The cornerstone tactic to our Go-To-Market strategy

If you ask 4 B2B marketers the role of influencer marketing in their go-to-market strategy, you’ll likely get 4 different answers.

So that’s what we did.

B2B influencer marketing isn’t new, but its still immature, but it's benefiting from an evolving landscape, a more competitive environment and a more demanding buyer.

The role of B2B influencer marketing is becoming more of cornerstone piece to our Go-To-Market strategy, but it’s still relativity new to us, so the strategies underpin it and the tactics we deploy are moving quickly.

It can be your competitive superpower, so we spoke to 4 different marketers to understand how they use the medium, the role it plays and the future.

Stefan Repin | Fractional CMO | Luckboosters

Kristina Haddrell | B2B Marketing Consultant | Apricate Consulting

Liam MacCormack |Solopreneur & Fractional Head of Growth Marketing | Grow By Liam

Marco Lorenzi | Head of Marketing | Simplestream

Please provide an overview to the role of your influencer strategy to your overarching GTM strategy?

Marco - I have witnessed a remarkable change in GTM strategies in the B2B sector, with regard to the technology space at least. The influencer strategy I have adopted as part of my most recent experience aligns with the adoption of more innovative means to deliver marketing campaigns, namely podcast, bite-sized video for social consumption, etc.. From organic activations to more structured partnership opportunities, I have seen influencer marketing provide the business with more tangible return on investment than traditional PR.

Stefan – As the market landscape continues to evolve, the role of the B2B influencer is becoming more important to our growth strategy. Outreach is diminishing, and more leads are coming inbound and to create inbound you need trust. With internal responsibilities and resources stretched, and specific to their specialist skills, like marketing, sales and operational roles, it’s important to bring in influencers with category expertise where you can leverage their influence bridge trust to your GTM motion.

Liam - My clients and I use influencers as part of their marketing mix specifically in the “create demand” stage of their marketing. Prospects inherently look to people they know, like, and trust when looking for recommendations about where to turn to solve their problems they have at work. And so we partner with influencers to create content, in places the prospects already engage with content, to not necessarily speak about the product but to speak about the problem and about the philosophy behind solving the problem in a new way that just so happens to align with the software that’s been built. SaaS platforms should be opinionated, they should be solving problems in new ways that haven’t been done before. There should be a philosophy behind how software solves what problem is solves and so to have influencers talk about this new way of solving the problem without even mentioning the brand name, we’re creating demand around the type of solution we’re uniquely equipped to solve.

Kristina - Influencer marketing can be a great differentiator for B2B marketers – if it’s done right. I don’t think it will ever be a standalone channel for B2B, unlike in B2C. However, if it’s used as part of an overall GTM strategy, it can enhance and accelerate the results.

Influencer marketing doesn’t just mean having someone talking about your product or solution on social media, I think it goes much wider than that. It provides an engaging way to reach an audience that you don’t usually engage with. The messages need to be frequent and subtle, rather than pure sales messages, this then builds up the reputation of the influencer in the minds of the audience.

It takes time to build trust, which is why Influencer marketing should be seen as a long term strategy, and one that requires careful measurement and regular optimisation.

One of the difficulties with influencer marketing is identifying who would be a good influencer for your brand. To find that out you need to define your objectives – why are you engaging an influencer as part of your marketing?

Are you looking for a ‘big name’, a famous person who will attract attention from those outside your target audience, but will create a bit of a buzz to your activity and likely impact short term metrics? Or would you prefer to use a lesser known ‘micro influencer’ who will likely not have a broad following, but could share in your brand values and vision, and would be open to working with you to develop a longer term strategy to engage with a specific audience? Or can you combine the two? (This will generally come at a much higher cost.)

Whichever you choose it’s important you do your research – does the individual align to your brand values and can you see them supporting you in your messaging now and in the future? There’s nothing worse than having someone saying they really believe in the same approach as you, only to be seen doing or talking about the exact opposite days or months later, or worse, go and work with one of your competitors.

In addition, it’s useful for the influencer to have a bit of a personality – to encourage the audience to want to engage with them.

How do you define B2B influencer marketing?

Kristina - Influencer marketing puts a face to a brand, helping it to be seen as more relatable and encouraging the audience to interact with them. At the end of the day, people buy from people, if your brand doesn’t seem approachable then it’s less likely to get engagement from your target audience.

In B2B, influencer marketing is most powerful when it’s part of a sustained campaign; where the individual is able to take part and give their opinion on topics across podcasts, webinars, roundtables, conferences and video content. Encouraging the influencer to not only align to your messaging, but to also have their own opinions and pulling in their own research will mean that B2B buyers and decision makers are more likely to listen to what they say and actively seek to engage with them.

You don’t want the influencer just selling your products/solutions, you need them to be educating the audience – providing useful content that helps to resolve the challenges they’re facing. Influencers can also be useful at encouraging discussions and interactions between your target audience and your brand, as well as amongst the audience’s peers.

It can be useful to combine the efforts of the influencer with one or more key spokespeople from your brand – particularly at events and on podcasts. This adds weight to what your internal stakeholder is saying, and provides a stage for the influencer to give a genuine opinion, rather than just sales speak.

Please provide an example to a B2B influencer campaign you have recently ran?

Marco -  Launching a branded podcast with the objective of delivering invaluable thought leadership was a key move to strengthen Simplestream’s influencer strategy in the past 18 months. As part of a ‘pop-up’ series of interviews conducted with relevant industry stakeholders at Amsterdam’s IBC in 2023, a podcast episode with industry expert Evan Shapīro proved to be one of the most successful use cases for increased direct traffic and organic search. The relevance and stature of the guest were also integral to attracting the interest of other notable stakeholders among analysts and industry leaders, who enriched the content backlog in the following months.

Stefan – Influencers play a crucial role in our webinar’s strategy and article production.  Next on my agenda is to create a physical event, it’s an opportunity to build a long-term relationship that goes beyond transactional relationships. But influencers can be difficult to reach, so I always ask the influencer I am working with now, to introduce me to someone within their network.

What’s your predictions for B2B Influencer marketing in the next 5 years?

Marco - I don’t own a crystal ball, but I tend to believe influencer marketing as a defined item of the marketing mix – in the B2B sector – will end up playing a complementary role with traditional PR, changing the meaning of ‘publicity’ as we’ve known it so far. It might be seen as a slightly slower-burning process, in comparison with more direct ways of market solutions in the awareness and consideration stages of the funnel. Yet, I believe it will prove more effective in the long run, with a more cost-effective approach for organisations, and higher return on investment.

Liam - The companies and marketers that get it and execute well are going to be lightyears ahead of their peers. The ones that can identify and build relationships with people that their audience already listens to and trusts and have the ability to build long-lasting, genuine relationships with those influencers are going to reap the rewards. And it’s going to take time and experimentation figure out what that means to any individual company as execution is going to change. So the ones that don’t bail early, that make a big bet into influencer marketing, the ones that stick it out and bust their ass to figure out how it’s going to function are going to be big winners.

Stefan – I’m not sure if you’re going to be successful without an influencer strategy. B2B Influencer marketing continues to grow, I think we’ll see 2x, 3x, 5x growth in the coming years.

What’s important to you when working with influencers?

Liam - That they believe in what the company is selling and believe in the philosophy about why the software was built. People can sniff out bullshit a mile away and when a sponsored post feels like a sponsored post, influencer marketing falls flat on its face. To be able to speak to the problem & the solution in a way that doesn’t only feel organic but is almost genuinely organic in it’s execution, the influencer(s) were working with have to truly get and have passion around the problem we’re solving. Likely to the point of having that problem currently or having had that problem previously.

Stefan – I like to use leading indicators to reiterate their credibility, such as owning or attending podcasts regularly, but also joining panels, and providing meaningful comments on LinkedIn. I also like working with influencers who have their own original methodology and thinking. An author is always an encouraging sign for subject matter experts.