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It is a common misconception that influencer marketing is only used in B2C campaigns. In fact, a report from August 2022 found that 86% of B2B brands saw great success with influencers. But how do you utilize the power of the creator economy when you are promoting your work to other businesses? Netinfluencer will discuss the 10 best practices for using influencers in a B2B marketing campaign. 

What Is B2B Marketing?

B2B Marketing refers to business-to-business marketing, a strategy that involves promoting a series of products and services to other companies and organizations. This strategy also often involves multiple buyers and purchasing decisions are based on healthy relationships and detailed processes. 

A prime example of this is how the cloud-based platform monday.com enables users to integrate their content with their LinkedIn platforms. As such, monday.com is able to promote its services to better enhance the functionality of the LinkedIn platform. 

10 Best Practices for Using Influencers in B2B Marketing

  • Ensure That the Influencer Is Aware of Your Company

When working with an influencer in a B2B campaign, it is paramount that the creator understands the internal workings of your company and not just its product portfolio. This knowledge will help the influencer to produce more driven and focused content that will better communicate with other organizations. Moreover, this awareness can also help influencers to distinguish the difference between typical B2C content and more nuanced B2B content.

  • Create a Realistic Deadline

Although it may be tempting to push content out at rapid speed, influencers require realistic and rigid deadlines in order to complete work successfully. Businesses often need time to discuss pricing and implementation in order to make the best decision for their brand. Thus, ensure that your chosen influencer is given enough time to produce and adjust their content in line with the needs of the client. Also, try to set a firm deadline to give your content creator a better idea of their upcoming schedule so that they can balance other projects.

[Pexels]

  • Explore Your Expectations for the Campaign

To gain the best results from an influencer marketing campaign, it is important that your business describes its expectations for a creator’s work. Try to avoid setting quantitative goals such as an increase in followers or likes, as this is merely impossible to achieve from organic content alone. Instead, discuss your needs for increased engagement or how you would like the content to appear on the screen. This will help the influencer gain a better scope of your creative processes and ensures that you are both working on the same page. 

  • Decide on an Appropriate Platform

Many successful influencers work across a plethora of platforms, meaning that their work is seen by an assortment of audiences. With B2B campaigns, it is vital that their work is seen by other businesses in order to gain a higher ROI. The most popular platforms for B2B marketing are LinkedIn and Twitter, giving influencers a wealth of resources to promote their content. 

  • Assign a Point of Contact for the Influencer

There is nothing worse than starting a new project and having no idea what’s going on or who anyone is. That is why it can be beneficial to assign a regular point of contact to your desired influencer. In turn, creators will have a person to turn to if they have questions or want to clarify any important decisions. Moreover, a point of contact ensures that the influencer remains connected to the business and builds a healthy sense of communication throughout the campaign. 

  • Make Sure It Does Not Impact Your B2C Strategy

Though there are many crossovers between B2B and B2C marketing, the two must not overlap too much. Thus, it is good practice to use a different influencer for your B2B campaign to make sure that your customers do not get confused about what your business is actually trying to sell. Influencers should also use a more formal tone of voice to conduct a sense of professionalism at all times. 

  • Educate the Influencer on Your Products and Services

For businesses that promote a very niche collection of products and services, it is important that the influencer understands these fully before starting the campaign. This can be achieved by providing them with a set of guidelines or even a corporate handbook. When a creator has a more comprehensive understanding of your company’s work, they will be better able to express the key selling points of your portfolio, leading to better results overall.

[Unsplash]

  • Pay the Influencer Accordingly

Influencers often work in the same manner as freelancers, meaning that they are paid per project and do not receive any conventional company benefits. Therefore, these individuals must receive an appropriate level of payment in return for their work. Content creators will usually state their rate of pay in initial meetings or in their media kit. In addition, businesses should be clear about when an influencer can expect to be paid and should have discussed payment methods in the early foundations of the campaign. 

  • Bring Them Into Strategy Meetings

  • Set Approachable Goals for Each Milestone

If you are working on a particularly long campaign, it can be helpful to set small goals throughout the duration of the project. For example, you could hope to see an increase in engagement every 3 months. Make sure to express these goals with your influencers to see if they are achievable or even realistic. Also, use this time to provide feedback and guidance for your content creator to use to enhance their strategy. 

These practices highlight the versatility of influencer marketing and its ability to support a wealth of prosperous corporations. For your next B2B influencer campaign, make sure to use these tips to ensure a higher ROI and success rate. 

Melody Day is a UK-based copywriter, working in developing industries such as travel, beauty, and lifestyle. She creates digestible copy that is fully optimized for SEO and gains positive engagement from readers. They are able to create engaging blogs and website copy for a range of unique brands.

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