Are you in the 85% of B2B marketers considering an influencer strategy in 2025?

Influencer marketing certainly isn’t new, but the surge in B2B marketing leaders that are now seeing a different type of value in influencer partnerships is moving at pace. ‘Borrowing and building’ influence in the corporate world is starting to take on a whole new meaning, and not just with big brands with big budgets. Influencer collaborations have gone from fleeting tests to big drivers of brand authenticity. For marketing leaders, integrating influencers into their marketing strategy is proving essential for sustainable growth and genuine audience engagement especially while brands navigate the daily LinkedIn algorithm battle, or LinkedIn jail as we like to call it!  

Recent research from rankingware shows that 85% of B2B marketers are now considering influencer marketing as integral to their strategy, a significant rise from previous years, where this topped 50%. This surge shows a big shift from 2024 towards leveraging external voices, or ‘borrowing influence’ to enhance brand story and reach.  

The return on investment for B2B influencer marketing is worth a call out too. With new data showing ROI in the region of 500%, and we can vouch for that with some of our clients results in their foray into out of category influencer collaboration.

Whether it’s a tech company partnering with an F1 data lead, or a law firm gathering experts to explore the future of the energy industry and its impact on business, collaborating with established influencers allows brands to ‘borrow’ credibility and access new audiences fast.

This strategy is particularly effective in a B2B context, where decision-makers value expert opinions and insights – it’s all about trust. By aligning with influencers who have earned the trust of their followers, brands can amplify their message and extend their reach in a very credible manner.

The success of influencer partnerships hinges on selecting the right collaborators. Research is key to finding the right voice and using data to assess potential influencers’ audience demographics, engagement rates, and content relevance, helps to ensure it aligns with brand objectives, just like you would in the consumer world. A thorough, strategic selection process enhances the authenticity and effectiveness of the collaboration, leading to more meaningful audience interactions.

But it’s not all about external influencers. You might have some leading voices in your team, just waiting for the chance to become an influencer in their field. An opportunity to build profile for them and the business in a new way.

Forward-thinking companies are turning inward, empowering employees to act as brand ambassadors. This approach not only humanises the brand but also fosters a culture of trust and transparency. At Deloitte, an initiative to engage employees in content creation resulted in substantial audience engagement, with employee-generated content significantly outperforming traditional corporate posts.

The role of executive leadership in influencer marketing also cannot be overlooked as part of your B2B influence strategy. A natural evolution on the traditional role of PR, creating influencers from senior team members in your organisation amplifies overall brand profile. CEOs and senior executives who actively participate on platforms like LinkedIn enhance a brand’s credibility and relatability. Over the past five years, there has been a big increase in C-suite engagement on LinkedIn, leading to higher follower growth and engagement.

As we race through 2025, embedding influencer partnerships and collaboration in B2B marketing strategies is not just advantageous, it’s essential. For CMOs and marketing leaders, embracing this approach can lead to enhanced brand authenticity, amplified reach, and huge ROI. With the right collaborations, empowered employee advocates, and executive engagement on social platforms, brands can navigate the complexities of the modern audience and beat the LinkedIn algorithm, with credibility and impact.

B2B Influence in practice

iamproperty CRM Formula 1

PropTech business iamproperty needed to launch its new CRM product to Estate Agents with a concept that would help them stand out from the competition of saturated marketplace. Giving audiences a new lens to examine their businesses relationship with tech through, we drew their attention to the world of Formula 1, by creating an F1 themed launch moment event.

The event invited Estate Agents to sign up online to hear a talk from F1 strategist, Neil Martin, who has led teams through digital transformation projects at Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull. His expertise in data analysis and data-driven decision making within F1 acted as an example to iamproperty’s audience that data and tech has a place in every industry, and used the data journey of F1 to demonstrate how tech like their CRM could take the world of Estate Agency into a new era of performance.

The event was promoted across digital platforms including organic and paid LinkedIn content, email newsletters, paid media slots and website blog content, attracting a reach of over 10,000. The attendees of the event included a high proposition of iamproperty’s top target customers and resulted in 14 warm leads. This launch moment created momentum for the new CRM product, and allowed iamproperty to nurture target customers from this event through to purchase, along a clear journey of digital and in-person touch points, all based on this spark of interest created by -out-of-the-box approach to launching the product.