How B2B brands can leverage influencers: Campaign ideas based on specific marketing goals

B2B brands are beginning to embrace influencers as an effective tactic toward marketing KPIs

It’s clear that influencer marketing efforts are becoming more integral to campaigns as a new channel for connecting with target audiences and driving specific actions. However, some companies are still struggling with what this looks like for them and how campaigns can align with their goals for the year.

Our team at Tagger by Sprout Social pulled a few examples of how B2B brands can partner with influencers to make progress toward KPIs. We’re hopeful these might spur other ideas and drum up excitement for companies looking to enter or further explore the influencer space.

Goal 1: Increase brand awareness

A key marketing goal for almost every B2B company is to build and increase brand awareness. This is critical to find traction and stand out from peers in more crowded sectors, like financial and healthcare tech. Influencers can play a huge role in helping build credibility and trust in your brand because they have built their own loyal following.

Brands should partner with thought leaders in their industry to create content specific to their products, services or expertise. Having the influencer share their perspective on a particular offering and its value allows brands to borrow their credibility and boost their own.

Example

A fintech company looking to drive brand visibility partners with a thought leader in the space to demo and review its platform for its large YouTube following. This influencer creates and distributes a video across their accounts, sharing their thoughts on the product and why they would use it again.

Goal 2: Drive thought leadership

Thought leadership is an important strategy for B2B brands to bolster credibility. It’s important to be viewed as an expert in your industry to prove to your potential customers that you deeply understand them and their needs.

Across the B2B space, there are influencers who have already established themselves as thought leaders and experts in their field through their own content channels. Brands can collaborate with these influencers to increase their own thought leadership and develop content that can be reshared and promoted on their channels.

Example

A logistics company is looking to increase its reputation as a thought leader within the space by sharing trends and expectations for the upcoming year. They opt to partner with a LinkedIn influencer with an ongoing webinar series to elevate this communication. The brand will share its insights with the influencer’s engaged audience, providing valuable information and chatting about what they mean for the industry.

Goal 3: Generate leads

Lead generation is a huge component and objective for almost every B2B marketing team. However, finding and nurturing high-quality leads can sometimes be an obstacle. Influencer partnerships present a huge opportunity for finding potential customers. These potential partners already have a unique audience built, and B2B companies can find those influencers with the audience most aligned with their goals and target personas.

As the primary goal is building a lead pipeline, there are many different ways that brands can partner with influencers to collect contact information in exchange for a piece of exclusive content, entry into a giveaway, a product discount, and more.

Example

A collaboration software provider hopes to expand its lead funnel. To do so, it partners with a few tech/startup professionals with a large follower base on Instagram and TikTok for an affiliate marketing campaign. The company asks the influencers to promote their product and its unique value proposition as part of their normal content series while providing a unique tracking link for them to post to monitor leads generated and earn a commission.

Goal 4: Improve content marketing

B2B brands need content to share information and educational materials with their current and prospective customers. This content helps further a company’s thought leadership position and can build the case for why its product or service is needed today.

Influencer partners can be a great source of brand content, sharing their expertise or perspective to be elevated via other channels.

Example

A facilities management provider wants to source additional content for its blog surrounding common obstacles that commercial property owners might face daily. To achieve this, they opt to invite an influencer to serve as a guest blogger for a four-part series where they share insight into the trends and impacts potential customers may face and best practices for operating more effectively.

More and more, B2B brands are investing in influencers as part of their marketing strategies and seeing results. Those who are successful understand their audience and where to find them, plus have established clear goals for their efforts. Armed with these insights, they can partner with Tagger by Sprout Social to create and execute effective influencer marketing campaigns.