The influencer marketing industry had a value of around 8 billion dollars in 2019, according to Business Insider Intelligence data. With investment in this type of marketing increasing substantially, the market is expected to nearly double to $15 billion by 2022. Predictions by other independent researchers are also more or less on the same lines.
This news must come as an eye-opener for those sitting on the sidelines, yet undecided on exploring B2B influencer marketing. Are you one amongst them?
Take a look at some of the factors that made major B2B brands increase their spending on influencer marketing. These factors will help dispel the doubts you have about committing time and resources to influencer marketing.
Influence Can Help Build Trust and Credibility Like Nothing Else
Trust and credibility are two of the most vital ingredients for success in marketing, and influencer marketing is the only strategy where you will find both in liberal doses. Brand trust is more important today than ever before. Influencers can help brands build trust better than other marketing approaches. More and more prospects are seen relying solely on the advice and suggestions from influencers to make buying decisions.
Brand Advocates Can Deliver Impressive ROI Consistently
B2B influencer strategy can be the soothing balm your business needs in the fiercely competitive and distrusting business marketing landscape of today.
A whopping 96 percent of consumers say they don’t trust advertising. To make matters even worse, only one-third of the consumers trust the brand they buy. It is the harsh truth that marketers must accept. They can overcome this by providing consumers relevant, useful, and credible content. These are precisely the areas where B2B marketing work wonders.
- B2B influencer marketing helps builds quality relationships with its trusted voices
- Influencers are the only people who can advocate organically for a brand
- This can help deliver a vastly improved ROI through smart implementation of marketing programs
B2B Influencer Marketing Helps Build Relatable Relationships
Brands can leverage the innate assets of B2B influencer marketing to shape relatable customer relationships with its human-focused approach. By involving influencers in the content, marketers can subtly add human voices into their marketing efforts. It is a simple yet powerful way of boosting the credibility of your content. B2B influencer marketing can make brands more relatable and build greater empathy because:
- More and more prospective customers are relying on advice from industry experts
- It helps establish credible connections with people actively interested in your brand
Helps Brands Build Partnerships That Are Mutually Beneficial
B2B influencer marketing helps create powerful partnerships among brands and experts and can also be mutually beneficial for all concerned. Marketers can work together with the influencers and create content in a manner that can help develop a high value for all the players involved. At the same time, it must be done in a way that is quantifiable and unbiased. These are the reasons why brands using B2B influencer marketing programs are able to gain from these mutually-beneficial partnerships:
- Influencer marketing can help marketers collaborate with subject experts on the structure and type of content
- B2B marketers can utilize the power of influencers to boost the credibility of brand content
- They get to work with people who are genuinely committed to making the industry a better place
- B2B influencer marketing helps create the best content for demand and lead generation
The Ongoing Program Guarantee Long-Term Success
B2B marketing is a program that is always in the On Mode. Influencers have the ability to create avid fans among consumers with their unstinted and unwavering commitment to a brand. And contrary to popular belief among many digital marketers, it is not a huge challenge to create a winning B2B influencer marketing strategy. Once you put all your efforts into creating one and if you roll it out right, it can impact your marketing efforts across the customer lifecycle while creating powerful brand awareness and triggering impressive lead generation.
Here are a couple of reasons why always-on or ongoing B2B influencer marketing programs are successful:
- Always-on influencer marketing campaigns deliver better outcomes than campaigns that are run periodically
- It helps achieve an increased view of brand content than periodic or random campaigns
The Combination of Technology and Influencers Is Unbeatable
Combining the right marketing tools and technology with B2B influencer marketing can give your campaign a major wallop, especially in the areas of reporting and efficiency. Social media users increased their levels of engagement with content from industry influencers during the pandemic, led by the tech industry, which saw a whopping 440 percent increase for the period 2019-20.
It is evident from recent surveys that technology and influence can create a powerful punch for your B2B marketing efforts.
What are the advantages of using technology to manage influencer marketing? It can help
- Monitor the activity of the influencer on social platforms
- Evaluate the effectiveness of your program
- Manage and nurture influencer relationships
- Coordinate influencer activation
So is it not pretty apparent that B2B marketers can do better by devoting more time and resources to B2B influencer marketing? Experts have no doubt that it is a smart investment that brands must not ignore and must, in fact, prioritize.
It is seen that a growing number of brands are using the services of dedicated B2B influencer marketing specialists and agencies to drive their influencer marketing program and achieve the stated marketing goals. With most organizations not having in-house knowledge, skills, and expertise to plan and execute a B2B influencer marketing program, it is advisable to work with an established and reputed marketing agency that has a brilliant track record to showcase their finesse in this area of digital marketing.
When marketers can rely on trusted experts to tap for content, insights, and brand advocacy, it can help them add significant value to customer experience. It is evident that consumers are arming themselves with digital information in various formats and through diverse channels.
The demand of customers for relevant and valuable content must be satisfied for your marketing strategy to hit the nail on its head. B2B brands must use influencer marketing programs and focus on integrating influencer content with other marketing activities such as social media marketing and content marketing and SEO for sure-fire success.
Bio:
Abhishek Jain is a seasoned leader with 25+ years of business transformation expertise, digital marketing, and technology solutions for the US and global marketplaces. He leads Devtorium, a SaaS company enabled by development, marketing, and design solutions to help businesses realize and benefit in a rapidly changing tech world.