Report: B2B Marketers are Still Experimenting with Influencer Marketing

As influencer marketing continues to grow in popularity, new research suggests that B2B marketers are still in the early phase of adopting this tactic.

The “Influence 2.0: The Future of Influencer Marketing” report from Traackr looked at how marketers are integrating influencer marketing (IM) into their overall strategies. Data shows that nearly half of B2B IM programs are still in the experimental phase. Thirty-six percent are campaign-driven, while 11 percent are ongoing programs. Just four percent of B2B IM programs are labeled as integrated.

Nearly 50 percent of survey respondents stated that they allocate less than $100,000 of their marketing budget to influencer marketing annually.

“Small budget investments indicate that influence is still practiced at the tactical level and, thus, it’s difficult to prove it as a strategic priority,” wrote the authors of the report.

Approximately 55 percent of marketers said they intend to spend more of their budget on influencer marketing in the future.

Reaping the Benefits of Influencer Marketing

Although influencer marketing can be beneficial, previous research indicates that it can be challenging to execute.

The “What Works in Online Marketing” report from AudienceBloom rated marketing tactics on a scale of 0 to 10 (10 being the best). PPC and influencer marketing exhibited the most ROI on average for marketers, ranking 6.86 and 6.83, respectively. However, influencer marketing was labeled as the most difficult tactic for marketers to execute.

Influencer marketing received 5.69 on a difficulty scale of 0 to 10 (10 being the most challenging). Other tactics that marketers struggled with were link building (5.34), off-site content marketing (5.31) and on-site SEO (4.89).