There have been seismic shifts in the B2B marketing landscape, causing rifts in our once reliable marketing strategies. B2B marketers are up against:
- Customer communication channels that have exploded into thousands of pieces;
- A tangled mess of a buyer’s journey requiring new technologies and methodologies;
- New sales and marketing rules, set by a generation of digital natives who trust peer recommendations above all; and,
- Those impenetrable ad-free blockers.
While our “go-to” channels are in turmoil--or in permanent decline--there is one bright spot that is growing in importance at light speed: Influencer Marketing.
While it's apparent that influencer marketing works for consumer-facing brands, we wanted to shed some light on how influencer marketing works in B2B and go deep into the specific challenges and solutions for technology brands.
Today we are releasing a white paper, co-authored by the incredible, Mark Schaefer, a globally-recognized speaker, educator, business consultant that examines the rise of influencer marketing in B2B technology organizations. The paper exposes insights derived from interviews with 10 trailblazing marketing experts who have built scalable influencer marketing programs at organizations including Microsoft, IBM, Samsung and others. As an added bonus, the paper also draws on previously unreleased industry data from Influence 2.0, released earlier this year.
It’s quite fitting that The Rise of Influencer Marketing in B2B Technology arrives on the fifth anniversary of the publication of Mark’s book, the Return on Influence. Since his book was published so much has changed: social networks have risen to prominence and collapsed, some have thrived beyond our wildest imaginations and; more importantly, best practices have emerged.
While most B2B firms have been slow to adopt influencer marketing, almost half are in the experimenting phase. As such, the practice has become an area of strategic importance, and has achieved visibility all the way up to the CMO.
Every time I’m in a room with CMOs from B2B technology organizations, the conversation inevitably turns to influencer marketing.” - Mark Schaefer, Co-author, The Rise of Influencer Marketing in B2B Technology
Uncovering six paradigm shifts emerging in B2B organizations, this paper dives deep into the unique opportunities and challenges faced by companies that seek to reimagine what it means to market technology in today’s world.
This paper draws extensively on interviews with 10 incredible marketers from the world’s most recognizable business technology brands. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Amanda Duncan, Amisha Gandhi, Andrew Grill, Ann Marinovich, Becca Taylor, Konstanze Alex-Brown, Maxime Guirauton, Megan Conley, Nicole Smith, and Pegah Kamal who so eloquently share their insight with us all and commend Mark for helping us bring this paper to life!
To get unprecedented insights around these six trends, get your copy of The Rise of Influencer Marketing in B2B Technology Organizations now.