Fact check: Influencer marketing doesn’t just take place on Instagram and Facebook. We are seeing more brands taking their promotions to LinkedIn as they seek to connect with the high-level executives and key decision-makers in most organizations.
B2B influencers help brands connect with the C-suite executives who make all the important buying decisions in their organizations. These are influential industry leaders who are respected in their niche, and a positive mention from them is enough to persuade your target users to buy from you. B2B influencers typically operate from LinkedIn, with 94% of those saying they use LinkedIn influencer marketing to help brands generate leads and sales.
This blog shares the best B2B LinkedIn marketing strategies to help you attract more buyers for your products.
Why Should You Bother To Invest In LinkedIn Influencers?
With over 770 million users and 300 million active monthly users, LinkedIn is the largest professional networking site. Most of these individuals are industry leaders who wield significant influence in their areas of expertise, making them the most popular platform for B2B marketers. That said, here are three reasons why you should focus on influencer marketing on LinkedIn.
They speak to key decision-makers
LinkedIn influencers are followed by leading business leaders and decision-makers (CEOs, CFOs, and CMOs) who pay attention to what they say. When an influencer mentions your product or service, it directly impacts the people most likely to buy that product.
Their opinions are trusted
LinkedIn influencers are considered experts in the niches they operate. They have attracted a following because of their informative content that provokes users’ curiosity and consideration. Followers listen to what they have to say, and they are usually the first point of reference when someone needs detailed information on an issue.
They are a good fit for specific brands
For many brands, LinkedIn is a much better platform for reaching their customers. These are the businesses that sell products used by other businesses, and as such, need to reach the top decision-makers in these organizations. Since these leaders spend most of their time on LinkedIn, LinkedIn influencers are the best solution for sharing their promotional messages.
Why B2B Brands Should Work With LinkedIn Influencers
Here are seven reasons why LinkedIn is a great environment for your time and resources:
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Create awareness
All the decision-makers are on LinkedIn. Many professionals have signed up with LinkedIn to learn about important industry news and connect with other professionals. As a B2B brand, the key decision-makers you want to know about your products are on LinkedIn interacting with the thought leaders in your industry. By working with these thought leaders (influencers) to promote your product, you create awareness, visibility, and credibility for your brand with the people who matter.
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Gain reach and engagement
When you choose to promote your products on your own, you will only reach the people who follow your brand account. Even if you get a few employees to promote your content, your reach pales in comparison to an influencer who’s considered a thought leader in your industry.
That’s why it’s advisable to work with a relevant influencer whose followers are the people you are targeting with your product. When the influencer shares a message promoting your product, all their followers will get the message and learn about your amazing products. And because the followers trust what the influencer has to say, the engagement rate will be high as they try to understand how your product solves their problems.
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Establish your brand as a thought leader
Business buyers will only buy from you when they believe you are a leading brand in your industry. They wouldn’t risk their money on a novice brand that isn’t yet established in the market.
B2B LinkedIn marketing will help you build your thought leadership and position you as the brand of choice for the buyers in your industry. By collaborating with an influencer, you will have high-quality content to publish on your profile. This will help you appeal to the demanding consumers in your industry who want nothing but the best for their businesses.
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Generate leads
LinkedIn is the best network for generating leads for B2B brands. When you post informative content on your page, interested users will want to learn more about what you do and the products you sell. The interested parties, in this case, are the CEOs, CFOs, and CMOs of the companies you want to buy your products for their businesses. Impress them, and you’ll have lots of top-level executives clicking the links on your posts and leave their contacts to receive more information about your products.
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Social CRM
LinkedIn is also good in a social CRM context. It gives you a better view of your prospective customers and other important contacts to help you plan your marketing activities. You can do this using simple CRM tools and information management software like Outlook. LinkedIn allows you to integrate these software into your account for customer relationship management, but you can also choose to add your contacts directly since LinkedIn supports Google Contacts.
By doing this, you see what your contacts are doing when they are on LinkedIn. This will provide you with valuable information on their behavior and preferences, thus making it easy for you to target them appropriately.
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Humanize your brand
LinkedIn influencer marketing will make your brand feel like a friend your target users have known for years. B2B influencers have earned the trust of their audience. Therefore, working with them humanizes your brand and makes it easy for your audience to fall in love with your products.
Genuine influencers know how to connect with their followers. When they speak about your products, they do so in a way that resonates with them. This creates a sense of authenticity for your brand, which will result in more leads and sales.
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Traffic building
Another great benefit of a B2B LinkedIn strategy is its ability to drive greater traffic to your website. How so? It starts with the influencer creating great content for your brand – the kind that leaves readers wanting to learn more about what you do.
At the end of the article, the influencer can add a link that takes interested users to your website for more information. They can add a link that takes users to your product page to place an order or to your blog where they can find more amazing content to learn more about what your company does.
LinkedIn Is Powerful for B2B Marketers
If you’re considering investing in the best B2B LinkedIn marketing approach, consider the following statistics about the platform’s effectiveness for B2B marketing.
Demographic stats
Figure 1: LinkedIn user statistics. Source – LinkedIn
LinkedIn has 774 million members, 180 million senior-level influencers, 63 million decision-makers, and 10 million C-level executives. The network doesn’t just have many users, but most of them are influential high-level executives that B2B brands target in their marketing campaigns. This makes LinkedIn a fantastic place to reach those key decision-makers when promoting a product or service.
Furthermore, LinkedIn has the highest concentration of educated individuals and high-income earners. Half of the American adults with college degrees use LinkedIn, and 45% of them earn more than $75,000 a year.
B2B Marketers Stats
97% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn marketing strategies to promote their products. With the big players regularly checking into the platform, B2B marketers know not to ignore the network when planning a marketing strategy.
78% of marketers find LinkedIn to be a powerful tool for content marketing. LinkedIn also accounts for 50% of all the social traffic to B2B sites and blogs.
Lead Generation Stats
So, is LinkedIn effective at generating leads?
The answer is an emphatic “YES”! In fact, it performs better than other networks. A HubSpot study found that LinkedIn is 277% more effective in generating high-quality leads than Facebook and Twitter.
43% of marketers say they have acquired a customer from LinkedIn. A further 38% say LinkedIn generates revenue for them, proving how LinkedIn helps brands attract high-quality leads that they can convert into paying customers.
If you’re looking for ways to increase the visibility of your B2B brand, then you should start with LinkedIn influencer marketing. You can use many other strategies to reach your B2B customers, but you risk spending too much money without getting the desired results because of poor targeting and proper messaging.
AtisfyReach solves these problems with its incredibly powerful AI and reporting capabilities. Our influencer platform will pair you with the right influencers to help you communicate your message in the most effective ways. Register your interest to get started today!
