Category Archives: Research findings

How will the ‘social influence platforms’ justify their business after this week’s Buyersphere 2015 report?

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B2B Marketing mag, BaseOne, Buyersphere Report 2015,, Influencer Marketing, Influencer50, The Buyerside Journey.comI’m looking forward to seeing if, and how, the Twitter-trawling ‘social influence platforms’ react to this week’s Buyersphere 2015 report from B2B Marketing & BaseOne. I wrote about it yesterday.

The standout finding was that 50% of all B2B purchasing decision-makers didn’t use social media at all to shape their buying decisions and that just 5% of the >200 respondents said they referred to Twitter at any stage for help in their decision-making process. This was the second-lowest score, just edging out the 4% who used Pinterest.

So when agencies trawl Twitter for the noisiest people on particular subjects, and then sell that information to vendors / brands claiming them to be the key market influencers, perhaps the vendors will start to think again. How can they still back up that claim?

http://www.b2bmarketing.net/resources/buyersphere-report-2015

 

As a vendor, what would you most like from what you consider your Influencer Marketing outreach?

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Influencer50, Influencer Marketing, As a vendor, what would you most like from what you consider your Influencer Marketing outreach?Influencer50 will shortly be conducting a survey of Heads of Marketing at B2B organizations in the U.S. If you’d like to take the survey please let us know. We’ll be publishing the results in late-Jan or early-Feb’15.

There are just five questions.

1. What pain-point incentivised you to commission an Influencer Marketing program?

– Disappointing closure-rate on sales

– Lack of knowledge in new market

– Unfocused marketing spend / allocation

– Need to prove sales / marketing alignment

– Acknowledgement that “we can always do better”

– Other

 

2. What were the core skills you wanted from your choice of Influencer Marketing partner?

– Experience working with similar peer companies

– Greater understanding of B2B decision-making

– Social media expertise

– Already integrated into our Marketing Dept.

– Other

 

3. At the outset of the program what was the single most important outcome you hoped to achieve?

– Understanding the degree to which our prospects are influenced by online / offline / social channels.

– Broadening the reach of our social media outreach.

– Understanding the identities of our prospects’ top influencers.

– A better understanding about how our prospects make their purchasing decisions.

– Near-term conversion of these influencers into sales opportunities

– Other

 

4. Having seen the results, what was the greatest surprise in your eventual findings?

– We already knew most of the influencers.

– The key individual influencers weren’t who we expected them to be.

– There are many more influencers impacting our prospects than expected.

– The balance between offline / online / social influencers was not as expected.

– Those influencers identified have increased our confusion.

– Other

 

5. In hindsight, where do you believe you were previously wasting most budget / effort beforehand, if at all?

– We were reaching out to the wrong people.

– We were reaching out to too many people.

– Our outreach just wasn’t reaching enough people. It’s a numbers game.

– We had no data to justify who we were contacting.

– We were not focusing enough on social media outreach to reach them.

– We were focusing too much on social media outreach to reach them.

– There was no waste. We weren’t previously investing in influencer outreach.

– Other

New Influencer50 White Paper – WP#17: Commissioning an Influencer Program: What is the Cost of Inaction?

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Influencer50, Nick Hayes, Influencer Marketing, WP#17: Commissioning an Influencer Program: What is the cost of Inaction?Our company’s latest White Paper – WP#17: Commissioning an Influencer Program: What is the Cost of Inaction? – is published today.

Here’s the intro:

In recent months there has been much talk in sales circles about measuring the cost of inaction. A recent survey from CSO Insights confirmed that ‘No decision’ was now the single largest barrier to sales for B2B vendors. For an Influencer Identification program, typically commissioned by the Head of Marketing, what is the cost of inaction, making ‘no decision’ or putting the idea on the backburner until the following quarter?

We see six main flags you should consider.

  1. Continue focusing resources on people who have minimal influence on your buyers – chasing media coverage your prospects wont see, briefing analysts that your prospects don’t follow, sponsoring conferences that your prospects wont notice, supporting forums that merely act as industry echo chambers. 
  2. Losing your ‘window of opportunity’ in the market. The same window that was described in your business plan as being so critical.
  3. Not hearing of new prospect RFPs early enough in the process because you weren’t well networked enough with those at the head of the food chain. 
  4. Allowing your competitors to respond more completely to RFPs and prospect enquiries, with them having already connected with the best choice of industry partners. 
  5. Allowing your competitors to gain a competitive advantage by spending their time embedding their thoughts into the right people
  6. Further expanding your social media outreach with content marketing collateral when your prospects (and their influencers) may not even look at those channels.

It incorporates our latest thinking on the subject, as well as the findings from an email questionnaire we recently issued to Heads of Marketing in US-based B2B organisations asking their opinions on five questions relating to their Marketing Outreach. We had over 150 responses. You can benchmark your own opinions against them.

You’re welcome to download a copy here:

http://www.influencer50.com/influencer50-library-pass.aspx

Does your Head of Marketing have a plan for who you/they most want to meet or be introduced to during 2014?

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We’ve rarely, if ever, heard of this happening, but it’s a legitimate question. Aside from perhaps telling their PR company that the agency is to seek interviews with three or four named national print papers, and perhaps an industry analyst firm or two (it will rarely be named individuals there, almost always the name of the newspaper or analyst firm). 

The reason no such outreach plan exists is perhaps for two reasons. One (we’d like to think) is that the Head of Marketing knows who they should seek meetings with, but doesn’t want the interviews to be with themselves. The second (and we think perhaps more likely) is that they don’t actually know the names of the individuals who they (or the most appropriate member of their company) should be meeting with.

If you haven’t already written that list down, is there a reason for not doing so? If you were to attempt to write that list now, how many individuals (not firms) could you honestly name?

‘WP#17: Commissioning an Influencer Program: What is the Cost of Inaction?’ will be available from 24th Feb’14.

How often do you, or someone in your team, try to remove any ‘deadwood’ from your top-tier of influencers?

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Imagine your company is outreaching to say 70 or 80 named individuals in meetings, top-level invitations, phone calls etc. They’re considered your top-tier industry contacts (aside from actual sales prospects). How many would also have been on that list four or five years ago? If you’re still outreaching to the same market as then? Perhaps 20%?

Here’s a further excerpt from the new White Paper we’re publishing later this week.

We asked: “How often do you, or someone in your team, try to remove any ‘deadwood’ from your top-tier of influencers?” (‘deadwood’ meaning no longer relevant or justifying their presence in your top-tier).

The response sample size was 157.

Influencer50, Influencer Marketing, Nick Hayes, WP#17: Commissioning an Influencer Program - What is the Cost of Inaction?

‘WP#17: Commissioning an Influencer Program: What is the Cost of Inaction?’ will be available from 24th Feb’14.

What categories of Influencer do most Heads of Marketing meet?

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If you’re a Head of Marketing at your firm you might like to benchmark your own findings with these. Here’s an excerpt from the new White Paper we’re publishing later this week.

We were considering the common ‘hit-rate’ of meetings with your presumed influencers. For every ten meetings what would be your expected outcome? How many would you expect to yield positive feelings at the end of the meeting. Or after one month? What failure rate would you deem acceptable? (Failure measured as “in hindsight, the meeting had no tangible benefit to us.” Two out of ten? Four out of ten? Six?

In Dec & Jan we issued short questionnaires by email to a number of U.S.-based marketing managers in both B2B and B2C organisations. All were considered senior enough to be meeting with potential partners, media, analysts, etc. The response sample size was 157.

We asked: “What categories of typical market influencer have you had (or have you set up) 1-to-1 meetings with in the past six months?”

(Of course, these aren’t the full range of Influencers, just those that ranked highest in the responses.)

Almost one-third had met at least one traditional journalist in the past six months. One-sixth had met an industry analyst.

Less than 2% had met an academic, standards body or industry regulator!

Influencer50, Influencer Marketing, Nick Hayes, WP#17.Commissioning an Influencer Program: What is the cost of Inaction?

‘WP#17: Commissioning an Influencer Program: What is the Cost of Inaction?’ will be available from 24th Feb’14.

How do you cost-justify your Influencer Outreach Program?

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Influencer50, Nick Hayes, Influencer Marketing, WP#17 What is the cost of Inaction?

Here’s an excerpt from the new White Paper we’re publishing later this week.

“We proactively asked twenty of our clients how their companies were cost-justifying their Influencer Outreach program. (Of course, since we work with them we already knew the answer in most cases, but we asked again for this Paper.) 

  • Option a. Hard metrics such as Number of Leads generated, or Value of Potential Deals discussed?
  • Option b. Softer metrics such as Number of Influencers met, or Amount of Tangible Outcomes?
  • Option c. Or just simply ‘Does it feel like this is moving in the right direction for us?

Responses:

  • Option a. Three of the 20 respondees
  • Option b. Eight of the 20 respondees
  • Option c. Four of the 20 respondees
  • Two said a mixture of a and b.
  • Three said a mixture of b and c.

So the median chose to cost-justify the outlay either solely through Number of Influencers Met, Amount of Tangible Outcomes, etc. or with a leaning towards a more ‘feelgood factor’ than that.

Only 25% used harder metrics.

A further 20% were comfortable relying on less metrics and more subjectivity.”

‘WP#17: Commissioning an Influencer Program: What is the Cost of Inaction?’ will be available from 24th Feb’14.

Small U.S. businesses show a five-year near 40% drop in single-signoff expenditure thresholds.

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i50 logoOur research into the buying behavior of almost 100 small companies in the U.S. shows that discretionary budget allowances – the amount at which a mid-management line manager or similar can approve a purchase without needing a second signature – has now fallen from an average $10,400 in 2008 to just $6,290 in 2013.*

Considering the median size of these small businesses was those with 32 non-manual labor employees (so removing many small warehouse, distribution and construction organizations and skewing the results towards office-based operations), this is a pretty significant finding. In five years that’s a near 40% reduction in a line manager’s budget autonomy.

The upshot is that the role of ‘influencer ecosystems’ is filtering down the purchase funnel, now affecting significantly more, and smaller, purchases than previously the case. Even fewer purchase decisions are being made alone.

This presents greater challenges to salespeople of course, because even if they do reach the decision-maker in a small organization that individual will now not be making up their mind on their own. The salesperson will need greater help in ‘closing off’ the members of any ad-hoc decision-making committee. Vendors will need to have reached, and influenced, these key influencers well in advance of any purchase decision being made.

This inescapable trend in small business buyer behavior further elevates the center-stage role now being taken by ‘influencer marketing’.

* Influencer50’s research comprised responses from 97 U.S.-based small businesses (less than 250 employees, not including manual or part-time labor), across five industry sectors – retail, manufacturing, services, technology, transport. Research conducted between Jun-Oct’13.

Influencer50’s Global B2B Influencer Survey, 2013

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Influencer50, Influencer Marketing, Nick Hayes, The Buyer-side Journey

Our company Influencer50 has just issued its latest Global B2B Influencer Survey 2013 – showing the real importance of offline to online to social influencers in B2B buying decisions. What it shows is that somewhat over 50% of B2B influence on real buyers is being conducted offline, a little over a third primarily online (i.e through Google-type searches) and 5-10% primarily through social channels. There are small differences in these numbers from continent to continent but the narrative is the same.

What’s particularly interesting is that even amongst the ‘social influencer’ channel – this influence is through LinkedIn and interest-specific communities way more than Twitter.

And the third take-away – approx. 60% of top influencers have a Twitter account, yet only one-third of those have posted to it in the past two months. So hard to call them exactly active tweeters.

Here’s the released Survey’s details:

Global B2B Influencer Survey shows Social Media, despite the hype, is still NOT a major primary influencer for B2B purchases

Offline and Online influencers are the clear two most significant channels for influence, with ‘social influencers’ a very distant third.

For B2B products & services costing >$1000 – average 68% of key influencers are primarily offline, 26% online, 5% social

For B2B products & services costing >$100 but less than $1000 – average 48% of key influencers primarily offline, 40% online, 12% social

Influencer50, the award-winning Influencer Identification, Engagement & Measurement firm announces the results of its Global B2B Influencer Survey 2013, conducted over one year across four continents. Over 36,000 B2B-oriented individuals were evaluated – the company’s largest aggregated survey to date. The survey seeks to identify the relative importance of offline, online and so-called ‘social influencers’ in B2B purchasing and adoption decisions.

Influencer50 amalgamated the results of 58 B2B research projects from Oct’12-Sept’13, across forty-one countries. Small but significant differences were found in the make-up of those top influencers from one continent to another.

This table shows through which channel the top B2B influencers (for all values of product & services) primarily influence (they can obviously influence across more than one channel, but only one channel was considered primary).

B2B sector Offline Online Social
US (aggregate) 60.7 31.3 7.7
US products & services >$1000 68 26 5
US products & services >$100 <$1000 48 40 12
Europe 62.9 29.8 7.3
AsiaPacific 56.8 33.7 9.5
Average 60.8% 31.2% 7.9%

(The Average totals in the table are weighted to take into account the scale of data from each region).
Offline Influence is defined as influence conducted through in-person meetings or conversations, either face-to-face or to a group, phone conversations, etc.
Online Influence is defined as influence conducted through online search results and/or browsing.
Social Influence is defined as influence conducted through, but not limited to, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.

The survey results show that while influence conducted primarily through social media channels is significant, averaging almost 8% of the influence on B2B purchasers, it takes only a very distant third place to online and offline channels. And the numbers are not trending dramatically towards social media. Yet there remains overwhelmingly more industry ‘buzz’ about social channel influence than about offline influence.

“We just don’t understand why so much noise is being created by those talking about ‘social influence’ when it’s clear that B2B buyers aren’t actually listening. Just look at who’s contributing to those conversations – it’s all marketing agencies and contractors. All the sellers are on Twitter but that’s not where the B2B buyers are. Everyone seems to be conveniently ignoring that. The real influencers are much harder to find than simply trawling Twitter for who tweets most often. It’s apparently too much trouble for most people to track down the real influencers.” – Nick Hayes, Principal of Influencer50 Inc.

Influencer50, Influencer Marketing, Nick Hayes

As part of its research, Influencer50 also analysed the use of Twitter amongst its identified top influencers. While the majority of top influencers across each region did have their own Twitter account, less than one-half had posted any updates in the past two months, so making their account effectively inactive.

Percentage of top B2B influencers active on Twitter:

Own a Twitter account Posted in past two months
US 68% 36%
Europe 61% 29%
AsiaPacific 66% 27%

“There’s been so much talk over the past eighteen months about so-called ‘social influencers’. All these digital agencies have hijacked the term influencer marketing to relate to those on social platforms – mainly Twitter. That’s never jibed with our own experience of B2B purchase decision-making so we spent a year collating data on the subject.

“Social media may be having a very different effect in consumer sectors than it is in B2B. And it’s certainly reshaping our personal culture. But in the commercial sector the agenda for influencer marketing is being pushed by people with a vested interest – largely by digital marketing agencies who want to sell their clients on various social listening programs.”

“What’s also interesting is that it’s through LinkedIn, rather than Twitter, where most of that social media influence is conducted. That’s a story that often gets lost when agencies discuss social influence – because LinkedIn is much more difficult for them to trawl than Twitter.”

“The wider picture is that it’s part of this generational shift towards marketing automation. There’s a drive towards ensuring everything can be measured and scaled. These social influence platforms tick both those boxes. No-one seems to care that what they’re measuring might effectively be junk in terms of increasing a company’s sales. It’s a race based around ‘the emperor’s new clothes’. The industry needs to get back to addressing real-world buyer behavior – and many of the ‘influence marketing’ providers seem to be ignoring that.”

Influencer50’s clients include Microsoft, IBM, Wal-Mart and Michelin amongst many others.

This research comprised research across four continents and forty-one countries analyzing a combined 36,218 B2B-oriented individuals. The continents were North America, Europe, Asia and, to a lesser extent, Africa.

– ends

Contact:
Ty Holden
Influencer50 Inc.

Influencer50’s Global B2B Influencer Survey 2013: Advance Teaser – Only 1/3 of top influencers posting to Twitter in the past 2 months.

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One headline from Influencer50’s forthcoming Global B2B Influencer Survey 2013. The full survey announcement on Dec 12th.

Influencer50, Influencer Marketing, Nick Hayes, B2B Influencer Survey '13Sneak peak:

As part of its research, Influencer50 analysed the use of Twitter amongst its identified top influencers. While the majority of top influencers across each region did have their own Twitter account, less than one-half had posted any updates in the past two months, so making their account effectively inactive.

This equates to only one-third of all top B2B influencers posting to Twitter in the past two months.

Percentage of top B2B influencers active on Twitter:

Own a Twitter account Posted in past two months
US 68% 36%
Europe 61% 29%
AsiaPacific 66% 27%

“There’s been so much talk over the past eighteen months about so-called ‘social influencers’. All these digital agencies have hijacked the term influencer marketing to relate to those on social platforms – mainly Twitter. That’s never jibed with our own experience of B2B purchase decision-making so we spent a year collating data on the subject.” – Nick Hayes, Principal of Influencer50 Inc.

“It doesn’t even mean that the one-third who have recently posted on Twitter were at all prominent on a relevant subject – they might have been very far down the ‘long tail’ – posting just once on an unconnected topic. So even trawling Twitter for industry talk doesn’t mean anyone would have found them. Twitter is not where the real influence in B2B is being conducted – despite every marketing depts. keenness to be active there.”

This research comprised research across four continents and forty-one countries analyzing a combined 36,218 B2B-oriented individuals. The continents were North America, Europe, Asia and, to a lesser extent, Africa.

– ends

Contact:
Ty Holden
Influencer50 Inc.

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