For a long while, B2B marketing was associated solely with the notion of marketing businesses to businesses. Well, you know, just as the name states. But what was once forgotten and is now finally remembered is that it is people who make B2B business decisions. And, knowing that people buy from people, want relatable content and are apt to do research before finalizing a decision, influencer marketing is getting increasingly important in B2B every day.
So, we’ve gathered seven examples of excellent B2B influencer marketing campaigns to stress the point – check them out, study them closely, and we are sure that you could also reap the benefits of B2B influencer marketing.
Time Warner Business Class
As a tried and tested means to establish credibility for your brand, client testimonials can go a long way. And although it is absolutely nothing new in B2B social media marketing to use client testimonials, it doesn’t mean that it has to be done in a boring way.
Take, for instance, Time Warner Business Class – their choice of including small to medium-sized businesses to their influencer roster was an exceptionally thought-through one. The videos highlighted the importance of Time Warner Business’ services to their success. Once the videos got shared via YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, the message was seen by plenty of possible customers who could relate to the small businesses they saw conveying the message.
Each of the videos ended with a Call to Action (a really smart move!), offering the viewers to download a free eBook called ‘Mighty Mid-Market,’ which further emphasized the benefits of working and the solutions that Time Warner Business offers.
LiveHelpNow
LiveHelpNow, experts in customer support service, have also dabbled in collaborative influencer campaigns. Their most successful campaign so far was the one meant to promote their one-day live webinar called #SmallBizCX2019, where they’ve paired up with professionals such as Shep Hyken and Nate Brown. The crew posted various bits of content prior to the event, which, according to LiveHelpNow, has boosted their social media engagement, website traffic, and overall social media connections.
But that’s not it – LiveHelpNow saw the potential of collaborating with these professionals, whose content proved to be genuinely interesting for their customers, even after the event. So, once the webinar was over, LiveHelpNow gathered the valuable info shared at the event and created detailed blog posts on each professional’s insights. Then, they went even further by creating separate webinars from each of the professional’s speeches for website visitors to view!
LiveHelpNow is a great example of benefiting from collaboration to its maximum potential – a collaboration does not just mean a content piece, and it can absolutely be turned into blog posts, how-to tutorials, or any other kind of content type you’d like to have.
SAP
SAP, a software solutions provider, is no newbie to influencer marketing. In fact, they’ve been doing just excellent since their influencer campaign to promote the annual Sapphire Now tech and business conference in 2016. What set this campaign apart was its video content – short live videos with influential industry leaders, which then got shared on their own Facebook pages. These interview bits proved to be very interesting and exciting for SAP’s followers, creating, in turn, high anticipation for the event itself.
Now, the Sapphire Now convention usually attracts around 20,000 attendees, but since the video content was easily accessible to anyone, it has been viewed over 80,000 times. Of course, SAP later repurposes those videos for their blog articles – why not use content if it’s of excellent quality and is truly relevant for your audiences?
So, although collaborating with influential people and interviewing them in short video format isn’t something that hasn’t been done, people (and us, too) always love to see more of it!
Growth Tools
Growth Tools is an excellent example of the power of well-done blogs. Do you know how these days, businesses write their blog articles mainly just to please Google’s search engines and comply with the SEO game rules? Well, blogs can also be a great tool for B2B marketing, and Growth Tools knew it perfectly well.
Growth Tools, a monthly business coaching service, saw the success of guest blogging in a very pleasing way. Its founder, Bryan Harris, published an article in another blog called OkDork, and it exceeded the expectations of a positive impact by a 500% increase in Growth Tools’ website and unique page views skyrocketing 600% upwards on the day said article was published.
So, never underestimate the power of blogs and guest blogging – they aren’t only tools to get into Google’s good graces!
IBM
Okay, so IBM’s socials are just excellent anyway – check their Instagram, for instance. But what’s also great about their social media marketing strategy is their understanding that no one else knows the company and the product other than IBM’s employees. That’s why IBM incorporated employee-driven content into their roster.
What they did was they asked their employees to tweet or make posts on any other social media platform about their products. Often, those employee posts were also reshared by IBM’s own social profiles. And the success of this campaign was truly unbelievable – IBM said that it drove around 50,000 new registrations on IBM Verse in just its first two weeks.
Cisco
The Cisco Champions campaign is another great example of influencer marketing in action. The campaign connected top IT professionals, setting them up with appearances on podcasts, radio, and videos. The chosen professionals also get to enjoy some pretty cool perks, like access to the newest Cisco products, which they could test and give feedback on.
In fact, the ‘champions’ agreed that access to the newest products and some additional training from Cisco was an incredible possibility for them, too. So, in this case, not only did this campaign work great for marketing, but it was also thoroughly enjoyed by the influencers themselves.
InVideo
InVideo, video creation and editing tool, could be a little tricky for novice users. Knowing this, InVideo maintains an excellent YouTube channel full of ‘how-to’ and ‘use case’ videos. Now, you might already have an idea where the influencer part comes in here, and you’re right – the videos are narrated by famous vloggers and professionals in the industry. InVideo partnered up with some of their most famous clients and videographers who demonstrated the usage of the software in easy-to-understand videos.
‘How-to’ videos are definitely a great tool for businesses that offer products that take time to figure out, but pair said videos with influential people from the industry, and you’ll have some excellent marketing content.
The cases above are just a glimpse into the world of possibilities of B2B influencer marketing. However, it should be pretty clear that such a marketing mean is definitely worth the effort. From guest blogging to video content and social media posts, there are plenty of ways you can share your message with the world, generate leads, and boost your website traffic.
