B2B content marketing is crucial for any effective marketing plan. To succeed globally, businesses must harness the influence of local influencers. Collaborating with local influencers not only builds trust but also allows targeted content to reach a worldwide audience.
How can B2B businesses make sure their content gets noticed and trusted by their target audience? This is where influencers, or experts in the B2B field, come in.
Especially when expanding to international markets with different languages, collaborating with well-known local experts allows B2B companies to enhance their global content marketing. This ensures that their message connects with diverse international audiences.
By working with these experts, B2B companies can build a strong community around their brand over time. This community then generates inbound leads and fosters growth in international markets.
In this blog, we will discuss the strategies and advantages of using local influencers to achieve success in B2B content marketing on a global level.
How to Collaborate with Local Influencers
Are you wondering how to find the perfect small business collaboration to establish your business in a new market? Moreover, how can you build a relationship with them that encourages them to collaborate with you?
Let’s explore the steps to identify and connect with local influencers and small businesses to expand your business’s authority in a new market.
Set Clear Goals for Your Content Marketing
Before diving into content marketing, it’s important to define specific and achievable goals. Without clear objectives, it becomes challenging to measure your success or determine if your efforts are making a difference.
Common goals in content marketing include increasing brand awareness, engaging with your target audience, generating leads, and driving sales. To establish your goals, closely examine your overall business objectives and consider what you want to accomplish through content marketing.
Be realistic with your goals and set measurable milestones along the way. This helps you keep an eye on how well you’re doing and make changes to your plan if needed.
Here are some tips to help you set content marketing goals:
Involve Relevant Departments
To make your goals actionable, include the relevant departments within your company. For instance, if you aim to increase brand awareness, collaborate with your marketing and publicity teams. If you want to drive sales, involve your sales force in the goal-setting process.
Be Specific
Avoid vague goals in content marketing. Instead, clearly define your specific goals and objectives. Set numerical targets whenever possible. For instance, instead of trying to “make more people aware of your brand,” try to “make more people aware of your brand by a specific percentage (X percent).”
Set A Timeline
Establishing a timeline for achieving your goals keeps them realistic and prevents procrastination. It ensures you consistently work towards your objectives.
Research Local Influencers in Your Industry
The first step in successful B2B content marketing is understanding your target audience. Once you have identified your target audience, it’s time to research local influencers who can assist you in reaching them.
Local influencers can be valuable allies in your content marketing strategy. They have established connections with your target audience and can help you expand your content’s reach.
Consider the following when researching local influencers:
Brand Alignment
Ensure that the influencers you consider align with your brand. It’s crucial to partner with influencers who share your values and won’t harm your reputation.
Adequate Following
Partnering with influencers who have a substantial following is essential. Working with influencers who lack a significant audience won’t have a meaningful impact on your marketing efforts.
Engagement with Audience
Look for influencers who actively interact and engage with their followers. Influencers who have a strong connection with their audience are more effective in promoting your content.
Relevance to Your Industry
Choose influencers who are relevant to your industry. Collaborating with influencers outside your industry won’t yield the desired results.
Create A Pitch for Why They Should Collaborate with You
Here are three simple steps to start collaborating with local influencers:
Set Clear Goals
Determine what you want to achieve by working with local influencers. This could be reaching new audiences, increasing brand awareness, or promoting your company’s message.
Research and Choose Wisely
Not all influencers are the same. Take the time to research and find influencers who align with your brand’s values. Look at their social media presence and consider their audience size and engagement rates.
Make Your Pitch
Reach out to the selected influencers and explain why you want to collaborate with them. Share your goals and provide specific ideas on how you can work together to promote your company’s message effectively.
Reach Out and Start Building Relationships
Creating a successful B2B content marketing strategy requires collaboration and reaching the right people.
But how do you find and connect with the right local influencers? Here are four simple suggestions to help you begin:
- Use social media listening tools
2. Check out local industry events
3. Search for local thought leaders online
4. Ask for recommendations from your network
Work Together to Create High-Quality Content
In the ever-evolving world of marketing, adaptability is key. One area where this is particularly true is content marketing. Merely creating excellent content is no longer sufficient. To truly succeed, marketing teams must learn to collaborate with local influencers to ensure their content reaches the right audience.
Collaborating with local influencers offers several benefits. Firstly, it ensures that your content is effectively distributed to your target audience. Local influencers possess a deep understanding of their communities and can help you connect with the right people.
Secondly, working with influencers adds credibility to your content. When potential customers see that your content is endorsed by someone they trust, they are more likely to take it seriously.
Lastly, collaborating with local influencers saves both time and money. Instead of trying to reach a global audience through conventional means, working with influencers allows you to focus your efforts and maximize efficiency.
Role of Local Influencers & SMEs in International B2B Content Marketing
To ensure credibility and trust in the B2B buying process, involving local influencers and SMEs is vital.
- B2B buyers heavily rely on research, with 70% conducted before reaching out to sales teams.
- Online content significantly influences vendor selection for 87% of buyers
- 78% of referrals generate valuable customer leads
These statistics highlight the need for a reliable source of information during research.
Partnering with SME influencers is crucial for building trust, especially when expanding into diverse international markets. Targeted influencer marketing has proven successful for up to 86% of B2B brands.
However, selecting influencers relevant to specific markets is essential for content to resonate with local target audiences. For instance, an SME from New York City may not have much impact when targeting customers in Tokyo.
Summary
Working together with local influencers can greatly contribute to the success of your global B2B content marketing. It involves finding and connecting with influencers who are relevant to your industry, creating valuable and engaging messages, collaborating on authentic content, utilizing their networks, and monitoring the performance of your campaigns. By implementing these strategies, businesses can expand their audience, build trust in their brand, and attract potential customers from around the world.
To stay competitive in today’s B2B landscape, it’s important to recognize the significant impact that local influencers can have on your content marketing endeavors.
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