influence, there are applications across the customer lifecycle from increasing reach and attention from hard to connect with audiences to creating more credible and authentic content experiences to improving trust and inspiring decision making.

Of course, working with external influencers and improving the influence of internal experts is not a silver bullet across all marketing goals. However, in our research on influencer marketing for B2B brands, there are some outcomes where marketers are seeing greater impact.

Rather than simply provide a laundry list of the highest impact marketing outcomes, I’ve clustered similar goals together to provide more category level insight into where B2B marketers have seen the most success when working with influencers.

Where B2B Marketers See the Most Impact from Influencer Marketing

7 Questions B2B Marketers Need to Answer About Influencer Marketing

Lee Odden on Aug 2nd, 2021
B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing

Diminishing organic social reach, distrust of brand marketing and information overload makes reaching and engaging today’s B2B buyer harder than ever. On top of that, the major changes brought by the pandemic have created new challenges and opportunities for B2B companies to better attract and engage customers in meaningful ways.

Out of the pandemic and the shift to digital first go-to-market approaches for B2B companies, Influencer Marketing has emerged as one of the most effective ways to connect with customers to create better experiences. Despite substantial growth in the discipline from best practices to software, many B2B brands are still experimenting or simply don’t know how to identify, engage and activate influencers.

7 Questions B2B Marketers Need to Answer About Influencer Marketing

Share Your Expertise in the 2021 State of B2B Influencer Marketing Survey

Lee Odden on Jul 19th, 2021
B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing

The past year or more has taught B2B marketer many lessons, especially the importance of creating digital first experiences that are credible, authentic and relevant to specific buyers. As part of the digital transformation of marketing, many B2B companies have adjusted their go-to-market approach to satisfy the changing customer expectations that have evolved during the pandemic.

One of those adjustments in B2B marketing has been the increasing role of influence in delivering credible, authentic and relevant digital experiences. Our initial B2B Influencer Marketing research from 2020 showed that going into the pandemic, confidence in working with B2B influencers was very high as were expectations of outcomes.

Despite the growing confidence in working with B2B influencers over the past year, today there are important questions to be answered as more B2B brands enter the realm of influence and grow more sophisticated with the practice.

Share Your Expertise in the 2021 State of B2B Influencer Marketing Survey

Inside B2B Influence: Justin Levy of Demandbase on Optimizing B2B Marketing with Influence

Lee Odden on Jul 5th, 2021
B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing

If you’re new to this series, Inside B2B Influence is a podcast and video series that goes behind the scenes of B2B marketing and showcases conversations with industry experts on influencer marketing for B2B companies. We’re doing our best here at TopRank Marketing Blog to elevate the practice of growing influence within and outside of B2B brands to drive thought leadership, create demand and grow revenue.

In Episode 15 of Inside B2B Influence, Justin Levy, (@justinlevy) Director of Social and Influencer Marketing at Demandbase (client) and I connected to help answer some key questions about working with influencers at a technology company. I’ve known Justin for many years and we’re both members of the esteemed Marketing Fitness Group on Facebook. His work with influencers goes all the way back to when he and Chris Brogan ran a marketing agency back in 2008.

Inside B2B Influence: Justin Levy of Demandbase on Optimizing B2B Marketing with Influence

Mindful Marketing: 5 Uncommon Ways To Work With B2B Influencers

Lane Ellis on Jun 30th, 2021
B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing

What are some uncommon ways B2B marketers can successfully work with influencers?

One of the many advantages of working with subject matter experts (SMEs) who are influential in their industry is the sheer variety of ways that marketers can collaborate to build a mutually beneficial partnership.

While we’ve explored many of the traditional ways B2B marketers often work with influencers, we wanted to take a look at a few of the unusual ways collaboration is taking place.

Let’s dive right in, with examples from both SMEs and marketers who’ve implemented uncommon takes on the B2B influencer partnership that can help inspire your own influencer programs.

1 — From Influencer to Long-Term Friendship

Mindful Marketing: 5 Uncommon Ways To Work With B2B Influencers

Inside B2B Influence 14: Ann Handley of MarketingProfs on Content Marketing and Influence

Lee Odden on Jun 21st, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Influencer Marketing

Inside B2B Influence is a show that goes behind the scenes of B2B marketing and showcases conversations with insiders from the world of influencer marketing. We connect with influential practitioners at B2B brands of all kinds and sizes to answer the rising number of questions about working with influencers in a business context.

In this first episode of the second season of Inside B2B Influence, I was able to catch up with the incredibly popular, talented and beloved Chief Content Officer at MarketingProfs, Ann Handley. I’ve known Ann for well over 10 years and she’s been a great friend, client and source of inspiration to me about more meaningful content marketing.

Inside B2B Influence 14: Ann Handley of MarketingProfs on Content Marketing and Influence

5 Examples of B2B Brands Rocking With Influence in 2021

Lane Ellis on Jun 9th, 2021
B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing

How does influence help B2B brands achieve success?

Influence may be multifaceted almost to a fault, however a key essence is its role in providing smart answers to the questions your audiences have.

Reaching target audiences through digital channels was recently found to be a top-three critical challenge for B2B marketers.

A new LinkedIn* report of the most in-demand marketing skills has shown that digital marketing represented the biggest mismatch of skills in supply and demand. Influence is a vital element of successful digital marketing, and presents B2B marketers with a powerful tool to overcome this challenge, and the five brands we’ll examine here have each used influence in a variety of ways to achieve digital marketing success.

5 Examples of B2B Brands Rocking With Influence in 2021

6 B2B Content Marketing Summertime Sizzlers To Increase Audience Engagement

Joshua Nite on Jun 1st, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Influencer Marketing

I’m going to knock on wood as I type this, but: It looks like we might have a (mostly) normal summer this year in the U.S. After the lockdowns, isolation, anxiety and fear of 2020, it finally feels like things are opening up.

This is all great for everything except getting people to read your marketing content. In 2020 we had a captive audience starved for entertainment. Now we’ll be competing with everything from music festivals to movies to walking in the park.

The way to break through and have a “hot brand summer?” First, don’t use phrases like “hot brand summer,” because you’ll just make people hate you. Second, it’s all about customer engagement. That means connecting with people on a personal level, offering something novel and fascinating, and using that contact to build a meaningful relationship.

6 B2B Content Marketing Summertime Sizzlers To Increase Audience Engagement

Top 5 Benefits of Influencer Marketing for B2B Brands

Lee Odden on May 31st, 2021
B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing

Despite that 96% of marketers engaging influencers for marketing deem their programs successful, there are still a very large number of B2B companies evaluating where influencer engagement fits in their marketing mix.

After spending the last 8 plus years working on developing influencer marketing strategies, creating pilot projects, implementing campaigns and running ongoing influencer programs for brands that range from 3M to Dell to LinkedIn, here are some of the top benefits B2B companies of all sizes are realizing through their influencer marketing efforts.

Before I get to the list, I think it’s important to mention that benefits realized are directly connected to goals imagined. That may seem obvious but the application of influence to marketing is viewed in many different ways and therefore, the outcomes can be just as different.

Top 5 Benefits of Influencer Marketing for B2B Brands

9 Questions to Ask When Hiring a B2B Influencer Marketing Agency

Lee Odden on Apr 19th, 2021
B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing

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

Lee Odden on Apr 12th, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Influencer 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