EP. 92- SECRETS to B2B INFLUENCER MKTG [GUEST] Brianna Doe: Ranked TOP 50 LinkedIn Creator WORLDWIDE!

Welcome to do this, not that, the podcast for marketers. You'll walk away from each episode with actionable tips you can test immediately.

You'll hear from the best minds in marketing who will share tactics, quick wins, and pitfalls to avoid. Also, dig into life, pop culture, and the chaos that is our everyday. I'm Jay Schwedelson. Let's do this, not that.

Before we jump into today's episode, I am super excited to share that today's guest, Brianna Doe, has just joined the Guru Podcast Network with her brand new incredible podcast called Stop the Scroll. Brianna has been named a top 50 LinkedIn creator worldwide and is the leading voice in B2B influencer marketing.

Influencer marketing is exploding and Brianna's new podcast is an incredible new resource to get the latest. All right, check it out on all platforms Stop the Scroll podcast and also you could find it on gurupodcastnetwork.com okay, here's today's episode.

Welcome back to do this, not that today's gonna be awesome because you're not just gonna hear me just jab around about nothing. We have an incredible guest. Let me tell you who she is before she even tells you about her self. So Brianna Doe is here now.

Brianna Doe is the co founder and CMO of a company called Verbatim. And Verbatim is super cool. It's an agency, but it really also specializes in B2B influencer marketing. And Brianna Doe is an influencer herself.

She may not even say that, but she is okay.

You.

Sometimes you go on LinkedIn and you see somebody, they go, oh, they're kind of cool. They got 700 connections. They know some people. Brianna has 200,000 connections. Who has 200,000 connections? That's unbelievable.

She's like, connected to a small country, so she knows what she is talking about. I'm so happy to have her here. So. So, Bri, welcome to do this, not that.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited. And that was a better introduction than I could give for myself.

Well, let's go a little bit deeper though, because I went service level. How did Bri become Bri? Who are you? What is your story?

Yeah, so I got started in marketing about 12 years ago. Originally I was going to go into film. I studied film and media.

I wanted to be a screenwriter and quickly realized how much I love all things marketing. I love storytelling. I love the data behind it.

So graduated from college, dove right in, worked in house for over a decade with early stage and later Stage startups and Then decided it was time to go out on my own, launch an agency with my co founder Alexis and we've been off to the races ever since.

I love it. I love the ride that you're on. And what we're going to talk about today are some quick win strategies in the world of influencer marketing.

And let me tee it up for a second. I, I would say the most exciting channel of marketing with explosive growth right now is the world of influencer marketing.

When I say that, a lot of times people like. Oh, you mean like Kim Kardashian promoting something?

No, I read a stat the other day that said 90% of influencer marketing deals are with people that have under 100,000 followers or connections.

And so the world of influencer marketing is, is everywhere and specifically going to talk about a category of it that really doesn't get enough attention. That's business to business influencer marketing.

So Bri, give us first before we get into the tips or tactics or whatever, what is the world of influencer marketing like right now? B2B. What's going on there?

B2B. Influencer marketing is extremely exciting right now. So when most people think about influencer marketing, they think about B2C.

You think about Instagram, TikTok, even Pinterest and like a D2C company trying to reach its customers. So with B2B, we're seeing more and more brands really start to navigate this and start testing it out.

And the exciting thing about that is it's so new. It's like the wild, wild west for B2B. And so people are, content creators are able to work with brands in different ways.

Brands are experimenting and trying new things. So it's definitely the right time to start testing it out.

So for me, I'll be on LinkedIn and once in a while I'll see somebody I know that has a good following and they'll do a post and be like, check out this piece of content. And they'll have a hashtag, so and so partner. Right? And I'm like, oh, I guess they're like an influencer for that brand or something.

And I'm always like, how did they get connected? Like, what went down behind the scenes? How does it all work? So if I wanted to like hire an influencer to do stuff, how does it work?

Like, how do you actually get started with B2B influencer marketing?

So first step that you cannot skip is understanding who, who your audience trusts, like what niche are they in? How does it connect with your industry? Why do they trust this person. Are they engaging with their content?

And once you have like a short list of potential influencers or content creators that could be a really good fit, send them a dm, send them an email if it's on their profile and see if they're open to brand partnerships. I would venture to say a lot of them are, especially when it's for a product or service that their values align with.

But you can just start the conversation there, figure out what kind of content they're interested in creating, if it's a sponsored post, like what you mentioned, or even co creating content for your platform.

So when you find somebody, let's say somebody you know, okay, I've been following this person. I'd love for them to work out a deal with our brand because I really think it could amplify it.

I get that because you're like, you're drinking the Kool Aid there, you're see, you know what they're all about.

But if you're on the hunt for other people in your category, can you just look at somebody's like on LinkedIn, their, their follower account, okay, they got 50,000 followers, they're really good. Or you really need to spend time knowing them. Like, does it matter if you really don't follow them every day?

You as the brand.

Yeah, you as the brand.

It doesn't necessarily matter if you follow them every day because that's part of the thing with LinkedIn that's making influencer marketing so interesting to navigate, is that there isn't really a system in place to help brands easily find content creators. As opposed to Instagram, where influence marketing is so large.

You can look at certain hashtags, you can search by titles, it's just a different platform to navigate. So it's okay if you have not been following them. However, do not stop at their follower count. That's great.

Like if they have 50,000, if they have 10,000, that's one piece of the puzzle. But there's engagement rate or engagement in general.

So when you look at their content and you figured out that yes, it aligns with our product, it aligns with our values and our mission. Look past that. Are people actively engaging with their posts?

Are they saying simple things like great posts, or are they really starting conversations?

Because that's how you're going to start to measure, engage how much impact they have and how much their community actually trusts them and wants to engage in conversations with them. And I would say that even above follower count is really, really crucial.

So how do you Find people. How do you get started there? Is there tools out there? Is there a search engine I don't know about? Like, how do you do this?

So one way to find this out natively on LinkedIn's platform is to pick a keyword. So let's say I just picked revops. Maybe I'm a rev ops platform.

So if I go into the search bar and type in RevOps and then go to the hashtag section, scroll down, it'll show you people who have creator mode on. So they're actively creating content on LinkedIn and who choose to associate with that word specifically.

So that's one way to just start dipping your toes in the water and seeing if there are people in your industry or niche that could be a good fit. But a tool that I really recommend is Favicon, or I think it's Favicon, or they primarily help B2B brands find influencers.

Not necessarily connect with them, but see who's trending in each industry, in each category and in each country. So they've expanded past the us they have one for the continent of Africa, they have one for the uk. It's really broad and it's a really great tool.

And you could see on that tool, you can see how it's going on. LinkedIn, not just Instagram or whatever.

Yeah, they actually segment by platform, so I believe they're on Twitter now as well. But LinkedIn is their bread and butter.

So you can segment by category, whether it's sales, copywriting, hr, fitness, whatever the case may be, and then by their follower count, engagement rate, and so on.

I love that. I will put that in the show notes, a link to that because I love that that's a free tool.

When you talk about engagement rate, is that, is there like a specific metric? Like, okay, every post they do, they get X number of comments and likes, and that's a thresh.

Is there a threshold that you know you want to be looking for when you're identifying an influencer?

Yes. So one note to answer that. Do you not feel like you have to calculate that yourself?

When you have influencers that you're potentially interested in working with, you can reach out to them and ask for their media kit. So if you're a content creator listening to this, make sure you have a media kit.

Every influencer we work with, that is one of the first things that we ask for them and it's required in order to be a part of our program or network. And that lays out all the data and analytics associated with your account community.

So it's engagement rate, it's follower count, it's average impressions or views per post over a certain amount of time. So make sure you have that locked in now as the brand, you don't have to calculate it yourself.

You can ask them for Media Kit and what you want to look at is their engagement rate over the past 90 to 120 days. Because you don't really care necessarily for post by post, the algorithm shifts.

Some contents aren't going to resonate or some posts aren't going to resonate. Some are, and that's okay. But overall, you should see a pretty standard rate of between 2.5 to 5%.

So let's say you find somebody or you're out there looking, is it relegated to just LinkedIn or do you do like a. Is it like a package? Like, throw in your newsletter? I don't know, like, is it beyond LinkedIn and B2B influencer stuff?

It can be any channel. So there are influencers who work with B2B brands on TikTok. They were with B2B brands on Instagram in their newsletters.

It's actually really great, I think, if you diversify the ways in which you collaborate with influencers. But what it really depends on is your audience. You need to go into understanding where your audience spends their time.

Is TikTok an effective channel or is LinkedIn the more obvious and natural choice?

But a lot of influencers, they're starting to diversify their channels too, and so giving them opportunities to work with you more collaboratively across platforms is really, really crucial and it makes it more exciting. You have a lot more opportunities to co create content and really integrate them into your marketing strategy.

What about podcasting? I mean, ironically, we're on one. Is that also included?

Like, can you, like, be like, okay, I want to get on this dude's podcast and make that part of the package?

It can be, yeah. It really boils down to what the influencer is open to. And I will note it's just going to cost you more money.

So walk into those conversations with as much of an idea of what you can allocate to this sector of your marketing budget as possible, because the more channels you add in that you're collaborating with an influencer with, it's just going to keep going up.

All right, I'm not going to hold you to this, and you may not want to answer this, but I'm wondering, what is like the floor? What is the lowest budget that you can have to get involved with B2B influencer marketing. I know that's like a loaded question.

That is a very loaded question, but it's also an interesting one. Right? We're working through that with verbatim, too, because you have a lot of brands that don't know where to start.

Like, they don't, you know, you can put a budget behind LinkedIn advertising or Google Ads or whatever. There's a lot of resources that you can use to tap in and understand what to allocate. Influencer marketing is a tough one.

And my caveat before I answer will be that it's going to depend on the type of influencer you're working with, the niche they're in, their follower count, how engaged their audience is. There's so many factors that play into it.

And another issue you're going to run into is when you think about B2C influencer marketing, you see a lot of product traits. So a brand can just send an influencer some product sometimes, and the content creator is fine with that.

They won't accept payment and they'll just make the post regardless or work with them. Regardless. B2B influencer marketing is a bit different because are you going to give me free access to a platform for a year?

It's just not as easy to figure that out or navigate. So I would say if you do not have at least $2,500 to start testing and influencer marketing, you're probably not ready for it.

See, I think that's. I appreciate you sharing that number because now I think it is something people are listening.

They're like, oh, wait a minute, I thought she was gonna say $25,000 to get started. And so it's really something that should be part of your marketing playbook. I mean, it should be part of every marketer's playbook right now.

I feel that way.

It should. It definitely should. I agree. And I.

It's interesting you say that because I feel like a lot of brands are hesitant or skeptical because they think it's going to be a really just significant investment. And when you're starting out, it doesn't have to be.

You have to be willing to allocate enough funds to properly test it like you would any other channel or any other tactic. But you don't have to break the bank. You don't have to allocate $25,000, which might not even be necessary. You might actually be spending too much.

So.

All right, so before we get on to the crazy part of this podcast, let me ask you one other Thing is there one thing that you should never do? Like, if somebody's getting involved in this. Right. I'm getting involved in B2B influencer marketing. I'm going to be putting my toe in the water.

Spend some money. Is it right? But never do this, whatever that is.

Yeah. I hesitate to call myself an influencer, but I'll answer this as someone who works with brands, do not take away their creative freedom.

You're choosing to work with this influencer because you see a lot of value in their content. They've built up an audience community that trusts them. They know how to speak to that audience.

So if you want to work with them and collaborate with them, trying to take over what they say and how they say, it defeats the purpose. You might as well run an ad.

So give them your goals, be really upfront about your goals, what you want to accomplish, why you're doing this, and then work with them to craft that post or that piece of content or that campaign. But it should be a collaborative process. They don't. Quite frankly, they don't work for you. They're working with you.

So I think it's really good feedback because it really is not transactional. It's not like, okay, it's not a Google Ad. You know, this is a human being helping your brand, and that's really, really important.

So let's get into, since you didn't ask, which is the portion of this podcast that just, I don't know what goes on there. And so news flash for everybody wants to keep tabs on what's going on. Breeze Life. She is engaged, off the market.

All right, so let me ask you a question. First thing I want to know is I have no idea how you were proposed to. I'm assuming, I don't know. How did. Was it a surprise? How did it go?

It was hilarious. And if you knew me and my fiance, the story would make perfect sense. It sounds like something that would happen to us.

So we went on vacation, went to Cozumel in December, have this nice resort plan. We're just going to take a couple days and just relax.

A few days before we are set to leave, we find out that the resort we're going to stay at has dropped from like 4.5 stars to 2.7. The place has just gone up in flames. Everybody hates it. I'm panicking. We're switching up our resort the day before we leave.

Come to find out my fiance had a plan of where he was going to propose at this resort. So when I caught him just staring blankly at a wall. It's because he realized he now had no plan proposal.

So we get to Cozumel, we realize it is affordable to go there in December because it is their off season. And it's their off season because it rains a lot. So it then rained from the day we got there until the day before.

Our last day, the second to last day, raining every day. We don't see a single sunset. You go outside on the beach for a couple hours, starts downpouring, you run back inside. It was like that the whole time.

So, like, great. We're not getting engaged. It's gonna be fine. Everything's fine. He's probably not.

Did you know? Were you expecting it?

I wasn't expecting it, but a few months before we were going, or a few weeks before, he'd asked me to take a look at rings. And I was like, it's gonna happen. And then nothing. Okay. I gave him my information, and then he just never spoke about it again. So, like, it's fine.

We're just gonna have fun in this rainy country. And so the second to last day, or the last day before we leave. Beautiful day, no rain. Gorgeous. We go snorkeling. We have a beautiful day.

And then at sunset, he took me out on the beach, and we walked down to pick out seashells, and he proposed.

I love that. I see. I feel for your fiance. Because what I got out of that whole thing was that you guys waited to the end of your trip.

So you're on this trip, and you're probably having a great time. Hey, this is great. I'm having a great meal. I'm doing this every day. Every minute that passed, he's having a breakdown. Like, when am I gonna do it?

It's like you had two completely different trips.

Oh, yeah. I was having the time of my life. And come to find out, he'd asked my mom for my hand before we left.

And he was texting her every day like, it won't stop raining. Should I propose? Maybe I'll just wait till we get back. She texted him back in all caps. Do not leave.

Yeah, you're back. That's good. I love. Oh, my God. Well, congratulations on that.

Thank you.

All right, before we wrap up, please, and don't be shy. Tell everybody, where can they find you? Where should they follow you? Connect with you? Tell them about Verbatim.

How do they get connected with Verbatim? Let's tier it all.

Yeah, definitely. So verbatim, like you mentioned at the beginning, we're a marketing studio.

We specialize in growth marketing, influencer marketing, all things personal, branding and content.

So if you are an entrepreneur, solopreneur or just a really ambitious brand looking for marketing partner, we would love to chat with you so you can find us at we are verbatim.com and then for me I'm only on LinkedIn. You can't find me anywhere else on the Internet so you can connect with me there. I'd love to meet you and chat.

Bri is an amazing follow and connection on LinkedIn. I love it. I appreciate you being here on do this, not that. This is awesome.

I can't wait to bring you back and hear all about the wedding and how it went down. Congratulations and thanks for being here.

Thank you. It was great to be here.

You did it. You made it to the end. Nice. But the party's not over.

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