INFLUENCE MARKETING FUNNEL: HOW TO USE IT EFFECTIVELY?

75% of brands have dedicated a budget to influence marketing in 2021. Why? Even in B2B, influencer marketing has become an important lever to communicate with buyers during their buying journey.

From the top to the bottom of the sales funnel, influencer marketing helps you attract qualified leads, keep them engaged and convert them. So how does the influencer marketing funnel work? What strategy should you adopt at each stage? How do you measure your success? This article gives you all the answers!

Top of the funnel (TOFU): reaching new audiences
The top of your funnel represents the first contact with your company. In B2B, the potential customer takes the time to inform and surround himself before choosing a provider. At this stage, your goal is to increase awareness of your company.

In IMH’s 2020 Influencer Marketing Report, 40% of companies indicate that awareness is the primary goal of influencer campaigns.

Why use influencers at the top of the funnel?
So why are influencers so effective at building awareness?

They give brands access to a loyal and acquired audience: not only are these audiences often large, but they are also made up of groups that share common characteristics or interests with your buyers personae. This qualifies them for your sales funnel.

Influencers take your company’s identity and spread it to your audience. They know how to communicate with their community to enhance your services with authentic and relevant messages.

Influencers master storytelling. From introducing your company to demonstrating the results of your services, their storytelling and presentation skills are perfect for your marketing strategy.

What influencer marketing strategy to adopt at the top of the funnel?
At the top of the sales funnel, the leading content is :

Sponsored posts
Blog posts or guest blogging
Contests (if possible, because in B2B, it’s not always easy!)
Tip lists
What kind of influencers are in the top funnel?
The influencers you can rely on are mainly :

Press journalists (general and specialized)
Bloggers specialized in your field of activity
These platforms already have an established audience, your prospects regularly consult your articles and are attentive to the solutions that meet their needs.

Example of a successful campaign
Northwestern Mutual used storytelling in its latest influencer marketing campaign. The company reached out to business leaders impacted by the Covid crisis to tell their stories. The goal was to highlight the need for support and guidance for these entrepreneurs.

Northwestern Mutual then positioned itself as a partner to these struggling executives, humanizing its business and making itself known to other professionals. The company relied on social networks and traditional advertising to spread its campaign.

Metrics to analyze at the top of the funnel

How do you know if your influencer marketing campaign is effective right from the beginning of the funnel? Measure the engagement generated by your ambassadors via indicators such as

The number of likes on social media publications
The number of comments on publications (social media or blog)
Traffic to your website and landing pages
The growth of the number of subscribers on the company’s social networks
Growth in the number of subscribers to your newsletter
Middle of the funnel (MOFU): inform and educate the audience
The middle of the funnel refers to the consideration phase. It refers to repeated exposure to a product, brand, concept or event. Influencers are particularly useful for this phase!

Why use influencers in the funnel environment?
One of the main benefits of influencer marketing is its ability to drive customer engagement.

In the middle of the funnel, influencer content helps build relationships with prospects who already know your business. However, they need a push to trust you… and get known!

Here, action is your primary goal. You’re not just trying to build trust with potential buyers: you’re empowering them to make an intelligent buying decision.

What influencer marketing strategy to adopt for the funnel medium?
As mentioned, the goal at this stage is to drive engagement and action. You need to get prospects into a lead nurturing strategy by distributing – via influencers – high value-added content.

Your campaigns should encourage actions such as: subscribing to a trial offer, requesting an appointment or a quote, downloading a white paper, registering for an event…

To do this, you need to organize one-off campaigns, comprising a series of content over a given period. By introducing a product or service to a customer more than once, they are much more likely to remember it when making a purchase decision.

Fortunately, influencers know exactly what to do to facilitate both industry knowledge and that emotional connection.

Engaging content to introduce in the middle of the funnel includes:

Product or service reviews
Trial offers
Live sessions co-hosted with an influencer
Interventions in webinars or podcasts

What kind of influencers for the mid-funnel?
To achieve your mid-funnel goals, you can rely on:

Your satisfied customers: especially if they have an efficient presence on social networks, with an active community
Bloggers who are experts in your industry
Journalists working in specialized media
B2B influencers with a profile similar to your buyers personae
Another tip: at this stage, it is advisable to diversify your influencers to better hammer home your message and expose it to as many people as possible. In order to increase repetition, which is essential to stay in the minds of buyers, it’s better to spread your influencer marketing budget among several micro-influencers (between 10,000 and 100,000 followers), rather than investing in a single “star” influencer.

Example of a successful campaign
Content planning tool DivvyHQ was looking to improve its brand awareness and reputation. The solution? Use 30 marketing influencers to run a strong campaign.

These influencers wrote articles and participated in video interviews on the theme of “Back to the Future. The objective was to express themselves on the future of content marketing by talking about a research report published by DivvyHQ. A report used to generate leads.

Results: Each campaign increased the number of downloads of the research report by 300% and conversions by 140% in the week following its publication.

Why use influencers at the bottom of the funnel?
71% of buyers are more likely to contact a company based on recommendations. During their consideration, B2B prospects check the e-reputation of companies that can meet their needs and rely on the recommendations of recognized experts.

Which influencer marketing strategy to adopt for the bottom of the funnel?
Depending on your product or service, conversion goals may include direct purchases, trial sign-ups and/or subscriptions.

When planning your conversion campaign, you should clearly indicate to your ambassador which call-to-actions to integrate in their publications. Ideally, they will send prospects to a landing page where they can sign up (for a special discount or trial offer, for example).

As for the content to put in place at this stage, you can choose between :

Product reviews
Video content about the experience of using your products/services
User guides for your services
White papers or co-published reports
You can also integrate influencer content on your website. For example, reference an ambassador who has already used your products or services on your landing pages or in your blog posts. You can even add one of their quotes to your calls to action.

What kind of influencers for the bottom of the funnel?
Micro and nano-influencers (less than 10,000 followers) are particularly good at driving sales. Their audience is small, highly engaged and composed of professionals who do the same job as the target. They are usually the colleagues of your potential customers.

Your current customers and employees are also excellent ambassadors at this level.

However, all types of influencers can generate sales. By maintaining long-term relationships with them, you can identify the best performers at this stage, regardless of the size of their community.

Example of a successful campaign
Cisco’s ambassador program, called the Cisco Champions program, is a great example of bottom-of-funnel influencer marketing. Here, influencers (who are customers of the company) are invited to share their expertise on Cisco products on YouTube, during company events, on LinkedIn and on Twitter.

Cisco’s B2B influencer marketing program also allows these “champions” to enhance their skills and knowledge by connecting with other professionals. The company also offers them exclusive invitations to events, access to its products and recognition as incentives.