How to Leverage Effective B2B Influencer Marketing in 2023

When you hear ‘influencer marketing’, it’s hard not to jump straight to make-up, fashion, and energy drinks. Love Island. Million pound partnerships. The ‘Trending on TikTok’ page of Amazon. If your customers are other businesses, if you operate at a smaller scale, or don’t sell something sexy or edible, then it’s all too easy to discount this channel. But, as a marketing tactic it can span so much more than that. Whatever your outfit, there’ll be a shade of influencer marketing that suits your business.

Far from the dizzying heights of esports and unboxing, there’s a hard-working, ‘real world’ side to influencer marketing. In the B2B space, influencers literally walk among us. They’re probably having a beer next to us on the beach at Brighton SEO.

With B2B marketing, you’re not selling to some faceless entity – it’s ultimately still a person that you’re dealing with. So creativity, value and influence are just as important.

In this blog, we’ve put together a few ways to get started with B2B influencer marketing.

Do your research first – planning is so important when it comes to effective influencer marketing. We’re firm believers in an audience-first approach – understanding the people you’re trying to engage with is the cornerstone of your strategy. It’s the most incisive and effective way to allocate your budget and resources.

What are their key challenges and what questions are they asking? Who influences their decisions when they are in ‘work mode’ and where are they grazing for information? What platforms and subscriptions are they signed up to and what other brands and businesses do they follow?

Influencers with smaller followings – whether that’s niche, micro or nano – tend to have higher levels of engagement than those with larger follower counts. Therefore, the people that follow them are more likely to take a direct action as a result of their recommendations.

Where better to start looking for these influencers than your own customer base.  People who innately understand and share the challenges of your audience. Authentic, solutions-based stories from people like this connect and persuade in a way that a product-led message can’t.

Which of your customers are your biggest cheerleaders? Would they write a blog, record a video or come on your podcast to share their story? Can they tell their own story in a way that highlights the benefits and the process they went through, not just the product? This type of content can be wonderfully evergreen and has the bonus benefit of additional exposure for their own business.

If your comms strategy involves breaking into a new market, reaching a new audience or changing perception, finding an influencer with a larger following can speed up and validate that journey in your audience’s mind. Co-creation of a campaign or some content can be very powerful, as they’re lending you their industry clout. If they’ve been building their own personal brand as an industry expert, here are a few places to start looking for them:

• Hosts and guests of podcasts
• Social media: YouTube, TikTok
• Blogger and authors (who is ranking well for questions your audience are asking?)
• Keynote speakers, hosts and guests at recent industry events
• Spokespeople and thought leaders can be found in your industry’s key media or LinkedIn
• Researchers and academics (Twitter can be a good place to look for lesser known or more niche subject matter experts)

When it comes to content consumption, the B2B audience has staying power like no other. Just look at how many business webinars we attend and how many podcasts we listen to. If it’s content that addresses our businesses challenges, we’re there until the end, sharing our notes with colleagues and sharing on Slack (and dark social).

Some people in a business context have explicit directives from their managers to go out and find new ideas and industry insights to feed back to the team. Tap into this appetite by creating smart and insightful long form content. Become that go-to resource. This could involve blog-length LinkedIn posts, short form videos, Q&As, reels, TikTok lives, snackable how-to guides, episodic content. Or a blend of all of them.

Content creation is a labour intensive task, especially when done well. This is where your influencers come in. Co-create this kind of content with them, or brief them to do it for you. Reuse and repurpose on your own channels to get the maximum value from this content, and optimise it so it’s found long after its publication.

• Treat these relationships like brand assets – they are an extension of your business.
• Strategy: they’re clearly great at what they do, what recommendations do they have for connecting with your audience long-term?
• Give them a Creative Director role.
• Can they be the first to test and feedback on products?
• Could they form a panel to directly feed you industry insights?
• Ask them for advice, collate and turn into an industry guide, like we did for health and safety experts, NEBOSH.