“We set the question of whether the experience of Russian companies is similar to or goes against the global trend. How do B2B influencers appear in the minds of Russian specialists? Is their media prominence important in the B2B sector? What are the best practices and technologies for working with them? Should B2B brands engage employees as influencers? What issues and barriers to working with influencers do communicators see on the road to success? This research aims to answer these and many more questions based on the experience and opinions of Russian specialists involved in the development and implementation of communication and marketing strategies of B2B brands,” says Ksenia Alekseeva, Managing Partner of Fresh Russian Communications (FRC).
42% of those surveyed by the FRC agency were professionals who already have experience in working with Influencers, and 58% had no such experience. This helped identify the most popular misconceptions and stereotypes about working with influencers in B2B. They include: “influencers are bloggers or celebrities with a million followers”, “the popularity of an influencer is more important than their background”, “there are no influencers in our business segment”, “influencers should directly influence sales”, and “in B2B it is difficult to assess the effectiveness of working with influencers”.
The majority of companies surveyed turn to influencers to solve tasks related to increasing brand awareness (87%) and brand trust (72%). Less than half of specialists (47%) rely on lead generation and sales.
43% of B2B companies engage employees as influencers. For 60% of companies, this is embedded in the corporate culture and does not require any additional motivation. 15% motivate employees through corporate bonuses (free courses, certificates, and gifts), and 5% use financial incentives. At the same time, the most effective influencers were identified by the research participants as industry experts (4.4 points out of 5), professionals who use the product or service (4.3 points out of 5), as well as loyal customers (4.2 points out of 5) and industry bloggers (4.1 points out of 5).
Survey participants cited predicting results (63%), limited choice of influencers (57%), and evaluating the effectiveness of the tool (54%) among the top challenges in working with influencers in B2B.
Marketing and PR specialists at B2B companies are not prepared to spend lots of money on influencer marketing. Almost half of companies that practice influencer marketing allocate no more than 5% of the total marketing and PR budget to it. Companies from the IT sphere most often allocate between 5% and 25% of the total budget for this tool. At the same time, 34% plan to increase the budget for work with influencers in 2023–2024.
Companies that are still rejecting work with influencers in B2B cite lack of influencers in their business segment (38%), doubts about the effectiveness of the tool (28%), lack of confidence from management in the tool (26%), and lack of own knowledge and experience (25%) as the main reasons. Only 11% of respondents consider influencer marketing to be too expensive.
58% of B2B companies that have had no experience with influencers are not planning to start engaging with them in 2023–2024 either. At the same time, 71% of respondents could be motivated to try this tool based on successful cases of other B2B companies, and another 58% are interested in useful content on the topic of working with influencers in B2B.
The majority of survey participants consider it expedient to work with micro and nano influencers in B2B communications. This trend is especially well seen among companies working in B2B services. At the same time, manufacturing companies choose macro influencers and those with over a million followers more often than others.
77% of specialists who have already worked with influencers in B2B are convinced that a deep understanding of audience needs can increase the effectiveness of influencer marketing. 68% note the professional presentation of content: an influencer should speak and write in the language of the target audience.
The majority of companies consider 3–6 months to be the optimum timeframe for an influencer campaign. Less than 15% of representatives of companies from different business sectors expect faster results.
Main conclusions:
1. A lack of successful cases hinders the development of work influencers with B2B
2. Working with influencers in B2B is a long game (building relationships with influencers, working together on content, creating and supporting a community of opinion leaders, developing partnership programmes, and brand ambassadors)
3. Influencers do not (or do not always) facilitate direct sales in B2B, but they do help shorten the “customer journey”
4. Employees, loyal customers, partners, and offline experts are also influencers
5. Expertise and the ability to present content in a professional and interesting way is more important than a B2B influencer’s high profile and reach
The research was conducted in January-April 2023 by Fresh Russian Communications, a communications agency specializing in B2B communications. 112 PR and marketing communications specialists from Russian and international B2B companies operating in the Russian market took part in the survey.
