B2B Influencer Marketing
📅 September 03, 2020
•⏱️2 min read
When we hear the term influencer marketing, we immediately think about people pairing up with consumer brands and uploading content on Instagram.
But influencer marketing for the B2B space is different. It's more about building thought leadership, trust and initiating a relationship with your customer.
B2B influencer marketing is more like collaborating with top luminaries in your industry to create content. And once you have established a healthy relationship with these leaders, then asking them to be the advocates for your product/company.
In this post, I'm answering a few questions on Quora about B2B influencer marketing.
- Where do you find influencers for B2B marketing?
LinkedIn and your customer/partners lists are the best place to start with. LinkedIn is THE platform for all kinds B2B marketing. You can easily find people who are top thoughtl leaders in your industry, and ask them to collaborate with you.
Apart from LinkedIn, you can also start your search internally, i.e. with your customers or partners. These people already believe in your product so the are more likely to collaborate with you to create content.
Make sure that you collaborate with people which are followed by your prospects. Only then you'll be able to get results sooner and generate $$$.
- How can B2B brands utilise influencer marketing?
You can do various kinds of activities – podcasts, blogs, webinars, interviews, fireside chats, lunch & learn sessions, roundtable discussions, etc. – with these thought leaders.
The aim is to convert these people into advocates for your brand. So when you're not in the room, they speak about your product.
- What are the best ways to do influencer marketing for B2B?
To start with, you can do a virtual summit with the top 10-15 thought leaders in the industry on a common topic. (I am also working on a piece of content for creating virtual summits with Gokul Suresh.)
The best part is, you can engage with one influencer multiple times in different ways. You can start with a podcast with them, then do a webinar, then call them for a roundtable discussion, co-author a blog with them, and more.
It really depends on your bandwidth and the different marketing channels that you have at your disposal.
I will keep answering questions on this topics here. If you have one, feel free to message on LinkedIn or Twitter.