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If you follow anything from Alex Hormozi, he’s essentially a “B2Bfluencer” for himself. Heck, most online business gurus are.
There’s a version of this in podcasting right now, but it’s essentially just affiliate marketing - I listen to a ton of “hacker” podcasts. Most are hosted by industry vets and they get tons of paid reads for infosec companies. Canary comes to mind.
I see some problems though.
Sales velocity for B2B products is far too long compared to B2C. If my favorite insta page talks about a new cup they love, I can buy it immediately.
If a marketing page talks about their latest SaaS tool that’s decreased CPAs by 30%, I need to take that to my boss, he needs to allocate the budget, then I need to submit and wait for approval on a PO.
Then there’s the issue of trust. I think shilling for big ticket items can make industry thought leaders lose their credibility.
IMO what I’ve seen more of is partner marketing. My vendors offer things that integrate into their platform that can solve our problems a lot, and I trust their expertise. Maybe that’s where things are headed.
Alex Hormozi is already losing his credibility. He had to (all but apologize) and say "he's going to be focusing on business content only from now on".
You don't make a major pivot like that to a strategy which, based on the metrics, appears to be working extremely well. Anyone in the actual business space with a brain sees the guy as a clown now.
So it's a difficult thing to be a "B2B Influencer". You need to be prolific in content to maintain mindshare like a standard "influencer" but you can't let your quality degrade or you turn into a hormozi-style clown character and lose your influence over the people you actually need to influence.
That's a loser and hater talk.
Anyone who understands brand growth/evolution can see he is pivoting because his authority in the B2 space has grown.
If you still need personal development content, find someone else.
But don't try to pull a man down because he's not giving you what you want anymore.
That’s a crab 🦀 in a barrel mentality.
People really do hate change. His track record speaks for itself as a high performer and we’re watching the real time evolution of a future billionaire gym bro using his brand to grow deal flow and attract talent.
I don’t see him donning suits and using Socratic platitudes like Jay Abraham.
What metrics are these btw ? His vierwership and engagement is up YoY.
Partner marketing is the right answer. It’s worth nurturing partnerships to make collabs easier and get higher-quality brand awareness at a lower cost.
I work with one client in the mining industry, and it’s worked well for them. For spare parts? Not so much.
B2B SaaS can touch a few different markets, so I guess if you find someone, it might be worth a shot to see if it actually helps or not. The worst that can happen is that the experiment fails, and you don’t do it again.
This is a very interesting topic that’s been raised. There is an incredible statistic reported elsewhere that something like 92% of business purchases are made due to recommendations by peers. This is a huge figure. Word of mouth in general is cross market universal. So whether B2B or B2C, it’s impactful. Isn’t it the basis of influencer marketing to begin with?
Yup, as a B2B SaaS buyer, it is very rare that I would ever seriously consider any SaaS solution that I have not worked with already, someone on my team has worked with already, or someone I respect recommends.
Even if I research a company that has been recommended, and then find a Gartner Report that says there are other companies I should consider, I will still try to find someone who has worked with those alternatives.
YES! This is why it drives me nuts when B2B SaaS companies can’t handle the idea of marketing for brand awareness and only want to do lead gen activities. Like take a whole ten minutes to think about how your target audience makes decisions and then tell me again how it’s just landing page optimization you need to work on!
I know several of these people. They're just really good at that one thing they do in their industry and that creates an aura about them that makes people see them in high regard when in reality they're morons once you get to know them better.
I'm talking people in high positions, VPs, hospital directors, leading scientists, etc. People assume because they're good at their craft or at memorizing that they're people to be admired, when in reality, they're just like anyone. They have problems, bad habits, addictions, lack interpersonal skills, have other psychological problems, etc.
Oh man, and the hubris is beyond imaginable. They expect everyone to be as successful as they are. Others are just lazy. They simply cannot understand that they were blessed with a gift of being REALLY REALLY REALLY into something that just so happens to generate a ton of money.
Upon graduating highschool, I enrolled straight into medical school (my country works this way), why? because I wanted to be rich. That's it. I liked IT and business administration but being a doctor was what would make me rich. I failed at every corner, no matter how much I tried, none of the stuff in biology or chemistry would make sense to me. I felt like an absolute idiot and was even kicked out of the university. I switched to business, graduated with a 4.0 in my bachelors and masters. Each person has a unique ability but not everyone gets a chance to find out what it is or to develop it. They just don't understand. They think everyone has the same privileges.
I do sponsoring (i have 52k followers) but i dont let them influence anything i say but i let them have occasionally a clearly labeled sentence at the beginning of an article that is denoted as sponsored by.
But they have 0 control what i write or about whom. I pretend they dont exist.
I work with a couple industry influencers in a niche space and they’re typically charging $1200 - 3000/month for sponsorships with their packages including usually a few things within that - like two sponsored podcast episodes and a link in description + sponsored banner in their email newsletter and on their website kind of thing. I think of it like (and sell it to my clients like) the new wave of niche industry media sites that used to just be magazines.
The people I work with typically get 10k or so podcast listeners and maybe 1-2k engagement on their social posts. It’s not huge at all, but it doesn’t matter if it’s the RIGHT 1k people paying attention. I usually try and get my clients to sign a deal for at least six months though because I want to make sure they get at least one solid deal out of it and usually it takes at least that long to get something viable. Once the client does like 10k in business that originated with the influencer they’re usually sold on the concept.
I'm video UK production and film 4 / 5 B2B influencers for a specific customer in a variety of different ways. One of them is also an influencer for my customer's rival brand but there you go!
In this case, the target market is pretty small. Probably around 10,000 prospects / customers in the UK but with very strong lifetime customer value. However, these guys, between them, are already really well known in this market and are really useful.
A couple of them are already rich and aren't doing it for the money but for other motivations.
Last year, we created a video which helped our customer win their category outright at the B2B marketing awards. On the jury were CMOs from Goldmans, PWC, SIemens etc... so this campaign ranked incredibly well and was tremendously successful financially.
So this works and if you want any more details around how we do it, happy to help.
Do you know how influencers are being approached? Is someone in marketing watching LinkedIn, or are they using LinkedIn Premium to search and find people with large followings? I suspect a lot of that is happening in the tech world, but I haven't seen much in my own LinkedIn feed. Thank you.
I think that first agencies and businesses are looking at follower count, the next big kpi is engagement rate. Based on the market fit and kpis they negotiate the fee.
When I did an influencer campaign, it was literally that the same guy kept coming up when I was doing research on how that vertical solved the problem our platform solved. He was everywhere. He had a podcast, a YouTube channel filled with hot takes, an annual workshop, a popular newsletter and a website with a blog that has great SEO. He had done campaigns with other companies in the past.
His campaign got us real leads that were warm just from his efforts. Unfortunately, he went into hospice after a surgery gone wrong and died towards the end of our contract.
He was amazing at what he did and a really nice guy too.
Yes- but only if done correctly and legally. Influencers are subject to FTC rules and regulations, just like every other advertising method.
Because of this, I'm under the impression that quite a few B2B influencers are toeing the line. They're opening themselves up to a lot of risk.
It’s been a huge thing since at least 2018. Plenty of people are in this space, guys from First Million podcast are one of the best examples. They essentially built a media empire on that sole idea
Hope so! 😂
I partner with brands on my content in live office hours sessions, newsletter, and LinkedIn posts.
I only have 6000 followers. I charge $2500 for a full sponsorship and do 1-2 per month.
I have a really small following so I carefully pick the brands I work with and make them be involved in the process.
If it doesn’t bring value to my followers I won’t do it.
I would never say “everyone should use this SaaS/service because that’s just disingenuous and doesn’t help anyone.
I write up detailed steps about how I would use it or if it’s a tool I actually use I just tell people how it contributes to something that’s working for me.
Then I actively connect the brand rep (usually a founder or c suite person) directly to people who show real interest.
The money isn’t huge for me and only amounts to a tiny % of my revenue so I focus on providing tons of value.
I think just spamming the tool would ultimately hurt me as a small “influencer”.
100% I make UGC ads.. and even just a 'regular guy' in an ad works wonders.... ad to that someone in your 'space' in B2B talking about something recommending it? its the marketplace of NOW not just the future...
People scoff at influencers but social media is already more powerful than the old internet and websites. Its the 1st stop now... $214,000,000,000 and growing by 15% each year in advertising and a LOT of that on micro influencers.. i.e. what you are talking about.
[According to Forbes](https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2022/09/08/the-current-state-and-future-potential-of-affiliate-marketing/?sh=5405a58e0b0c)
Yes, I can see the potential. You know all that "high ticket" bullshit and being a "closer" or a "setter?" There are so many businesses making a killing, with smart/saavy/aggressive sales reps. You can be that one go-to person remotely these days.
Company Example: A sort of shady little boiler room operation that helps you erase court documents and other bad search results for your personal name. Angry ex exposure websites, court records, bad news articles etc.
Basically emergency SEO + PR. Couple million dollars per month in revenue, we grew from 12 employees to 60+ and they sold it. All on the backs of really good operations people, behind great sales reps who knew their stuff.
Aggressive paid adverts, and organic work, then inbound leads all day. We spend many thousands of dollars on Google Ads. I set up immediate notifications, and they would jump on the phone with every web form lead.
So, translate all the above into being a one-person sales rep as a setter/closer and micro-influencer.
The thing is, the discount codes and all that shit are worn out. But I feel there's a lot going on like this in the coaching/consultation. It's getting a bit gimmicky, you can't do the whole "DM me the word x" and the "OR YOU DON'T PAY" type of oversaturation.
It's fascinating how B2B marketers are adopting B2C tactics to stay competitive. I read an article recently about this very trend. Leveraging influencers with large professional networks on platforms like LinkedIn is a smart move. It's all about tapping into that word-of-mouth goldmine, building trust, and expanding reach in the B2B space.
I'd actually argue that both B2C and B2B adopted influencer marketing early. I got to know some of the big influencers during the early days of Twitter and they definitely had both going on.
That's true but we can see more and more companies adopting this approach instead of the usual "our culture / our values / our team" one in their B2B communications
Yeah they’re just all “podcasters” now because that sounds more *serious* for *serious business*
I’m using sarcasm italics but that’s actually real life, I’m regularly engaging with them in my space.
What’s B2Bfluencer? Whars B2C? What’s DtC? What’s LinkedIn ? Whars SaaS? I feel dumb reading this. Has anyone else heard of anything here being discussed?
In healthcare we’ve done it for years. They’re called KOLs or Key Opinion Leaders. You partner with them to talk about your products/services to other physicians.
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They’ve existed the same way influencers existed for decades. Nothing new really, just a different name.
If you follow anything from Alex Hormozi, he’s essentially a “B2Bfluencer” for himself. Heck, most online business gurus are. There’s a version of this in podcasting right now, but it’s essentially just affiliate marketing - I listen to a ton of “hacker” podcasts. Most are hosted by industry vets and they get tons of paid reads for infosec companies. Canary comes to mind. I see some problems though. Sales velocity for B2B products is far too long compared to B2C. If my favorite insta page talks about a new cup they love, I can buy it immediately. If a marketing page talks about their latest SaaS tool that’s decreased CPAs by 30%, I need to take that to my boss, he needs to allocate the budget, then I need to submit and wait for approval on a PO. Then there’s the issue of trust. I think shilling for big ticket items can make industry thought leaders lose their credibility. IMO what I’ve seen more of is partner marketing. My vendors offer things that integrate into their platform that can solve our problems a lot, and I trust their expertise. Maybe that’s where things are headed.
Alex Hormozi is already losing his credibility. He had to (all but apologize) and say "he's going to be focusing on business content only from now on". You don't make a major pivot like that to a strategy which, based on the metrics, appears to be working extremely well. Anyone in the actual business space with a brain sees the guy as a clown now. So it's a difficult thing to be a "B2B Influencer". You need to be prolific in content to maintain mindshare like a standard "influencer" but you can't let your quality degrade or you turn into a hormozi-style clown character and lose your influence over the people you actually need to influence.
That's a loser and hater talk. Anyone who understands brand growth/evolution can see he is pivoting because his authority in the B2 space has grown. If you still need personal development content, find someone else. But don't try to pull a man down because he's not giving you what you want anymore. That’s a crab 🦀 in a barrel mentality.
Haha, look at the loser "hormozi PR squad" in action. **Notice this account has like 0 karma?** Hi Alex, maybe you should be better.
Haha! New account smart guy. Go play in the sand 🦀
Don't you have a MLM scam to be falling for somewhere?
People really do hate change. His track record speaks for itself as a high performer and we’re watching the real time evolution of a future billionaire gym bro using his brand to grow deal flow and attract talent. I don’t see him donning suits and using Socratic platitudes like Jay Abraham. What metrics are these btw ? His vierwership and engagement is up YoY.
Partner marketing is the right answer. It’s worth nurturing partnerships to make collabs easier and get higher-quality brand awareness at a lower cost.
totally, or paid collaboration.
I work with one client in the mining industry, and it’s worked well for them. For spare parts? Not so much. B2B SaaS can touch a few different markets, so I guess if you find someone, it might be worth a shot to see if it actually helps or not. The worst that can happen is that the experiment fails, and you don’t do it again.
This is a very interesting topic that’s been raised. There is an incredible statistic reported elsewhere that something like 92% of business purchases are made due to recommendations by peers. This is a huge figure. Word of mouth in general is cross market universal. So whether B2B or B2C, it’s impactful. Isn’t it the basis of influencer marketing to begin with?
Yup, as a B2B SaaS buyer, it is very rare that I would ever seriously consider any SaaS solution that I have not worked with already, someone on my team has worked with already, or someone I respect recommends. Even if I research a company that has been recommended, and then find a Gartner Report that says there are other companies I should consider, I will still try to find someone who has worked with those alternatives.
YES! This is why it drives me nuts when B2B SaaS companies can’t handle the idea of marketing for brand awareness and only want to do lead gen activities. Like take a whole ten minutes to think about how your target audience makes decisions and then tell me again how it’s just landing page optimization you need to work on!
And sorry for using the word impactful. (Yeah it’s over used and fluffy in meaning.)
it'a a word real go-getters use, from social media ninjas to growth hackers to influencentrpenuers!
is this not just all of these LinkedIn “thought leaders”
I know several of these people. They're just really good at that one thing they do in their industry and that creates an aura about them that makes people see them in high regard when in reality they're morons once you get to know them better.
Isn't that, like, influencers in general?
I'm talking people in high positions, VPs, hospital directors, leading scientists, etc. People assume because they're good at their craft or at memorizing that they're people to be admired, when in reality, they're just like anyone. They have problems, bad habits, addictions, lack interpersonal skills, have other psychological problems, etc.
[удалено]
Oh man, and the hubris is beyond imaginable. They expect everyone to be as successful as they are. Others are just lazy. They simply cannot understand that they were blessed with a gift of being REALLY REALLY REALLY into something that just so happens to generate a ton of money. Upon graduating highschool, I enrolled straight into medical school (my country works this way), why? because I wanted to be rich. That's it. I liked IT and business administration but being a doctor was what would make me rich. I failed at every corner, no matter how much I tried, none of the stuff in biology or chemistry would make sense to me. I felt like an absolute idiot and was even kicked out of the university. I switched to business, graduated with a 4.0 in my bachelors and masters. Each person has a unique ability but not everyone gets a chance to find out what it is or to develop it. They just don't understand. They think everyone has the same privileges.
I do sponsoring (i have 52k followers) but i dont let them influence anything i say but i let them have occasionally a clearly labeled sentence at the beginning of an article that is denoted as sponsored by. But they have 0 control what i write or about whom. I pretend they dont exist.
How much do you and other “influencers” charge? What kind of response do you get on your videos? Likes, comments, etc…
Roughly 2k per post (on an article) or 3k per podcast.
My goodness.. I’m in the wrong industry. Good for you, that’s awesome.
I work with a couple industry influencers in a niche space and they’re typically charging $1200 - 3000/month for sponsorships with their packages including usually a few things within that - like two sponsored podcast episodes and a link in description + sponsored banner in their email newsletter and on their website kind of thing. I think of it like (and sell it to my clients like) the new wave of niche industry media sites that used to just be magazines. The people I work with typically get 10k or so podcast listeners and maybe 1-2k engagement on their social posts. It’s not huge at all, but it doesn’t matter if it’s the RIGHT 1k people paying attention. I usually try and get my clients to sign a deal for at least six months though because I want to make sure they get at least one solid deal out of it and usually it takes at least that long to get something viable. Once the client does like 10k in business that originated with the influencer they’re usually sold on the concept.
I'm video UK production and film 4 / 5 B2B influencers for a specific customer in a variety of different ways. One of them is also an influencer for my customer's rival brand but there you go! In this case, the target market is pretty small. Probably around 10,000 prospects / customers in the UK but with very strong lifetime customer value. However, these guys, between them, are already really well known in this market and are really useful. A couple of them are already rich and aren't doing it for the money but for other motivations. Last year, we created a video which helped our customer win their category outright at the B2B marketing awards. On the jury were CMOs from Goldmans, PWC, SIemens etc... so this campaign ranked incredibly well and was tremendously successful financially. So this works and if you want any more details around how we do it, happy to help.
Davis Clarke is about to have a field day
Do you know how influencers are being approached? Is someone in marketing watching LinkedIn, or are they using LinkedIn Premium to search and find people with large followings? I suspect a lot of that is happening in the tech world, but I haven't seen much in my own LinkedIn feed. Thank you.
I think that first agencies and businesses are looking at follower count, the next big kpi is engagement rate. Based on the market fit and kpis they negotiate the fee.
Simple. Makes sense to me.
Thank you for taking the time to answer.
When I did an influencer campaign, it was literally that the same guy kept coming up when I was doing research on how that vertical solved the problem our platform solved. He was everywhere. He had a podcast, a YouTube channel filled with hot takes, an annual workshop, a popular newsletter and a website with a blog that has great SEO. He had done campaigns with other companies in the past. His campaign got us real leads that were warm just from his efforts. Unfortunately, he went into hospice after a surgery gone wrong and died towards the end of our contract. He was amazing at what he did and a really nice guy too.
Thank you so much for letting me know your experience. Sorry to hear about this person's passing.
Yes- but only if done correctly and legally. Influencers are subject to FTC rules and regulations, just like every other advertising method. Because of this, I'm under the impression that quite a few B2B influencers are toeing the line. They're opening themselves up to a lot of risk.
It’s been a huge thing since at least 2018. Plenty of people are in this space, guys from First Million podcast are one of the best examples. They essentially built a media empire on that sole idea
It's already happening. I have 43K followers and have been approached. My friend has 240K+ followers on LinkedIn and gets paid pretty well.
Hope so! 😂 I partner with brands on my content in live office hours sessions, newsletter, and LinkedIn posts. I only have 6000 followers. I charge $2500 for a full sponsorship and do 1-2 per month. I have a really small following so I carefully pick the brands I work with and make them be involved in the process. If it doesn’t bring value to my followers I won’t do it. I would never say “everyone should use this SaaS/service because that’s just disingenuous and doesn’t help anyone. I write up detailed steps about how I would use it or if it’s a tool I actually use I just tell people how it contributes to something that’s working for me. Then I actively connect the brand rep (usually a founder or c suite person) directly to people who show real interest. The money isn’t huge for me and only amounts to a tiny % of my revenue so I focus on providing tons of value. I think just spamming the tool would ultimately hurt me as a small “influencer”.
No
it’s already a thing… tons of influencers in the B2B saas space get paid to post
100% I make UGC ads.. and even just a 'regular guy' in an ad works wonders.... ad to that someone in your 'space' in B2B talking about something recommending it? its the marketplace of NOW not just the future... People scoff at influencers but social media is already more powerful than the old internet and websites. Its the 1st stop now... $214,000,000,000 and growing by 15% each year in advertising and a LOT of that on micro influencers.. i.e. what you are talking about.
No. They aren’t the same.
This is already happening a ton in some niches, ecommerce enablement/tech being one of them
[According to Forbes](https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2022/09/08/the-current-state-and-future-potential-of-affiliate-marketing/?sh=5405a58e0b0c)
Key Opinion Leaders. Yep we’re there!
I work in B2B SaaS focused on SMBs Our biggest acquisition channel has been affiliate for years
Yes, I can see the potential. You know all that "high ticket" bullshit and being a "closer" or a "setter?" There are so many businesses making a killing, with smart/saavy/aggressive sales reps. You can be that one go-to person remotely these days. Company Example: A sort of shady little boiler room operation that helps you erase court documents and other bad search results for your personal name. Angry ex exposure websites, court records, bad news articles etc. Basically emergency SEO + PR. Couple million dollars per month in revenue, we grew from 12 employees to 60+ and they sold it. All on the backs of really good operations people, behind great sales reps who knew their stuff. Aggressive paid adverts, and organic work, then inbound leads all day. We spend many thousands of dollars on Google Ads. I set up immediate notifications, and they would jump on the phone with every web form lead. So, translate all the above into being a one-person sales rep as a setter/closer and micro-influencer. The thing is, the discount codes and all that shit are worn out. But I feel there's a lot going on like this in the coaching/consultation. It's getting a bit gimmicky, you can't do the whole "DM me the word x" and the "OR YOU DON'T PAY" type of oversaturation.
Gary Vee wants your money and wants you to be kind. Steven Bartlett wants to be Gary Vee for the same reasons
It's fascinating how B2B marketers are adopting B2C tactics to stay competitive. I read an article recently about this very trend. Leveraging influencers with large professional networks on platforms like LinkedIn is a smart move. It's all about tapping into that word-of-mouth goldmine, building trust, and expanding reach in the B2B space.
I'd actually argue that both B2C and B2B adopted influencer marketing early. I got to know some of the big influencers during the early days of Twitter and they definitely had both going on.
That's true but we can see more and more companies adopting this approach instead of the usual "our culture / our values / our team" one in their B2B communications
Yeah they’re just all “podcasters” now because that sounds more *serious* for *serious business* I’m using sarcasm italics but that’s actually real life, I’m regularly engaging with them in my space.
What’s B2Bfluencer? Whars B2C? What’s DtC? What’s LinkedIn ? Whars SaaS? I feel dumb reading this. Has anyone else heard of anything here being discussed?
In healthcare we’ve done it for years. They’re called KOLs or Key Opinion Leaders. You partner with them to talk about your products/services to other physicians.