With 81% of B2B ads failing to gain adequate attention or drive recall, B2B marketers need more compelling ways to connect and engage with their buying groups who are turning to video, events, and industry experts for information. New research from LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network and leading B2B advertising platform, finds that the content that influences buying decisions in B2B is evolving, and reveals that real people and their networks are key in shaping brand reputation.
LinkedIn’s ‘The Business of Influence’ research*, which surveyed over 1,700 B2B tech buyers in the US, UK, and India, reveals how buyers look to receive information, with video standing out as the most compelling and trusted form of content in influencing buying decisions in B2B. Sixty-three percent of B2B buyers say that short-form social video content helps inform buying decisions, and the majority (80%) of those who consume video content say that video-focused influencer content is one of the most trusted forms of content in B2B.
LinkedIn data shows that video is now the fastest-growing format on the platform, with uploads up 34% year-over-year, and according to the emarketer report, ‘B2B Video Marketing in 2024’, LinkedIn is one of the leading B2B video platforms for brands.
Creative, credible content from industry experts is on the rise in B2B
The research finds that 67% of surveyed buyers, who consume B2B influencer content, say that B2B influencer content helps build brand trust, and creates awareness of different products and solutions. More than two-thirds (67%) of B2B buyers, who are aware of B2B influencer marketing, say that influencer content plays a critical role in the consideration stage of the IT buying process.
Nearly 50% of all B2B buyers surveyed say their use of B2B subject-matter experts in the tech buying process will increase over the next three years. As Gen Z joins the buyer group, influencer marketing is becoming more important, with 90% of Gen Z buyers, who are aware of B2B influencer marketing, saying they engage with B2B influencer content on a monthly basis, which is 11% higher compared to all other buyers.
Capturing attention and engaging with the 95% of buyers who are out-of-market is one of the biggest challenges facing B2B marketers today, especially when 81% of B2B buyers choose to purchase from brands they already know on day one. LinkedIn data also shows that brands are turning to their community of more than 1 billion members to help stay top of mind with buyers – in the past year there has been a 23%+ jump in posts from chief executives, 14.4% increase in Live Video Events, and more than 180K newsletters published on LinkedIn.
Tom Pepper, Senior Director, EMEA & LATAM, LinkedIn, said:
“As B2B buying becomes more complex, involving many stakeholders, the majority of buyers say that the brands that are eventually bought are known to the whole buyer group from day one. Which is why engaging buyers across various touchpoints is critical to ensuring that when it comes time to buy, your brand is already top of mind. In this changing B2B landscape, the way B2B brands build memory recall and influence buying decisions is evolving. Humanised brand storytelling anchored in authentic, trusted, expert-driven video content can capture attention and create a level of stickiness that is essential in a competitive marketplace.”
Meagan Loyst, Founder and CEO, GenZ VCS, said:
“Video is the new frontier for brands to organically (and successfully) reach younger audiences, enabling a new era of dynamic brand storytelling. Gen Z doesn’t want to be sold to, and it’s important to remember that the next generation of B2B buyers are already here in the workforce. When the attention span is only 8 seconds for Gen Z, you’re able to do more with visual hooks and storytelling than you would with a static post – think customer stories and even POVs from employees that vouch for company values to humanise the brand.”
Ndubuisi Uchea, CEO & Co-Founder, Word on the Curb, said:
“The famous phrase, people buy from people, seems to get forgotten when we talk about our relationship with brands. I’ve always thought that brands miss a trick when they don’t personify themselves – creating and maintaining a personality that their consumer grows to know and relate to. Brands, and any organisation, are simply a sum total of the individual employees. There’s a massive opportunity for brands therefore, especially in B2B marketing, to leverage innate human connections. Video marketing is an optimal and immersive way to do this.”
Matt Swain, CEO & Founder of Triangle, said:
“Successful content strategies have brought leadership and employees to the forefront of their marketing efforts, cutting through outdated and bland traditional B2B content and reaching prospective customers at scale. In the age of AI, video is a powerful vehicle that B2B businesses can tap into to share their message, story, deepen their relationship with their target audience, and really humanise their organisation. Afterall, people don’t connect to businesses and words. They resonate with humans and faces.”
To help brands connect and engage with the buyer group who is turning to video, events, and expert voices for information, LinkedIn is introducing new features and programs:
- Live Event Ads enhancements: With Live Video Events on LinkedIn up by 14.4% in the past year and Thought Leader Ads generating 2.3x higher click-through-rate (CTR) compared to single image ads, LinkedIn is introducing new features to allow marketers to maximise participation in their events. Coming this quarter, B2B marketers will be able to:
- Promote a members’ post about the Live Event hosted by a Company Page with a Thought Leader Ad that links directly to the event to drive more registrations, views and engagement
- Offer a ‘sneak peek” with a 30-second video appearing on LinkedIn to allow people to preview during and post-event to help drive registration and attendance
- Regionally target who they want to invite when setting up the event to promote a more personalised event experience
- Accelerate, LinkedIn’s AI campaign creation experience, is now available globally in beta and supports video ads: With Accelerate campaigns showing up to a 42% lower cost per action compared to advertisers who run a Classic Campaign with LinkedIn, the company is introducing new functionalities to help B2B marketers tailor their AI-generated campaign to achieve their marketing goals. This quarter, B2B marketers will have the option to add a video or document ad, like an eBook, whitepaper or customer testimonial, in addition to a single-image, when creating an advertising campaign with Accelerate. To help them better achieve their campaign goals, LinkedIn is also beginning to introduce new objectives, including ‘brand awareness’, ‘video views’, and ‘website conversions.’
- All new formats and objectives will ramp gradually across the globe over the coming months. Accelerate beta is now available for lead generation and website visit objectives to all advertisers globally in all languages, with AI creative creation only available in English.
- Wire Program expands to support EU targeting: To help marketers reach buyers who are consuming more and more digital video, starting this month, LinkedIn will support EU targeting for the Wire Program, an initiative that allows brands to promote in-stream video ads alongside trusted publisher content on LinkedIn. The platform is testing the Wire Program with a limited number of publishers, including Barron’s, Bloomberg, Business Insider, Forbes, LinkedIn News, MarketWatch, NBCUniversal, Reuters, The Wall Street Journal, and Yahoo Finance.
- Sponsored Newsletters: As brands look to reach and engage new audiences through authentic brand storytelling, they’re looking to partner with credible and expert voices on the platform. With Sponsored Newsletters, they can now boost their own or any member’s newsletter article as a Thought Leader Ad and drive higher engagement and build thought leadership at scale.
Phillip Montalvo, Senior Manager, Demand Generation, Advantive, said: “Accelerate has helped Advantive achieve astonishing success by helping drive significant leads to a number of our campaigns across our various verticals. By having the right team and tools at our disposal with LinkedIn, we have seen strong performance and are excited to only see that performance strengthen over time!”
Veronica McGhee, VP, Paid Social Director, Cramer-Krasselt, said: “With Accelerate, we’ve been able to not only improve top-line metrics, such as decreasing our CPCs by more than 50%, but also be more efficient with campaign management and creative optimisations.”
José Manuel Campos Rey, Marketing Department Director and Partner, Femxa, said: “Thanks to LinkedIn’s Accelerate campaign, we were able to reach a significant volume of potential clients with a cost-per-click that is competitive with other media and a click-through rate above average. Audience signal segmentation allowed us to expand the audience size without compromising click quality. Today, Accelerate is, for us, the most important format in terms of strategy and investment.”
Soumyajit Day, Global Head of Digital Experience Optimisation, Thoughtworks, said: “LinkedIn Accelerate has proven to be a valuable tool for piloting our campaigns. We have experienced 30% reduction in end-to-end campaign setup and launch time. Its user-friendly interface and scalability makes it an ideal solution for streamlining our campaign launches.”
*‘The Business of Influence’ research methodology
LinkedIn commissioned GWI to survey 1,716 B2B buyers and key business decision-makers responsible for purchasing IT, telecom, and technology products and services, in the US, UK, and India, on the impact of B2B influencers on the buying committee at various stages of the decision-making journey. Statistics cited are among respondents who use industry influencers in their purchase journey (91% of the overall sample). The research was conducted online for three weeks from May 22 to June 11, 2024.
Methodology
Members on LinkedIn with the CEO title, of companies with more than 5k employees, between January-April 2024.
About LinkedIn
LinkedIn connects the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful and transforms the way companies hire, learn, market, and sell. Our vision is to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce through the ongoing development of the world’s first Economic Graph. LinkedIn has over 1 billion members and has offices around the globe. www.linkedin.com / mobile.linkedin.com.
Feature Image by Joshua Woroniecki from Pixabay
