About Trends B2B Influencer Marketing

Trends B2B Influencer Marketing: “Influencer Marketing” often conjures images of fashion, fitness, lifestyle, and food influencers, those with thousands of Instagram followers, and associations with big brands. In other words, you probably immediately think of B2C brands that want to sell their products and services directly to consumers.

However, this personality is rapidly changing in 2022. B2B companies in seemingly offbeat industries increasingly turn to influencer marketing to promote their products and services. Product demos and user reviews drive most B2B buying decisions.

During a recent influencer marketing webinar hosted by the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), Cleveland-based Company Moen shared that it uses influencers for marketing its kitchen and bathroom faucets and other accessories.

Trends B2B influencer marketing has become more critical than ever in almost every industry. According to HubSpot’s 2022 Marketing Industry Trends Report, influencer marketing is this year’s top marketing trend. 61% of consumers trust what influencers say about a brand more than what a brand says about itself.

For many B2B businesses, influencer marketing can help create greater brand awareness, increase consumer trust, and improve brand loyalty.

How to Use Influencer Marketing in B2B

People are inundated daily with information through social media, corporate blogs, email, search engines, and more. This is why influencer marketing can come into play.

When making purchase decisions, consumers rely more on the opinions of those around them. This type of third-party validation is much more valuable than a brand saying good things about itself. This allows influencers to build on their reputation and relationship to shape and guide their followers’ purchasing decisions effectively.

The main goal of B2B influencer marketing is to get your brand in front of an influencer’s existing audience and build trust over time. It’s a way to build credibility and social proof that a brand’s products and services work, are genuinely liked and deliver what they promise. In other words, digital is a highly effective form of word of mouth.

When done strategically, influencer marketing can provide incredible ROI for B2B businesses through:

• Audience retention
• Leading generation
• Customer acquisition
• Loyalty and brand defense

“That’s the great thing about influencers. We all have our brand story that we try to tell and our main talking points. Still, when it comes to a creator or someone you follow, people associate that person with what they recommend,” said Sara Jensen, manager of social media and influencers at Moen.

Who are the B2B Influencers?

When considering an influencer marketing strategy, you must first understand your prospects and their specific influencers.

Influencers in B2B industries are people that customers trust to guide and support them through the decision-making process. They range from thought leaders and industry analysts to industry experts and customers who can share their insights. Over time, these B2B influencers have built their reputations on experience, knowledge, and voice in the industry.

How to Implement an Influencer Marketing Strategy

1. Set Your Goals and KPIs

Before you start, it’s essential to establish your short- and long-term goals and what you want to achieve with your influencer marketing campaign. These goals impact each tactic in your overall strategy and ultimately allow you to measure the campaign’s success.

Your key performance indicators (KPIs) are determined by the overall goals of your influencer marketing campaign. Keeping your goals front and center during your campaign implementation is crucial.

Here are some KPIs that can help you gauge the success of your B2B influencer marketing campaign:

• brand mentions
• brand awareness
• participation rate
• conversions

2. Determine Your Content Strategy

It would aid if you determined what content influencers want to engage, create, or participate in based on your goals. An essential benefit of using influencers is that it allows your brand to staff additional content creation.

“We don’t want to use influencers just because it’s cool or because other companies use them,” Jensen said. “By working with [influencers], we can add value.”

“There are times when they can highlight our product with a cool video that we could never have done in our own home,” adds Amanda Keiber, Oatey’s director of corporate communications.

Some examples of marketing efforts that influencers can participate in are our discussion boards, video content, event promotions, enhancements to existing content, and more.

3. Stay True to Your Audience

Choosing experts in their specific field is vital, but it’s even more important to select influencers your audience knows, trusts, and cares about. Working with an influencer gives you entree to their audience, so choose wisely those who can effectively tell your brand story to the right people. This allows your influencers to connect more meaningfully, maximizing your partnership’s value.

4. Think Long Term

When creating a B2B influencer marketing campaign, thinking long-term is essential. B2B influencer marketing campaigns that run over time and consistently use the same team of influencers tend to have a more significant victory rate than more sporadic campaigns. Ideally, you want to develop a long-term partnership with these influencers that allows your brand to make the most of its audience for the best results.

Where the B2B Influencer Marketing Journey is Headed in 2022 and Beyond

In the B2B industry, digital transformation has accelerated in recent years, primarily due to the pandemic. In a recent article, Gartner reported that 80% of B2B sales are now done digitally, affecting both business and buyer behavior, and most market modeling is done digitally.

With a significant online shift in B2B purchasing decisions, the importance of leveraging influencer marketing in this space has increased. Buyers rely on these trusted people to inform and influence their purchasing decisions.

In the coming years, the B2B marketing industry expects a greater emphasis on engagement, experience, and digital growth. Content remains a vital part of the space, and knowledge and influence are more important than ever. In the face of this trend, B2B marketers must leverage influencer partnerships and enable content experiences that attract, retain, and convert shoppers in a way that builds trust and long-term brand loyalty.

Conclusion

According to statistics, Trends B2B influencer marketing search on Google has increased by 1500% in the last three years, which shows that people want to educate themselves about influencer marketing. B2B marketers should be fast to spot this opportunity as it will be trending for the foreseeable future.

It will also be one of the fastest-growing customer gaining methods, with 28% citing it as the number one source. Partnering with credible influencers in a business context can provide significant opportunities to advertise to interested buyers.

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