How to Market to Your Millennial B2B Buyers

by Fronetics | Nov 7, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy, Supply Chain

Companies can reach millennial B2B buyers by partnering with popular social media users who speak with passion and expertise to young professionals.

Numbering 80 million, millennials have become the largest demographic segment in the United States and are expected to command more than $1 trillion in disposable income by the year 2020. As this generation comprises an increasing percentage of the B2B buying landscape, businesses must pay attention to their professional purchasing habits — which, it turns out, bleed over from their personal purchasing patterns.

Millennials are notoriously hard to reach through traditional marketing strategies. But successfully appealing to that demographic is becoming more and more important. Jay I. Sinha and Thomas T. Fung, marketing specialists at Temple University, explain how B2B companies can use “nano-marketing” techniques to generate buzz and build credibility with millennials.

Micro-influencers

Large companies have traditionally used celebrities and recognizable logos to promote their brands. But millennials have turned away from advertising and endorsements that aren’t perceived as authentic or based on expert knowledge.

Millennials have led a surge in the popularity of social media platforms, and companies have found increasing success in using sites like Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, and YouTube to market to this demographic.

[bctt tweet=”“Micro-influencers,” or social media users whose followers number between 1,000 and 100,000, have proven four times more likely to generate viewer engagement over the products they review than celebrity endorsements.” username=”Fronetics”]

“Micro-influencers,” or social media users whose followers number between 1,000 and 100,000, have proven four times more likely to generate viewer engagement over the products they review than celebrity endorsements. Partnering with micro-influencers is a highly affordable way for companies to make their brands visible and relatable.

Micro-influencers have helped turn start-ups into major brand-names and have helped established companies extend their influence into youthful markets, leading Inc. magazine to declare 2018 the “Year of the Micro-Influencer.”

Strategies for B2B companies

Sinha and Fung argue that this strategy is not just for B2C companies selling products known to appeal to millennial consumers. What’s known as nano-marketing, or partnership with micro-influencers, can be just as effective for B2B.

Sinha and Fung offer four managerial guidelines for B2B companies seeking to partner with micro-influencers.

1. Micro-influencers have specialized and self-selecting audiences.

Picking the right micro-influencer to partner with can help you target the sub-groups you want to reach. For instance, GE uses nano-marketing to help recruit female tech professionals.

2. Recognize the strengths of micro-influencers.

They make products and companies seem relatable to viewers by sharing their personal experiences. Companies can leverage this in their branding.

3. Nano-marketing works best as “a subtle nudge.”

Whereas traditional advertising has to be heavy-handed to be memorable, micro-influencers speak with credibility about brands that they personally have used.

4. Entertainment.

Micro-influencers find innovative ways of producing content that will appeal to their followers and incorporate their brand endorsement in creative formats.

Millennial B2B buyers should be an increasing focus of your targeted marketing activities — if they’re not already. How are you reaching this audience?

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5 Things to Do Before Starting an Influencer Marketing Campaign

by Fronetics | Sep 18, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Current Events, Logistics, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy, Supply Chain

Ask yourself these five questions before you dive headfirst into an influencer marketing campaign to set you on the right path.

We’ve been writing a lot lately about influencer marketing and how it can work for the supply chain. These campaigns can be extremely effective — but getting the most bang for your buck requires a strategic approach from the outset.

Before you start an influencer marketing campaign, ask yourself these 5 questions.

5 questions to ask before starting an influencer marketing campaign

1. Why do I want to use influencers?

According to Natasha Lekwa, influencer marketing and social media editor at Snapchat, it’s important to “make sure you have a clear idea why you want to use influencers.” Answers might include boosting brand awareness, gaining followers, or increasing sales, to name a few. But each of these answers will lead you to a different strategy.

Being fully and deliberately aware of why you’re embarking on a campaign will help you set key performance indicators, determine your audience, and “envision what success will look like at the end of the campaign.” You’ll also be able to choose strategically the best platform to use, based on your content and target demographic.

2. Who are my influencers?

It may seem obvious, but you’d be surprised how often businesses dive into an influencer marketing campaign without having fully identified key influencers in their sector.

Lekwa suggest using hashtags to search Instagram for appropriate influencers and advises not just focusing on the obvious influencers in your industry. In fact, exploring influencers in other related industries can help expand your reach.

3. Who are my micro-influencers?

[bctt tweet=”Micro-influencers can give you a much higher ROI than big stars, and audience engagement tends to get higher as social niches get narrower.” username=”Fronetics”]

So you’ve identified your major influencers. Now you can start thinking about your “micro-influencers,” those with 10K to 100K followers. “Micro-influencers can give you a much higher ROI than big stars, and audience engagement tends to get higher as social niches get narrower,” Lekwa says. And since engagement is the name of the game when it comes to any kind of social media marketing, micro-influencers can be enormously valuable.

4. What are your terms?

Since influencers tend to be content creators at heart, they often have plenty of great ideas. But it’s important that your goals are transparent and aligned.

“It’s important to be on the same page,” says Lekwa. “Having a clear contract that spells out what each side will execute will help manage expectations for both your team and for the influencer.” In fact, Lekwa points out that influencers generally appreciate having guidelines and “the big conceptual themes of a campaign handed to them.”

5. What is my own value?

Approaching influencers can be intimidating. As Forbes writer Andrey Slivka points out, “As you might expect from people who get deluged with free stuff, influencers can be hard to impress.” This means you need to be clear and specific when you approach them about what you have to offer.

“Especially with micro-influencers, who are building their brands, what you offer doesn’t always have to be monetary,” Lekwa says. Often, brands can offer influencers exposure, the prestige of having their own brand associated with a larger business, or the resources to improve their content production.

Influencer marketing can be daunting at first, but it’s a powerful tool of the supply chain. If you lay the right foundation, an influencer marketing campaign has the potential to expand your brand’s reach exponentially.

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