Influencer marketing has become a legitimate and highly profitable marketing tactic used across industries.

Statista reports that global influencer marketing value grew from $6.5 billion to $13.8 billion between 2019 and 2021 and continues to grow. As the market expands, brands from every niche are incorporating B2B influencer marketing into their strategy to reach audiences.

The State of Influencer Marketing 2021 surveyed 5,000 professionals across sectors. Its key finding: B2C brands are more likely to use influencer marketing tactics than B2B brands.

As a result, implementing influencer marketing is an opportunity for trailblazing B2B marketers and brands to stand out if done right.

Here's how B2B revenue teams can run influencer marketing that actually moves pipeline.

What is influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing is, simply, a collaboration between a brand and an online influencer to market a product or service.

Influencer marketing has evolved well beyond celebrity endorsements.

Today, anyone with a dedicated, engaged audience can be an influencer, regardless of follower count.

Influencer marketing is flooding social media and giving brands a new way to attract and convert customers. Anyone can be an influencer.

An influencer can be anyone, anywhere on social media who has a decent following and engaged audience. They don't need to be famous or rich, just well-respected in their niche.

Influencer marketing has been adopted by B2C brands, but it's still untapped for many B2B brands. Influencers exist across all industries, even if you don't realize it.

Those C-level executives you follow on LinkedIn...they’re influencers.

Those thought leaders you follow on Twitter...also influencers.

Those newsletters you subscribe to, webinars you attend, podcasts you listen to, and YouTube tutorials you watch...yes, those people are all influencers!

This means that they are in a unique position to market products and services that matter to their followers.

B2B influencers are the go-to experts in their field for hundreds, even thousands, of followers.

Revenue teams ***can* win with B2B influencer marketing**. Here's how.

Why B2B influencer marketing matters for revenue teams

Individuals publishing content and building audiences are profoundly shifting how people access and share information, and this shift will never go away.

This trend has crossed into B2B, with experts and operators sharing their knowledge publicly and frequently on social media. They become influencers in their domain and garner a strong following from their peers.

This has in turn impacted the B2B buying process.

Only 17% of the B2B buyers’ journey is spent in interactions with sales representatives, according to Gartner. Generational differences have increased skepticism of sales, with 44% of millennials preferring no interaction with a sales rep.

The B2B Buyers Survey Report 2021 notes that when researching new solutions, the factors that most influence B2B buyers are:

• Access to relevant content
• Frictionless access to pricing and competitive comparisons
• Industry-specific content that demonstrates expertise

The typical B2B buying journey involves six to 10 decision-makers, each with information gathered independently.

By utilizing influencer marketing, you can connect with everyone and anyone who can impact the decision-making process and hook buyers where they are already looking.

What makes a high-value B2B influencer?

The case for B2B influencer marketing is solid. The practical question is: who are these influencers, and where do you find them?

B2B influencer marketing does work and you’re ready to get started. The only problem is...who are the influencers and where can you find them?

There are several levels of influencers, and specifications vary depending on who you talk to. The most important thing to note is that smaller influencers (such as micro-influencers who have <15,000 followers) get significantly better engagement rates than mega-influencers (1M+ followers), as per Influencer Marketing Hub.

Almost counterintuitively, your highest value influencers will have fewer followers.

You can mine these channels to find B2B influencer experts:

• Social media
• Online communities
• Your own customer lists
• Industry news sites

You’ll learn more about getting started on your B2B influencer marketing strategy in the next section.

Three ways to leverage B2B influencer marketing

You’re convinced. You even have a budget for your influencer marketing play. Here are three ways to leverage B2B influencers:

Use B2B influencers to build brand awareness

Influencer marketing is an extremely effective tool for building brand awareness. By partnering with an influencer who speaks to your target audience, you show that you have the endorsement of an authority in your niche.

Get started by:

• Conducting research to identify who your target audience follows and subscribes to.
• Dig deeper to pinpoint which content types get the most engagement—tutorials, reviews, or something else. With your influencer's input, you can make highly valuable content.
• Diving into niche communities. Micro-influencers typically get better engagement rates than obvious large-audience picks. You may find more success with influencers who have strong niche influence.

Internal B2B influencers drive demand generation

Many people tend to forget about the most critical influencers in B2B—the internal influencers, such as coworkers and direct reports.

Buying committees that include primary decision-makers, researchers, internal influencers, and end-users drive company decisions today. B2B revenue teams target multiple stakeholders across a business simultaneously.

You need holistic messaging that reaches committee members in charge of researching, reviewing, testing, and buying solutions. They might serve distinct roles, but they have the same interests and goals in mind.

These are the people who are moving the needle for purchases, and they don’t need 5,000+ followers to make an impact. If you can reach these internal influencers, you’ll generate demand among audiences with high purchasing intent.

How to identify and reach internal influencers

• Identifying where your customers are working now—including former buyers, champions, and end-users. They already know your product and used it successfully, making them your warmest re-entry point.
• Building a systematic process to stay connected with high-value contacts as they move into new roles and organizations. With 65% of people planning to switch jobs this year per Fortune, this is an additional pipeline channel.
• Building out accessible, educational content that will reach multiple members of a buying committee.
• Using job changes as an opportunity to target internal influencers with email automation, direct mail, and ads.
• Prioritizing accounts for sales outreach that internal influencers have moved to.

4 ways to generate demand when buyers change jobs

Previous customers create deals and accelerate sales

Similar to demand generation tactics, sales representatives (SDR/BDR) may also choose to reach out directly to their previous customers (a.k.a. internal influencers) to create and accelerate sales opportunities.

This method of outreach is often under-utilized but easily achieved with CRM data enrichment.

If you’re working a target account list, identify any previous customer contacts in that account and prioritize them for outreach. A shared history makes the conversation warmer from the first touch. These people are your warmest leads and more likely to take a meeting.

How to activate previous customers as influencers

• Keeping an ongoing (and updated) list of previous customer contacts for your revenue team.
• Sending targeted, timely messages to these contacts when they move roles or join a new company.
• Personalizing your messaging and creating content that's relevant to where that contact is in their career today. A generic template signals you haven't done your homework. These buyers notice.

4 tips for a winning B2B influencer strategy

B2B influencer marketing works—but execution determines whether it generates pipeline or just activity.

Four practices consistently separate effective B2B influencer campaigns from the ones that stall.

#1. Set yourself up for the long haul

Chances are, your B2B product is complex, expensive, and applies to a very niche market.

That can often mean smaller audiences and high-priced contracts. Influencer marketing has typically been used in B2C campaigns because it’s easier for an influencer to sell a lipstick or protein shake than to sell company-wide payroll services.

B2B influencer marketing requires flexibility and a willingness to improve campaigns over time.

#2. Demonstrate value with proof

When a person walks onto a car lot, they don’t want to be told about a car...they want to test drive it. Use influencers in B2B as tools for showing how your product or solution can help solve a problem. Put the “proof” in your social proof!

#3. Work with diverse influencer partners

Seek out B2B influencers with diverse perspectives, backgrounds, and communication styles.

Adding diversity to your influencer campaigns helps your business reach a broader audience with more authentic content. If your messaging only appeals to a narrow audience, you'll exclude people who move the needle in purchasing decisions.

#4. Use your customers (past and present) as a resource

Your customers are people. People talk to other people about things they like or services that made their work-life easier.

Your customers are invaluable resources right at your fingertips. They can make referrals, influence decisions, and provide your revenue team with a pipeline of warm leads.

Expand your B2B influencer marketing efforts beyond social media personalities with large followings. UserGems, the AI command center for outbound and ABM, helps revenue teams identify and prioritize the highest-value contacts across past and present accounts.

UserGems continuously monitors account and contact signals, flagging high-priority moments for your revenue team to act on, including upsell and cross-sell opportunities at new accounts.

Build an influencer B2B marketing strategy that lasts

As digital-first marketing continues to grow, revenue teams must keep pace with changes to maintain their competitive edge.

Influencer marketing helps B2B brands build awareness, generate demand, and drive sales. To replicate B2C influencer success, you'll need to:

• Identify the right influencers for your target accounts
• Build relationships with a diverse set of influencers
• Use your customers (past and present) as a resource

With UserGems, revenue teams can surface high-intent contacts across past and present accounts and activate them as brand advocates, building a pipeline of warm, credible micro-influencers.

Why UserGems

UserGems is the AI command center for outbound and ABM. It helps revenue teams know who to target, what to say, and when to act. With UserGems, customers build bigger pipelines and close more revenue.

UserGems also offers a money-back guarantee, so revenue teams can invest with confidence.

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