In this episode of Influence Unpacked, the host argues that influencer marketing can be effective for B2B companies and shares practical guidance. He emphasizes starting with clear goals, prioritizing context and relevance over sheer reach, mapping influencers to specific stages of the B2B buyer’s journey, beginning with a small, manageable number of influencers, and investing time to educate influencers about the brand and build relationships with internal staff. These steps are presented as lessons learned from a decade of experience in B2B influencer marketing.
Chapters
Hey everybody, welcome to this next episode of Influence Unpacked. And today I'm going to touch upon whether influencer marketing works for B2B companies as well as it does for consumer companies. I realize that in the media, the press, We hear lots and lots of examples, whether they're good stories or bad stories, about influencer marketing and how well it's working in the consumer arena. But does that apply to the business-to-business arena? The answer is yes, it does. I specialize in this space and I've been doing it for about 10 years or so, so I know it very, very well. And I've seen things that work and I've seen a lot of things that don't work along the way. These are lessons learned. But a few of the tips that you need to think about when you're approaching influencer marketing from a B2B perspective is this, or are this. The first is you've got to keep in mind about your goal. As I talked about in a previous episode, goals are really, really important. You've got to frame these and understand what you're trying to achieve upfront. That's going to help shape your strategy and even the influencers that you choose to enroll in your program. The next is context and relevance. Context and relevance are honestly very many times they are more important than the social media reach that an influencer has. Again, a lot of this depends upon the goal. So if your goal is to drive lots of awareness, then having some influencers in the program that have a lot of social media reach can make a lot of sense. But in general, context and relevance are very, very important, even critical. The next is determine how you want to use your influencers or leverage your influencers. That's a better word. I don't like really the word use because it is a two-way street. It's a relationship. So how do they fit into your customer journey? Is it a top of the funnel portion of the journey you want to leverage them for? Is it the middle of the funnel? Is it at the end of the funnel towards the sale itself? So determine this, understand this, and then as you build your strategy, choosing the right influencers will make a lot more sense to you. The next is start small. Don't worry about scaling out to using dozens, even hundreds of influencers at a time. That's a consumer problem, that's not a B2B problem typically. So think of it in terms of starting small. Start with several influencers and work up from there. And then lastly, when any influencers that you choose to work with, be sure to educate them about the brand, your values, the products, the services, how your company operates, and even get the influencers or invite them to get to know some of the some of the people inside your company a little bit, develop some relationships there. That will go a long way to helping them develop content that's really impactful to the audience. So I hope this helps. Let me know in the comments below. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask. I'm always here. Thanks.
