Business Influencer Marketing x Nearbound GTM Strategy: Part 1.

The concept of utilising connections and influential individuals is not new - we're seeing a return to successful strategies employed before the advent of the digital age: creating as many opportunities for conversation.

Business relationships were once forged through activities like golf outings and leisurely lunches. However, we have moved beyond relying solely on celebrity endorsements and instead seek those who have already achieved our desired goals and can direct us towards our destination.

At Flooencer we're all in with brand advocacy - however it may manifest itself. Employee and Customer advocacy, brand-to-brand partnerships and our specialism - working with external subject matter experts (business influencers)

So, joining our business influencer marketplace is super straightforward for brands and influencers.

So far, so good.

By utilising Flooencer's platform, brands can easily locate subject matter experts, while experts can effortlessly connect with those in need of their expertise. Furthermore, our platform ensures comprehensive coverage of payments, legal matters, and analytics, providing a sense of accountability for all parties involved.

This not only fosters a strong bond between them but also with the brand's audience - establishing a genuine connection based on trust, authenticity, and transparency.

So far, so very good. "Fantastic!" you exclaim.

This is exactly what you require to begin enhancing your marketing mix with a fresh new touch. Business influencer marketing is here to stay and you feel connected to the community, chatter, noise & what we hope is a strong signal on LinkedIn.

Yet, how does this novel facet of your marketing align with a larger framework?

Or is it standalone, i.e connection made, agreement reached, post written, post live, money changes hand, job done! - pretty much fire & forget?

(spoiler hint - No!).

B2C/D2C Influencer Marketing has been around for a long time and has earned the right to be classified as a subset or integral part of partnership marketing.

Partnership marketing entails the cooperation between businesses, organisations, or individuals to attain shared marketing objectives.

More specifically, business influencer marketing involves forming alliances with individuals who possess substantial knowledge, presence, a devoted following & a significant & sustained level of content engagement - in order to endorse products or services. Therefore, when a business joins forces with influencers to promote their offerings, it falls within the scope of partnership marketing.

We should propose the question:

Are you the right kind of marketer to lead AND deliver all brand advocacy measures effectively?

Partner & product marketers tend to have particular traits, i.e empathy, joining-the dots, relationship-building qualities.

If you are fortunate enough to have a both a partner marketer AND a product marketer in the business, your new business influencer campaign has the maximum chance of success. At the very least the Partner Officer will be an amazing internal advocate/mentor if they don't run the Business Influencer campaign themselves.

If you have either of them in the building, the potential is still very exciting. They'll also help you champion/optimise the initiative internally if you are responsible in traditional marketing.

Chief Partner Officers are still rare though.

It might come down to the fact historically we haven't had the right tooling, blueprints, or playbooks out there to help businesses replicate a successful partnership GTM.

If you have neither of these roles in the business, fear not, with the right mindset you can make an influential & compelling case for change in your business, especially if your customer acquisition cost is spiraling thanks to tired in/outbound tactics, or organic SEO endeavours struggling with more and more Google searches ending up without a click.

This can be a huge hat to wear on top of others if you are a digital/demand gen marketer however you can make a HUGE difference with a collaborative mindset and seeing the potential in all of this. The fit is good for a brand marketer, an even better fit for a product marketer and a hand in glove - head in hat fit for a partnership marketer.

Regardless of role, someone needs to step up, lead and represent the complete opposite of the widespread issue of isolated product marketing and/or partnership teams.

Merely possessing numerous users or collaborators does not ensure exponential growth. This is the downfall of isolating partnerships within a solitary department instead of integrating them into the very fabric of your organisation across all teams. Segregated partnership initiatives ultimately squander valuable time and resources on insignificant, isolated actions that never accumulate or generate a self-sustaining momentum.

This type of marketing requires those with skills and qualities particularly in

• Partner & Influencer marketing overall
• Strategic thinking
• Relationship-building skills
• Cross-functional collaboration (internal & external)
• Planning and delivering Go To Market (GTM) strategy

The GTM part here is key.

There is currently a remarkable transformation taking place in the global economy, a decade defining shift. In 2024, the inevitability of partnerships becomes apparent. This is not merely a prediction, but a current reality.

It is evident in the way businesses are re-evaluating their strategies and focusing on go-to-market approaches that prioritise partnerships over expensive & saturated direct acquisition.

This shift is centered around a new approach to reaching the market, which involves influencing customers through a network of reliable connections. Disconnected initiatives are not interconnected and harnessed within a diverse, self-renewing ecosystem and network.

Nearbound

In simple terms, this approach is known as "nearbound."

Jared Fuller is currently leading the nearbound industry in what could be the best ecosystem in B2B - the partnerships ecosystem.

This isn't a buzzword, or ivory tower academics, nor a short-lived hype-cycle on partnership marketing. Nor should it be undertaken at a superficial level by compensating creators or communities for brand exposure.

Easy to refer to it as a "partnership arrangement", but in reality, if you are not careful, it can often boil down to simply paying for your logo to be displayed "somewhere" or name mentioned fleetingly in a podcast.

Nearbound marketing goes beyond mere transactional marketing and necessitates genuine engagement in markets.

Nearbound is a specialised business strategy that establishes connections with buyers by leveraging the network of partnerships and relationships that encompass them. As a people-led B2B GTM approach, nearbound can be integrated from scratch, underneath or on top of existing outbound and inbound strategies.

However, the key distinction lies in its foundation: while outbound targets the customer and inbound attracts the customer, nearbound creates an ecosystem, enveloping & surrounding the customer within its network.

With the best intentions, you have long engaged in a fierce competition to ensure that relevant information reaches the appropriate individuals at precisely the right moment - the "How Economy".

In the era of the "Who Economy", purchasers adopt a completely different strategy. They initially seek advice from individuals they are acquainted with and have faith in. The level of acquaintance is naturally higher with brand partners, however this can apply to business influencer marketing. Instead of contrasting impersonal product evaluations, they depend on professionals already within their circles (and surfaced new ideal connections - i.e the business influencer), to offer suggestions grounded in practical encounters.

• Prospect: “Who can I ask that has already done this successfully?”
• Prospect: “Who is like me that’s done this before?”.
• Prospect: "Wow, I have heard of and rate X & I had no clue X had expertise in this area"
• Prospect: "My current supplier X is recommending I evaluate prospective supplier Y"
• You: "Ah, I see my partner X has recently sold to Y. I want to sell to Y could they help?"

Whilst the focus and emphasis is clearly on the partnership between brands, we can also draw many many parallels and apply them to our own area of expertise - business influencer marketing.

Partners and external influencers can help your prospects reach their promised land especially if they have authentically portrayed they have been to the places where your prospects want to go. If you get the right fit and alignment with an influencer, you will be able to show this possibly more than a brand partner.

Companies are now engaged in a battle for influence within their customer base. The question then arises: where does this influence originate? Undoubtedly, it does not stem from viral, short-lived content or extravagant celebrity endorsements.

Genuine influence is built upon trust, which is established by those who provide assistance and support. Partner or external subject matter experts can provide this, setting the stage for the nearbound approach of marketing with instead of marketing to.

It’s clear change is needed, but knowing how to implement it is a whole other kettle of fish. You may be thinking....

• "I need to hire a full time Partnerships manager asap"
• "Can't AI do all of this?".....

In the next article we'll go into a lot more detail on how you can get started with business influencer marketing with a Nearbound GTM twist, from a marketing perspective - supplying more of the practical steps, tactics & actions you'll need.

Following on from that, we'll move into Sales & Customer Retention.

Mark Pearcy.