Does your B2B content marketing strategy include influencer campaigns? Get started on a B2B influencer marketing campaign with IZEA.
Succeed in B2B Influencer Marketing
Does your B2B content marketing strategy include influencer campaigns? Get started on a B2B influencer marketing campaign with IZEA.
Succeed in B2B Influencer Marketing
Does your B2B content marketing strategy include influencer campaigns? Get started on a B2B influencer marketing campaign with IZEA.
Connecting brands and creators
Leading brands and agencies hire us to guide their influencer strategy, ideation, project management, compliance, optimization, and analytics.
Data-driven insights
Back your campaigns with paid and targeted media. Receive results measured against pre-campaign guarantees to gauge the B2B campaign’s success.
Creative control
From the influencer brief through content revision and review, you’ll exercise creative control to meet your company’s goals.
What is B2B influencer marketing?
B2B influencer marketing is a type of marketing strategy that utilizes endorsements from high-profile social influencers to promote a B2B company’s products and services. However, rather than take part in planned advertising campaigns, B2B marketing influencers expose their audiences to brands’ products or services more authentically. Influencers usually accomplish this authenticity by mentioning brands to their audiences and encouraging them to try their products or services via natural-sounding social media posts.
The cornerstones of B2B (business to business) influencer marketing are the influencers themselves. Influencers are individuals with significant online social followings who use their platforms to promote businesses’ products or services. Influencers are typically split into tiers based on the sizes of their audiences. These tiers range from nano-influencers with less than 10,000 followers all the way to mega-influencers, who could have a million followers or more.
When most people think of influencer marketing, they think of B2C (business to consumer) influencer marketing. B2B influencer marketing is essentially the same — except for one important difference. B2C influencers spread brand awareness to consumers, whereas B2B influencers spread brand awareness throughout their professional networks to encourage other businesses to try the brands’ B2B solutions.
There are many different ways to build an effective marketing strategy. So what is B2B influencer marketing good for, specifically? Statistics show that influencer marketing campaigns usually have an outstanding return on investment and that influencers have an impact on a significant percentage of the population’s purchasing decisions. Moreover, the data reveals that in 2021, 21% of B2B marketers’ primary marketing channel was B2B influencer marketing. 2022’s numbers aren’t in yet, but influencer marketing’s popularity is not expected to die down soon.
B2B Influencer Marketing Strategy
B2B marketing requires a different approach than B2C marketing. Marketers need to know their audiences and cater their strategies appropriately. You may be wondering “what B2B company is doing a good job at influencer marketing?” The best B2B marketing campaigns take their audiences into account and partner with influencers who have access to those audiences. B2B influencer marketing case studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of this approach time and again.
B2B marketers also need to take platform and format into careful consideration. Some social media channels that work great for B2C brands may not hold the same appeal for B2B brands because B2B companies need to reach a different type of audience. Likewise, certain content formats work best for B2C marketing, while others are more appropriate for B2B marketing. Here are a few B2B influencer marketing examples that utilize a variety of effective formats:
B2B Influencer Marketing Examples
Let’s take a closer look at some of the reasons why a B2B influencer marketing strategy works.
IZEA’s Trust In Influencer Marketing 2023 report (which surveyed over 1,200 American consumers) shows that 42% of respondents ages 18 to 29 turn to TikTok to research a product or service before purchasing. When we consider all respondents, the statistic jumps to 50% purchasing after seeing a product used by an influencer. Social media influencer marketing represents an opportunity to tap into this enormous and varied audience.
The key aspect of influencer marketing is authenticity. The sense of legitimacy is what makes influencer marketing so effective. Traditional celebrity endorsements, such as a celebrity appearing in a company’s TV advertisement, aren’t as effective because it’s obvious that the company is paying the celebrity to recite a script. Influencers introduce products to their audience organically, just by using them and talking about them authentically. Forty-three percent of all female respondents say that social media influencers are the #1 way to get them to try new products.
Influencer marketing is typically understood in a B2C context — but does influencer marketing work for B2B too? Influencer marketing can be just effective for B2B companies; it often simply comes down to partnering with the right influencers to help you reach your target audience, whether that target audience consists of consumers or businesses.
Sponsored videos or images
Images and videos are excellent at grabbing attention and making a clear statement. An influencer who posts a picture or video with a product can boost its visibility considerably in a very short period of time. Any number of Instagram marketing case studies have proved how effective an image-based marketing strategy can be.
Giveaways
Everyone likes to get free stuff! Another common influencer marketing tactic is to ask an influencer to host a giveaway for your business. By asking an influencer to host the event, you can generate a lot more attention and engagement for your giveaway — and by extension, your products or services.
Social media takeovers
Sometimes, instead of asking an influencer to post about their brand, companies invite influencers to entirely take over the brand’s social media account for a short period of time (usually a day). Doing so can not only generate new attention from the influencer’s followers but also provide fresh value for the brand’s current followers.
Top social media influencers
Again, besides choosing the right format for your B2B influencer marketing content, it’s also important to partner with the right influencers to represent your brand and reach your target audience. You can shorten your search by using IZEA’s influencer marketing services to connect with top social media influencers.
You can find influencers on every social media platform, but the best platforms for B2B marketers are usually Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Here are some tips for locating the best B2B influencers on LinkedIn:
Keywords
One of the first steps you should take is to make a list of important keywords that relate to your business and your industry. Then, you can filter the results by “people” and quickly see the most popular accounts that frequently mention your keyword.
Groups
You can also look at LinkedIn groups that have formed around topics that are relevant to your brand. For example, a company marketing employee onboarding software could potentially find relevant influencers in a non-branded group for HR professionals. LinkedIn is a great channel for B2B marketing, but B2B brands can also find relevant Instagram influencers or influencers on other popular platforms like Twitter.
Reaching out
After you’ve found an influencer (or a few) who you think is a good fit for your brand, you still need to reach out to them and convince them to partner with your business. It’s very easy for marketers to contact influencers and chat with them directly using IZEA’s influencer marketplace platform. Typically, brands offer influencers payment, and sometimes other benefits like free products or marketing opportunities for their own brands, in exchange for whatever kind of social media post or activity the brand wants from the influencer.
Best influencer marketing platforms
Without the right tools, connecting with the right influencers for a B2B marketing campaign isn’t always so easy. Fortunately, there are B2B influencer marketing platforms and services that can streamline the process and help businesses achieve influencer marketing success. IZEA’s influencer marketing platform and managed services develop and execute successful influencer marketing campaigns for B2B companies.
The idea that only large corporations have the resources necessary to launch influencer marketing campaigns is a misconception. Businesses of all different kinds can successfully leverage an influencer marketing campaign. IZEA’s software and managed services are designed to be an effective influencer marketing platform for small businesses, large businesses and every size in between.
Best B2B marketing agency
IZEA also offers an influencer marketing platform for creators, called the Creator Marketplace, via which influencers can list their services and interested brands can connect with them directly. Creators have the opportunity to build a profile on IZEA’s platform for free and attract industry leaders who want to partner with influencers. This easy method of monetizing influence and creative content online for both sides of the transaction is another IZEA feature that makes it the best B2B marketing solution for marketers and influencers.
It’s not easy to choose a B2B influencer marketing agency. B2B influencer marketing is extremely effective and there are a lot of different agencies trying to capitalize on this success. Marketers can be sure they’re getting one of the best B2B marketing agencies in the USA with IZEA. Not only does IZEA offer the best tools and services for B2B influencer marketing, but IZEA was also the very first company to launch a paid influencer marketing platform (in 2006) and is responsible for pioneering the influencer marketing industry as a whole.
Impact of influencer marketing
So the million-dollar question is: Is influencer marketing worth it? In almost all cases, the answer is yes. The impact of influencer marketing on brands’ success can’t be ignored. IZEA’s influencer marketing report gives us clear insight into how substantial an effect influencer marketing can have on a marketing campaign:
- In 2023, the influencer marketing industry reached $3.69 billion in spending.
- Celebrity endorsement statistics indicate that 62% of social media users trust influencer promotions more than celebrity endorsements.
- 46% of respondents have purchased a product because they saw an influencer promote it.
- 36% of respondents say that influencer posts are the most effective method of advertising to them.
B2B influencer marketing statistics like these tell us in no uncertain terms that influencer marketing is a huge force in the marketing industry and that it’s not likely to fade away any time soon.
Additional Resources
- https://izea.com/resources/create-a-b2b-influencer-marketing-campaign
- https://izea.com/resources/top-b2b-influencer-marketing-campaign-examples
- https://izea.com/resources/top-b2b-influencers
- https://izea.com/resources/b2b-influencer-marketing-campaign-types
- https://izea.com/resources/b2b-influencer-marketing
- https://izea.com/resources/saas-influencers
- https://izea.com/resources/influencers-on-twitter
- https://izea.com/resources/find-linkedin-influencers