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Influencers B2B Lead Generation B2B Marketing

B2B marketers must begin thinking of influencers as being outside of the C-suite

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By Laurie Fullerton, Freelance Writer

July 11, 2017 | 3 min read

B2B marketers must ramp up their focus outside of the C-suite and look towards the in-demand marketing personas or influencers if they hope to increase pipeline development and revenue-driving opportunities.

As B2B marketing professionals continue to see a growing difference between market researchers and those that are the in-demand marketing personas that organizations are trying to acquire, it would behoove B2B marketers to gain a deeper insight into their target prospects - marketers targeting marketers.

B2B marketers must account for the varying levels of influencers within the buying committee that are now more commonly outside the C-suite.

Over the past 12 months, NetLine Corporation examined the content consumption activity taking place across their B2B content syndication lead generation network. The report captured real first-party data to measure activity and growth trends in B2B content consumption over the past 12 months and found that in the past year, 65% of lead generation campaigns excluded influencers outside the C-suite, which in fact make up 17% of the active marketing audience.

"Each and every stage of [the buyer's] journey now has unique content consumption behaviors and personas involved. Your strategy must account for the varying levels of influencers within the buying committee that are now more commonly outside the C-suite," said Robert Rose, chief strategy advisor of Content Marketing Institute, who encourages content marketing and demand generation teams to account for the influencers.

The report recommends three important states of content-based lead generation ranging from content strategy to targeting strategy, including an emphasis on the need for a balanced content strategy at every stage of the buyer’s journey.

"It’s simply not good enough to have a homogeneous content creation and distribution strategy for all aspects of the buyers journey. Each and every stage of that journey now has unique content consumption behaviors and personas involved," Rose said.

While senior leadership remained an important target for lead generation campaigns, organizations must realize that senior leadership does not drive the same level of content consumption activity. The report recommended a pivot to focus on the influencers.

"Marketers are often focused on one specific stage within the greater marketing-to-sales funnel, leaving them uneducated on opportunities for optimization,” Robert Alvin, CEO and founder of NetLine Corporation. “We want to help marketers see the bigger picture by providing the data necessary to make smarter decisions to increase revenue potential and campaign ROI."

Influencers B2B Lead Generation B2B Marketing

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