In this article, I am going to share with you the 5 b2b influencer marketing strategies that will work for your company whether you are just starting with influencer marketing or you already have an influencer marketing strategy in place.

And the reason why I am sharing this article is that I have got numerous questions from businesses if influencer marketing is the right way to go. Which of course could bring the annoying answer it depends.

But to be honest with you, I believe almost every industry could potentially greatly benefit from influencer marketing strategies. But let me know if I am wrong or you have any industry in mind that influencer marketing could not be useful.

Either way, if you are in the common industries, these influencer marketing strategies will work for you and start driving you more leads and clients for your businesses, whatever is your business nature.

And without further due, let’s get started!

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1. Giveaways

The first strategy on our list of B2B influencer marketing strategies is Giveaways.

Giveaways are a great way how you can start your influencer marketing whether you are a small or large brand as this will help you to increase your following and get more clients for your brand.

And it does not need to cost you a fortune to start running giveaways contest.

But of course, both sides need benefits from the giveaways contest like your brand so the influencer as well, otherwise it will not be effective.

Marques Brownlee is presenting one of the great giveaways. Giveaways are great b2b influencer marketing strategies.

So how can you start your giveaway contest?

First, you need to find the right influencer for your brand and the kind of giveaways you want to run. This is very essential to find the right influencer and you should consider things like:

  • Type of Content (Like Videos, Images, post, etc.)
  • Following – Number and type of following
  • Interest
  • Background

Let’s stop with the influencer following and what I usually recommend starting with. Of course, it depends on the size of your brand, for example, brands like Microsoft, or Under Armor can effort get people like The Rock or Marques Brownlee.

But what about, if you are a small business?

Well, then you should consider micro-influencers. They have following from 1,000 up to 100,000 and those are the local celebrities that have a strong influence. Also, they are not that expensive, like The Rock.

Alright, once you have chosen your influencer, then you need to work out the terms and conditions that both sides are happy, and the rules are making sense.

Please do not be the kind of brand that gives a small price and expect so much.

Like I saw recently giving a ton of keychains and expect to like, share, comment and tag 3 friends for it. Do you think it worked for them? I saw it a week ago when they started and saw only 3 shares and 4 likes…

Be reasonable for what you ask and give the value they deserve for that

2. Invite Influencer to Your Online/Offline Event

The second from B2B influencer marketing strategies is online and offline events.

And I don’t mean the influencer events, but rather run your own online or offline event and invite them as a speaker or participant.

For example, my wife has been invited for a live online event with a make-up artist to introduce the product of a make-up brand. Both sides have promoted the event on their social media and get some amazing response with a minimum marketing budget.

So, I recommend once you will conduct your event, invite some influencer, again it can be a micro-influencer or with more following, depending on your budget.

Also, check out some influencer marketing events, because you will learn a ton of great tips and tricks on how to run effective events with influencers, to make it fun and most importantly drive some great results!

A great example of how to run a great B2B influencer marketing online and offline events is 10x growth conference. Just look their speaker list

Bufferapp had produced one of the greatest marketing guest post example when Leo Widrich had posted 150 guest posts and got 100k customers in just 10 months. Guest posts are great b2b influencer marketing strategies you need to start with to grow your b2b digital marketing

One of the biggest influencers in the world whether it is in the entertainment industry or business industry.

Definitely, Grant Cardone does understand the importance of influencer marketing strategies and how to utilize it to grow his brand to the fullest.

Just look at his YouTube Channel, you can see there, he has a ton of videos with other celebrities and influencers.

But again, you do not need to be a big company to run events with influencers. The same way as with my wife.

3. Guest Posts/Promoted

Our third strategy on the list of influencer marketing strategies is using guest posts to promote your brand and products and services.

Influencer marketing is not all about only social media but rather reach out to people with large following anywhere on the internet whether it is on YouTube, Instagram, Forums, or Blogs.

Yes, bloggers are influencers too and they are the main reason why you should start thinking running your guest posts, whether written by you or promoted posts written by the blogger himself.

Because they will help increase your brand awareness, drive more customers, and improve SEO if they link to your website.

And one of the most famous examples of running guest posting is from Buffer and Leo Widrich the co-founder who wrote approximately 150 guest posts and got from 0 to 100k customers in just 10 months.

10x growth conference is a great example how to use influencers and get to the next level with your b2b digital marketing or ofline marketing. Running offline or online b2b events with influencers is very powerful in b2b influencer marketing strategies.

So, guest posts are great to include in your arsenal of influencer marketing strategies.

So, how can you start with guest posts?

First, you need to find a blogger that has a target audience similar to yours, and to do that, you can easily just check their blog and see what kind of posts he or she is publishing.

If the content is similar to yours, probably the audience will be similar as well.

Second, you need to get some data about their website, such as what is their monthly traffic, from what country they are coming from, domain experience, and other important aspects relevant to your target audience.

To find out this, you can use competitor analytics tools like:

  • SEMrush – Really a great tool to analyses competitors and other people’s websites. Great to use to learn more about potential influencer bloggers.
  • Another staple competitor analysis tool for SEO is Ahrefs site explorer, which allows you to check any URL’s top organic keywords. Additionally, you get a rough estimate of how much traffic a competitor receives on those keywords.
  • Or the easiest way I have found, just ask the blogger to share with you the information, after you explain your intention of collaboration with him. Of course, you will not get everything, but enough to make a decision.

Alright, and lastly, just make a deal with then blogger and you have your first guest post. Yes, these take a bit more time and it is not scalable as other influencer marketing, but it definitely provides great results after a few guest posts.

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4. Free Products

The fourth on our list of B2B influencer marketing strategies is to give free products to the influencer.

And It might seem that it is the same thing as the first influencer marketing strategy the Giveaways, but it is quite different and let me explain how.

Here you will give the free products only to influencer and not to your audience and it might sound like a stingy idea but this strategy works great as well especially with micro-influencers who are genuinely happy to receive free products.

Remember, when I said micro-influencers have a very strong influence on local communities, and by local, I mean the city, region, or even the whole state, so imagine they would endorse your product.

And that could have a strong impact on launching your new product for example.

So how can you run this influencer marketing strategy?

Here where it gets a bit tricky and the reason why I am saying this is because I saw my wife getting a ton of free products, was she happy? Not always and let me tell you why.

My wife is happy to endorse products she likes and often she endorses some product and tags the brand on Instagram for free. And they notice it and reach out to her and after a few backs and forth they send free products.

Can this work? Not Really, maybe in some cases, depends, and why I am saying this is because if you want to run an effective Free Products strategy, you must know the influencer.

What she or he likes, the interest, etc. You cannot give just a product and expect the influencer will like it, right?

For example, my wife received a hair color with an ingredient that she is allergic to even thou she mentioned it to the brand. So, do you think she was happy with the brand? Of course not!

So before you run this strategy make sure you know the influencer quite well. Therefore, I recommend you to ask your colleagues.

For sure they follow and like some influencer that is relevant to your business and they can tell you what they like and dislike which will make it successful and the influencer will be happy to endorse the product.

5. Shoutout (Sponsored Content)

And the last on our list of B2B influencer marketing strategies is using shoutouts or sponsored content.

Shoutout has been rising on popularity and more and more businesses spend on the shoutouts to gain brand awareness and attract new customers.

Therefore, this brings a great opportunity for you to grow your social media channel and enhance your influencer marketing.

So how can you start your shoutout campaign?

Well, first you need to know that there are fundamentally 3 types of shoutout:

  1. Paid Shoutout: This is the classic strategy when you pay an influencer to promote your brand, which can be done with cash, free product, or give free services of yours.
  2. S4S: Or shoutout for shoutout is basically exchanging shoutout, you shoutout them and they will you. This is great to reach new potential customers and both sides win.
  3. Free shoutout: And this one is basically somebody is super happy with your products and services and give you a free shoutout without you even asking. (TIP: BTW, closely monitor these as you can collaborate with these people and grow your channel even more)

Alright, so now, when you know what types of shoutouts are there, now you just decide which one fits the most to you.

Once you know, then find your influencer. Remember you should be picky and decide based on your goals.

For example, S4S is great to do with somebody with a similar number of following, paid can be with anyone depending on your budget, but I recommend to stick with micro-influencers with 3,000-100,000 following in the beginning.

Alright, and lastly once you find your influencers, hit them up with a personalized message something like this:

Hi Peter! My name is Eduard. I LOVE [INSERT Compliment]. Would you be interested in collabing with me? I just opened FixItNow, a phone repair online shop in the states, and I’d love to send free phone accessories of your choice in exchange for a shoutout. You can shop the link in my bio to see if you are interested. 😊

Of course, you can customize it, as this is just a template, but I hope you got an idea, just be polite, genuine, and come with the intention that both sides have a win-win situation and you will get set quickly.

What is Influencer Marketing?

Influencer marketing is a form of marketing focused on connecting with influential people on the internet to create, publish and distribute relevant content to attract and retain a target audience and ultimately to drive profitable customer action from the strategy.

And this is based on simple math that influencer producing relevant content to your business whether on social media like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, or on Blog and your brand to attract new customers to your business.

Therefore influencer marketing works a bridge for your brand to possibly get discovered by new people who never heard about you, whether you are launching new products or going into a different market.

And this is very effective because the influencer is great at having strong influencers on their communities or sometimes they call it tribes.

This instantly increases the trust of people in the product if their favorite influencer endorses it.

Conclusion

Influencer marketing, including a well-executed b2b Instagram strategy, is a great approach. Many brands are seeing very positive results from these strategies, even with minimal budgets and experience.

Luckily running influencer marketing is not that hard as it might seem in the first place, but ultimately it comes down to build a meaningful relationship with the influencer and create something meaningful where everybody benefits, like your brand, the influencer and so the audience you target.

So definitely try one of these influencer marketing strategies as you can get some nice results without running complicated marketing strategies such as lead nurturing.

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Disclaimer:

Some pictures are coming from Freepik and some of my links are affiliate links, which means if you purchase something, I might get some small commission as a reward for reference. Of course, I am actively using all these services and products and I only affiliate products or service I have full trust in their quality!