Successful influencer marketing for B2B customers: Tips, tricks and pitfalls

Benefiting from reach and authenticity

In the B2B sector, successful bloggers, instagrammers, YouTubers or Twitterers usually dedicate their web presence to a special topic that they work on with passion and good content. Due to their professional competence a more or less large number of followers trust them and their messages. In influencer marketing, companies use these influencers to target product and brand advertising through their channels. It is important to understand that influencer marketing is a business between the company and the influencer. Fees are therefore usually part of the deal.

Brands not only benefit from influencer reach, but can also increase their level of authenticity. No wonder that, according to a survey conducted by e-Marketer, 80 percent of all marketers consider influencer marketing to be effective and two thirds of respondents want to increase their budget in this area in 2019. The successes are also promising for the B2B sector. It is important to work together with industry experts to create and support brand content in a credible manner. This sounds promising. Nevertheless, companies should keep the following aspects in mind to ensure their influencer marketing is also successful:

1. Define a campaign goal

Before starting any influencer campaign, it should be clear what it is about: Awareness? Engagement? Conversion? Having a clearly defined target makes the choice of influencers easier as well. The payment models also differ accordingly: per job or per click, or per email sent. The first variant is the most common.

2. Finding the right influencer

The decisive criteria for the right choice are reach (number of followers), relevance (suitable content) and resonance (engagement achieved). However, these criteria serve more like guidelines. After all, the number of followers an influencer has doesn't matter if they don't interact with them. In some cases, the followers have even been bought. Tools can also be used for the search. Marketers can use Social Bond, for example, to identify suitable influencers. This allows a closer look at their followers including demographic data (location, language, age group, gender, niche). Buzzsumo, on the other hand, breaks down the topics that the respective influencers are dealing with.

3. Leave room for creativity

Of course, the content produced by the influencers has to match the look and content of a brand. However, if you really want to produce authentic content and thus draw on the actual power of the influencers, you should not put the brakes on this by overly rigid specifications and cumbersome release loops. After all, it's all about trust. No two influencer campaigns are alike. Common variants are discount links, affiliate campaigns or sweepstakes. There is no right or wrong here, as companies ultimately decide according to their objectives.