Is influencer marketing a powerful new practice or just the latest marketing jargon? Lucy Fisher investigates
The term ‘influencer marketing’ has become fairly common currency within the field of B2B marketing in recent months. It has come to describe the practice of leveraging influencers such as bloggers who may impact the purchasing decisions of buyers who respect their opinion. But how effective is it?
Thomas Lloyd, digital marketing manager at Onalytica – an agency that has recently branched into influencer marketing – believes interest in the practice has come about as brands are recognising that end users have less trust in messages coming directly from companies than they once did. “Influencers may engender more trust,” he says, adding that the B2B buying cycle is based ‘heavily’ on influencers.
Lloyd says a business needs to define what an influencer looks like on a case-by-case basis: there is no one-size-fits-all definition of what an influencer will look like, he says. Then, it’s a case of building up relationships and seeking to deliver something of value to these people – whether that takes the form of content, invitations to events, or even – in some cases – money. But he notes that the initial identification stage is crucial, “or you’ll be putting your time and effort in the wrong direction”.

Internal or external management
Of course some companies will have a greater number of influencers to identify than others. Yet – despite working for one of the ‘big four’ accountancy firms – Jo Ouvry, director of corporate affairs at Deloitte, says her firm has a manageable amount of influencers it wants to communicate with. However, she says she sees little difference between the new term ‘influencer marketing’ and stakeholder management.
For Ouvry, it’s about a two-way dialogue, and she says the one-to-one communication inherent in influencer marketing is better off done by the brand itself rather than an agency. “For us, it’s about helping to inform [the influencers’] thought processes and also about understanding where they are coming from,” she says, while acknowledging that it may be useful to hire an agency if an organisation is seeking to track new influencers, or widen its sphere of influence, and inhouse resources are limited.
Onalytica’s Lloyd agrees that those organisations which would most benefit from outside help would be those with potentially large numbers of influencers they would like to identify and engage with. But he also notes there is a need for some degree of personalisation and the process cannot be fully automated.
But Rob Morrice, CEO of Stein IAS, is dubious about whether influencer marketing represents anything new or significant. He believes that 90 per cent of B2B marketing has always been about influence, given that “Ninety per cent of decisions are taken by multiple stakeholders”. He says that it’s the rise of bloggers and social media that has led to the term influencer marketing becoming increasingly commonplace – despite the fact that, for him, it’s certainly nothing revolutionary.
“In my opinion, it’s not a good term as decisions aren’t made separately,” he says. “We call our proprietary process here ‘a web of influence’: this recognises that some work for the target company, others don’t. I believe the term influencer marketing is associated with those who are not directly involved in the purchase.
“And paying influencers is not ethical unless it is declared and people know that they have been paid,” he adds. “A lot of people don’t declare it and I don’t like that at all.”

Measuring the impact
But James Trezona, managing director at agency Mason Zimbler, says that influencer marketing is a term he has come to use, and he likes it because: “It says what it does on the tin”. He argues, as many do, that this type of viral marketing is particularly effective in B2B, which tends to involve lengthy and considered purchase cycles. “The potential for ROI is fantastic,” he says. “You can engage in an authentic and honest way. That’s so important now for brands. And it’s good for B2B brands that don’t otherwise have ease of engagement.”
What’s more, he believes that it is increasingly the case that this type of marketing can be measured. “You used to need budgets of millions to do that but not anymore,” he claims.
However, Trezona does warn that, when attempting to influence an influencer with content: “It has got to be good. Feedback and reciprocity is really exciting, but it can be risky if not done well,” he warns, pointing out that a stakeholder may just delete uninspiring information or content, whereas an influencer may complain about it.
For Claire Macland, vice president, international marketing, at Avaya, influencers fall into two camps – one being the consultants, which have always existed in technology buying and have always been highly influential, and the other the newer group of influencers that have emerged on social channels. She points out that, whereas sales teams have always known the influence of consultants, mapping the impact of engagement with the second group of influencers is less easy to track. Unlike Trezona, Macland is firmly in the camp of those who believe social marketing methods have some way to go before the ROI is immediately evident, although she does note that Avaya noted a “huge” uplift in event attendance following an influencer marketing campaign.
“My hunch is that it is very important and still growing in importance,” she says. “We’ve managed to get our attendance on virtual events significantly increased, but the measurement of this type of activity is quite hard and it’s also quite labour-intensive.”
There’s one thing all agree on, however, and that is, if you want to incentivise influencers to talk positively about your brand, products or services and you are going to pay them to do so, you have to make it clear to your audience that the content, or opinion, has effectively been sponsored. Otherwise, the approach is at odds with the very thing that influencer marketing aims to deliver: authenticity. This is less of a challenge, of course, if your product or service actually delivers what it claims to.
Richard Fogg, managing director of CCgroup, believes the approach, when used in the right way, can be ‘phenomenally’ powerful. He points out that consumers, whether at home or in the workplace, trust earned media and recommendations over advertising now. “It’s about credibility and it’s about relationships,” he says. “I see influencer marketing as a reaction to early and frivolous adventures in social media. It’s about turning social media into something more productive.”