Trust is the holy grail of brand dimensions because it is so powerful. It allows consumers to take shortcuts in the buying process. (The gold medals on wine bottles are a perfect example, allowing normal people – those who aren’t wine experts – to quickly and easily identify a wine that won’t offend too many people.)
But trust is hard won for brands because brands are inherently less trusted than individuals. According to Nielsen’s Global Trust in Advertising Report, nearly 90% per cent of consumers around the world say they trust earned media, such as recommendations from friends and family, above all other forms of advertising.
It’s a confronting statistic, and even more so for B2B marketers when you consider how much more important word of mouth is in B2B purchasing. One analysis of the US suggested that while 19 per cent of the overall US economy is driven specifically by word of mouth, a whopping 91% of B2B transactions are influenced by word of mouth.
Nurture not nature
The B2B buying process can be long and drawn-out, with multiple decision-makers assessing complex products and proposals before committing to high-value purchase decisions.
While in some consumer goods categories, the journey from the top to the bottom of the sales funnel can be almost immediate – from ad to sale – the B2B sales journey often sees prospective customers hanging around in the middle of the funnel for weeks, months, even years before they buy.
This is the place you need to patiently nurture your audience, educating them about the details of your offering – how it solves their problems and meets their needs. This is also where you build their understanding and trust.
Content can amplify the reach and credibility of your sales team
One of the challenges in the nurturing phase of the buying journey is that it requires a constant presence, which can be very resource intensive. It also creates an inherent conflict for sales teams who are also expected to be relationship builders. That’s because the sales team metrics are often geared around hitting sales targets, making a focus on immediate buyers – at the expense of longer-term and possibly higher-value prospects – understandable.
This is where content can be so powerful, helping build the trust, understanding and credibility of your offering crucial to getting those prospects loitering in the middle funnel to move along, closer to buying. Online and multimedia content can also be fantastic for those organisations with small sales teams serving big, geographically diverse markets, as it allows them to amplify their presence and be seen as more credible and value-adding.
Two critical decisions brands need to make in relation to content are:
- What type of content, and
- Whom should it come from?
Decisions about the type of content will be driven by many factors, including the stage of the funnel you are creating the content for.
According to research by The Content Marketing Institute, the most effective content at the top of the funnel is blog posts and podcasts, whereas whitepapers and webinars are most effective in the mid-funnel nurturing stage.
Deciding whom the content should come from means in essence choosing the influencers in your market. And by ‘influencer’ we aren’t talking personal trainers spruiking activewear or superfoods on Instagram. And we don’t mean the bikini-clad celebrities (like Kendall Jenner) endorsing the Fyre festival (the greatest party to never happen). No, we mean those people who influence the understanding and trust in a specific product or service because they are a credible authority – either because they have deep subject matter expertise, they are a thought leader, or better still, they have substantial experience in using the product themselves.
One survey of B2B marketers found the most common influencers worked with were industry experts, followed by internal executives, niche experts, and of course customers.
In our world (Australian financial advice), the true influencers are those with deep expertise in portfolio construction, sequencing risk, tax-free uplifts, or SMSFs. Not sexy maybe, but incredibly influential.
And you guessed it, we are talking about advisors themselves.
Whilst the idea of influencer marketing may have a long history, with its roots in celebrity endorsements (going back as far as 1870 when Josiah Wedgewood started promoting the fact that the Royal Family used his cups and saucers), it has taken on heightened importance since Covid, when the traditional face to face techniques used by B2B marketers were put on ice.
For successful B2B marketers, the role of influence continues to increase
A study found 70% of marketers with extremely successful marketing programs include influencer marketing in their mix. Of those marketers, 60% say influencer marketing is their most successful tactic.
B2B marketers’ opinions about influencer marketing confirm its effectiveness. Over 70% agree their customers rely on advice from industry experts and insiders, while 62% say their influencer engagements have improved their customers’ brand experience. A Nielsen study found influencer marketing yielded 11x the ROI of traditional advertising.
Unsurprisingly, influencer-generated content is now attracting increasing amounts of focus and investment from marketers – with data suggesting 85% of B2B marketers expect to increase their influencer marketing budgets in the year ahead.
A community where advisors, thought leaders and experts come together.
Finding the right influencers to work with when creating content can be a time-consuming and risky process. Aligning your brand with an influencer who lacks credibility with your target audience can completely undermine the effectiveness of your communication, which is why a community can be a great place to start. Indeed, it is the deep understanding they have of their community that makes influencer marketing so powerful.
The Ensombl community is one where industry and niche experts come together with advisors, all sharing their expertise and experiences for the benefit of all community members. By tapping into real-life, advisor-led conversations taking place across the community, the insight-driven content we produce in conjunction with our corporate partners – tailored to the stage of the funnel we are targeting – is immediately seen as more credible, trusted, and valued by other advisors.
And ultimately that means more influence and a better ROI. Which almost sounds instaworthy.
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