Launching a new product in the B2B space is both an exciting and risky endeavor. Companies must find creative ways to build excitement before the launch and generate sales and interest on the day.
One way to accomplish this is by collaborating with a B2B influencer. While we often think these partnerships are limited to B2C marketing efforts, choosing the right influencer can set the stage for a successful launch while building your reputation in your industry. You must strategically employ social media to create a compelling narrative and review metrics to refine your approach, if necessary.
Let’s examine how influencer marketing can impact B2B product launches.
The Benefits of Influencer Marketing for B2B
While your marketing team can’t be live in showrooms or stores all the time, they can always engage on social media. Hiring an influencer with a strong online presence to promote your new products can invigorate your brand presence and open your business to a new audience. People listen to influencers they trust, especially in the B2B marketplace.
This collaboration will help you talk to real people in real-time before, during, and after your launch. As the influencer you partner with shares the excitement of launch day with their audience, you can review comments and reactions to gauge interest and tweak your campaign on the fly.
Launching products in the social arena by employing an influencer helps to humanize your brand. The B2B marketplace can often be dry and unengaging, but finding an influencer who is a good fit lends an air of authenticity to your brand.
Now that you know the benefits, what can we learn from traditional B2C influencer marketing strategies?
Influencer Marketing: Comparing B2C and B2B
Before selecting an influencer, remember that B2B influencer marketing differs from the B2C influencer experience. While examining B2C campaigns can have some value, it’s best to take a B2B approach from start to finish for your campaign. Two key differences that impact your campaign include audience goals and purchasing behaviors.
Consumers are motivated by purchasing what they want or need and getting good value. Businesses are concerned with purchases that build their business and provide a good return on investment. They are concerned with meeting business needs, such as risk management, operational efficiency, business cost reduction, or compliance concerns for a price that is within their budget. They are seeking solutions that will ultimately support the growth and well-being of the company.
B2B buying habits, therefore, have higher stakes and can be complex. You are marketing to multiple stakeholders, who are part of the decision-making process, instead of one individual. Your brand must establish authority, reliability, and expertise for this audience. B2B influencer campaigns showcase your brand as a dependable provider for your industry.
With this clarity about your target audience, it’s time to select the best influencer to promote your product launch.
Partnering with a B2B Influencer
Partnering with the right influencer to ensure a successful B2B product launch takes some effort. The right candidate will be effective and trustworthy and can provide:
- Audience reach and industry experience.
- An authentic voice that is compatible with your campaign.
- Aligned values without conflict of interest.
- A stellar reputation and demonstrative results.
B2B influencers should have experience in campaigns that reach and engage your B2B market. That means they need expertise in your industry, such as a background in the field or experience with your main subjects. As experts or thought leaders in the field, they provide your campaign with authenticity and authority that can attract the B2B players you want to reach.
When choosing an influencer, be sure their style fits your brand style. For example, technology influencers have a very different tone and voice than those in the legal industry. However, even within a single field, there will be variations. For example, SEO experts have a distinct style compared to hardware professionals. Be sure to target your particular niche when reviewing influencers.
The values and reputation of the influencer are also important. If they have embraced controversy in the past, you may want to steer clear. Review their feed and Google them to find any red flags that could damage your business. Additionally, while it’s fine if you choose an influencer who has worked with others in your industry, you may want to avoid those who have worked with direct competitors.
Finally, it can also be beneficial to collaborate with an influencer who has experience in B2B product launches. Their input can help you design and create a campaign that is more likely to succeed. This is not always necessary, however. Any B2B influencer who meets the requirements above and is worth their salt is a worthy partner that you can collaborate with time and again.
Next, it’s time to build your campaign.
Strategic Use of Social Media
Developing a strategic social media plan is the cornerstone of your B2B influencer marketing campaign. Some campaign elements that your influencer partner should have experience in include:
- Influencer takeovers: This is when the influencer takes over your social media channel for a time.
- Product reviews: Have the influencer try out your products, system, or service and provide honest opinions.
- Influencer collaborations: Work together on papers or events, such as a white paper or a webinar that you can share on social media.
Build your campaign with content tailored to the social media channel you are using. Each platform has a unique audience so be sure to use the one that your B2B prospects and customers are using.
If you are using multiple platforms, you must adjust your content to meet the needs of the users in each. LinkedIn, for example, has a more professional, business-minded audience. On the other hand, Instagram users tend to be younger and interested in highly polished visual content. For each platform, you should be adjusting:
- Text and tone
- Captions
- Image look and sizing
- Hashtag and tagging elements
- Posting times for optimal engagement
Let’s examine B2B content marketing on Instagram, which has over 1 billion users, to see how an influencer marketing campaign might work. As a visual medium, this channel is a good fit for a product launch, especially if your target is small business owners devoted to the brands they love. Brands do well on Instagram compared to other social media platforms.
The most successful Instagram campaigns include realistic photos and professional graphic design. Cultivate a professional and polished look and feel to your posts. Captions should engage the audience by posing a question or asking opinions.
As soon as the influencer you are working with posts content, have your team engage and interact with likes and comments for 30 to 60 minutes afterward. Your team must also regularly engage with other users, even before launching the campaign. At a minimum, you should spend 15 minutes a day liking, commenting, and finding Instagram users who fit your target. Research new hashtags and engage with other posts that share your hashtags.
There are a lot of ways to build engagement on Instagram. When someone visits your account, they see a board with 9 or 12 images. Consider the look of the entire screen when posting to your feed. You also have four options when posting: a traditional image, video shorts for your feed, IGTV one-minute videos, and stories. Using these tools regularly creates a dynamic and attractive feed.
No matter which platform you are using, share customer success stories. When an influencer comes in with a takeover or tags you in a product review, it looks more professional if it is already content from other users about your products and services.
Encourage engagement with a call to action on each post. Instagram lets you add links to story posts, direct messages, and in your bio. As your brand grows, people will click links or ask for ways to connect. Limiting the number of direct product promotions in your feed helps to build trust for those users. Position your brand as an authority in your industry as opposed to a place to purchase products.
Once your campaign is live, you can measure results.
Tracking Social Media Results for Your Campaign
Each social media platform has analytics capabilities. However, when using multiple platforms, you may want to use a third-party tool, such as HootSuite, to manage all the data in one place.
For metrics, you’ll analyze engagement, reach, and impressions. These are the raw numbers of viewers and interactions. These results demonstrate the effectiveness of your campaign in getting viewers, likes, and comments. As a B2B marketer, engagement is key, since a sales cycle is longer than typical B2C transactions.
You also want to look at click-thru rates (CTRs), which measure how many people clicked the link in your post or bio. Conversion, on the other hand, measures how many took actions, such as email signups. Reviewing this data helps you refine the remainder of this campaign going forward. This is critical for building a long-term partnership with your B2B influencer.
Metrics are important, but they cannot qualify a lead. Take time to build and maintain your marketing engagement on social media by using a B2B influencer who fits your brand. This partnership can help you develop a social media presence to help you stand out as a leader in your industry.
