How Influencer Marketing Helps You Find New Leads

The Role of Influencer Marketing in B2B Lead Generation

In the B2B industry, it's crucial to establish the right lead management algorithm to close more profitable deals. As Sales for Life states, 84% of CEOs and vice presidents receive product information through social networks.

Source: Sales for Life

Therefore, more and more companies strive to maintain their accounts on various platforms. However, it’s often not enough, as achieving success on social media requires attracting a significant number of organic followers. That leads to additional costs and time delays. So, how can you save your resources while still generating new leads?

Read more in our article on combining B2B lead generation with influencer marketing strategy, the advantages of lead management software, and how it all together helps attract new customers. We will also discuss several recommendations and useful management tools.

What Is Influencer Marketing in the B2B Industry, and How Does It Work?

B2B influencer marketing is a marketing approach designed for the B2B sector, which involves creating promotional and B2B lead generation strategies. It is carried out through cooperation with opinion leaders, renowned experts from the same field as you, specialized content creators, and similar media personalities.

All You Need To Know About Influencer Marketing

Unlike B2C, where opinion leaders focus on consumers, B2B influencer marketing targets businesses, organizations, and decision-makers. Let's take a closer look at how it works in the business-to-business sector.

The task before you is not just to interest a potential customer but also to generate trust in your company. Therefore, cooperation with an influencer in the B2B sector can be more complicated than in B2C.

Another important issue is payment for the influence activities performed by an opinion leader. Most often, influencer marketing pay-per-lead is practiced. This pricing model implies that the amount of the influencer's reward depends on the number of potential clients they attract.

Influencer Marketing B2B vs B2C

Statistics show that, on average, 6 to 7 people are involved in the buying decision process in the B2B niche. As an influencer partner, you must create informative, promotional content to convince people to buy a product. In addition, you need to put together an appealing campaign and come up with a memorable call to action to ensure your audience is familiar with your communication style.

It's better to take a more interactive approach to connecting with your audience. It will allow you to set up a mutually beneficial collaboration with an expert who will lead both parties to popularity and success. Remember that you need to pick the right media persona and B2B lead generation tools to be effective. We will talk about this a little later.

What Benefits Does B2B Influencer Marketing Bring to a Business?

According to a ViB survey, 51% of marketers at B2B lead generation companies consider influencer marketing one of the most effective tools for increasing brand awareness. In addition, working with opinion leaders to find potential customers provides a number of other benefits, including:

• Enhanced credibility and brand image: Partnering with experts recognized in your business sector emphasizes your professionalism and reliability. This, in turn, increases the trust of both new and existing customers.
• Improved engagement: With influencer marketing, you discover new platforms for attracting leads and, subsequently, successful B2B sales.
• Relationship building: Working with experts helps you find not only potential clients but also business partners. By enlisting the support of a well-known industry professional, you can significantly expand your business network. It is also important to use reliable influencer marketing software to track and capture valuable connections.
• Improved SEO performance: Apart from influencer product placement, there’s another important aspect of B2B lead generation - endorsements, also known as a mention of your company name and public statements about specific products or services, by opinion leaders. Thus, by promoting your brand through influencer marketing, you generate more organic traffic and improve your search engine ranking.

Considering these benefits, an influencer marketing strategy can significantly increase your chances of success in generating new B2B leads.

Attracting B2B Leads With Influencer Marketing: 5 Recommendations

Influencer Marketing Hub published a comparative report called State of Influencer Marketing 2023, which found that most marketers prefer to reach out to influencers with small audiences.

Does it mean the smaller, the better? Last we checked, marketing didn’t work that way.

Here’s the thing: a niche audience means a loyal following. That explains why a small audience is usually more strongly committed to the opinion leader. Following this trend, it makes sense to focus on partnering with nano- and micro-influencers.

Let's take a look at 5 recommendations to help you implement B2B lead generation strategies through bloggers, experts, and other influencers.

1. Look for Authority

To maximize the success of your strategy, contact only experts in your business niche. Research the influencer's activities, publications, broadcast messages, reputation, and more before signing a contract. It will help you find the perfect opinion leader with similar values and beliefs.

2. Choose the Relevant Audience

When choosing a partner from the B2B industry, it is also important to research their audience. This way, you'll have access to qualified leads genuinely interested in the products or services you offer. Besides, consider utilizing lead management systems to customize your audience reach and create targeted ads.

3. Use Social Media

Social media influencer marketing is one of the most affordable ways to gain exposure. According to Zippia, 83% of B2B marketers enlist the help of social media content, and 51% of them say this tactic in 2020 has resulted in an increased number of leads and sales. This trend continues into 2023, as more B2B companies turn to the help of opinion leaders.

LinkedIn is especially popular as a networking platform. However, Instagram influencer marketing can also yield excellent results. But before launching influencer marketing campaigns and collaborating on specific content, provide influencers with high-quality ad creatives, photos, and videos to bring in as many high-intent leads as possible.

4. Create Useful Content

Another important aspect of successful B2B lead generation is to use quality content, including a strong and memorable CTA. Like in the last recommendation, here, too, you should emphasize the usefulness of the information to the potential customer. Apart from relying on an influencer’s knowledge and authority, you can do your own research to create a portrait of your ideal customer, ensure values and image alignment, determine the appropriate direction of the content they produce, and more.

Based on your findings, generate B2B marketing materials. Remember that this content should be authentic, informative, and easy to digest. It should also hit the spot while addressing the pain points and engaging customers.

5. Increase Audience Engagement

Through social media, blogging, or other influencer marketing platforms, you gain access to a new audience. If an opinion leader speaks in the same industry as you, their followers automatically become your potential customers. Through a blogger partner platform, you can connect with new customers. An advertisement or mention from an influencer will encourage them to learn more about you, sign up on your site, or leave their contacts.

Influencer marketing lead generation happens through some sort of activity initiated by the lead. The smaller the audience, the more inclined they are to participate in contests and giveaways. When starting a partnership with an influencer, you can take this fact into consideration and run a joint promotion on your affiliate's page or website.

How To Manage Attracted B2B Leads

Once you find the right influencer with a relevant audience, you can start promoting your company. However, before you start getting leads, you need to choose the right lead management software. This tool allows you to:

• Track potential B2B buyers in real-time
• Automate routine processes and free up time for personal communication with customers
• Minimize errors caused by manual data entry into the CRM system
• Establish a smooth lead management process that minimizes the risk of losing customers interested in your products/services or ready for a deal
• Set up communication with potential customers through various communication channels
• Analyze success rates of cooperation with the influencer
• Track return on investment in other marketing campaigns
• Increase employee productivity by automating routine tasks

12 B2B Lead Generation Strategies For 2023

A quick response to consumer inquiries ensures increased interest and engagement. Therefore, the use of technological tools such as leads management software can help you stay on top of things and make sure you do not miss a single contact.

What Should I Focus on When Choosing a Lead Management Tool?

Let's look at a few key factors that are critical when looking for software to work with B2B buyers:

• Cost: Research the prices and compare them with your budget to choose the right software solution. Some companies offer a trial period so that you can get free lead management software for a certain period of time.
• Functionality: Make sure the tool meets your requirements for lead management, tracking analytics, automation, and more.
• Integration: Ask a vendor what third-party platforms the system can integrate with, for example, CRM, social media, and email.
• User reviews: Look for recommendations from other people who have used or are using a lead management system. When selecting lead management software, consult reviews from lead flow experts to ensure the necessary functionality for your business.

Wrapping Up

Influencer marketing is gaining popularity due to the wide range of opportunities for attracting qualified leads. By selecting an opinion leader from the same business niche as you, you increase your reach to an interested audience. It also increases your online presence, brand awareness, and credibility.

Note that many B2B lead generation companies also offer effective lead management tools. By using them, you improve the service of loyal customers, as well as increase the number of successful transactions with new leads coming from the influencer.