Techniques for Working With B2B Influencers

Influence marketing is a relatively new way to promote goods or services. However, it is expected that by 2022, brands will spend more than $15 billion on interacting with influencers.

What is the reason for such striking numbers?

Influencer marketing works in almost all areas, and B2B is no exception because, in the end, people influence people regardless of niche. However, for B2B, the process of working with influencers has its specifics and often tend to lean towards thought leaders, and in this article, we have put together four practical ways to interact with them.

Make sure your influencer is a recognised industry expert

When we talk about B2B, this is the most important thing you should start with when deciding on who you should work with for a campaign. Things are much simpler in the B2C segment - where you could choose any influencer whose number of subscribers and the specifics of the target audience would satisfy you and could count on a good result.

But in B2B, it only makes sense to work with a recognized expert in your industry. For example, if you have created a smart HR system, then you need to look for a person who will be a specialist in human resources, and whose advice is considered valuable in the opinion of HR managers from around the world.

Also, as we already said, the essence of influential marketing is that people influence people, and this is true for B2B as well. The only difference is that the transaction process in B2B has more stages than in B2C. However, any decision is still made by people.

That is why you need not just an influencer, but an industry expert. If in B2C emotions often drive sales, then in B2B it is common sense, statistics, real indicators, and expert judgment.

Empower your case study with feedback from an influencer

As we have already said, for the B2B segment, real performance indicators are the best sales incentives. A case study is an excellent way to show this effectiveness, backed by examples from real life. Therefore, here is another opportunity to work with influencers in 2020.

Create a case study and ask the influencer to give expert commentary on him, plus post a link to your case in his or her profiles on social networks. This will make your situation even more powerful, indicative and increase the reach of the target users who read it.

By the way, if you don’t know where to find the author for writing the perfect case study, or any other academic paper, the Online Writers Rating website has gathered the best freelance writers and companies from all over the Internet. View ratings and choose the most suitable partner for this purpose.

Hint! Ask different influencers to comment on your various case studies to create the impression of the most expert and diverse content.

Create video content with the support of influencer

Video content is a strong trend in recent years, and in 2020 it is not going to slow down. Use this situation to your advantage and combine the best opportunities for video marketing and influencer marketing.

How to do it? Here are some ways.

• Create an educational video and tell me how to use your product, or describe what business opportunities your service offers. Ask the influencer to record his comment and insert it into your video clip.
• Ask the influencer to shoot a thematic video and mention your business in relevant content.
• Create a webinar for your clients and ask the influencer to give some tips as well, for example, on how to squeeze the maximum for a business out of your product or service.
• And the best way is to show on video how a particular influencer uses your product or service, and combine the marketing component with the educational one.

And by the way, such a video promotion on YouTube may be the most effective way to interact, since it is very likely that your target audience is subscribed to your influencer’s channel.

Try to turn your influencers into brand’s ambassadors

With all its effectiveness, influencing marketing is not a cheap pleasure. The lowest price you can pay is $2 per thousand followers on Twitter. As for other social networks, on Instagram, Linkedin, and Facebook, this price can reach $50.

Therefore, for you not to have to pay crazy money for every mention of your business, you need to build relationships with your influencers. Unfortunately, there cannot be a universal strategy. It would help if you convinced influencers that what you do makes sense, your company deserves to occupy a place in the market.

The reputation of the influencer will only improve from interacting with you. Perhaps the last moment makes the most sense - try to show your influencers more benefits from working with you than just money and turn them into ambassadors of your brand. And then, at a certain point, influencer marketing will work for your benefit without your participation.

Conclusion

If you still doubt the power of influencer marketing for your business, then 2020 is the time to rethink your beliefs. All users and potential customers of both B2B and B2C businesses have long been tired of intrusive advertising, meaningless content and untruthful reviews.

People are more and more inclined to trust people, and one accurate recommendation can give a much better effect than all the channels of marketing promotion combined. Use our techniques to verify this and make 2020 a breakthrough for your business.

About the author

Gregory is passionate about researching new technologies in both mobile, web and WordPress. Also, he works on writing service review websites Online Writers Rating. Gregory in love with stories and facts, so Gregory always tries to get the best of both worlds.

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Recommended reading

If you have time to spare why not dive deeper down the rabbit hole and check out these posts for help on influencer marketing:

• How To Calculate The Cost Of A South African Social Media Influencer
• What Are Micro-Influencers and Why Businesses Should Care
• How Personally Owned Platforms Change Influencer Marketing
• How To Find The Right Instagram Influencer
• How South African Influencers Can Secure Brand Deals

Tags: Influencer Marketing , Guest Post