Measuring influence the FT way

Being a long time and loyal reader of the Financial Times I like to do my bit to help the FT understand more about its readership. So I was happy to spend 10 minutes filling in its recent readership survey.*

After completing the usual demographic guff the survey gets interesting. Clearly, the FT is trying to determine the influence of (and on) its readers, but the questions it asks reveal an unusual take on influence indicators.

The last three questions are quite common in assessing the connectedness of individuals and are often used in self-selecting ‘brand advocate’ programmes. (The obvious flaw here is that they are self-selecting, and can be faked. I once was invited to an online Nokia ‘influencer’ community even though I don’t actually use a Nokia phone…)

I wonder, though, why the survey asks about living abroad. Is this an indicator of career aspirations or a global perspective on business life? What about owning a BlackBerry or similar? Is owning a BlackBerry an indicator of influence? And why choose Blackberry rather than iPhone? Is Blackberry the definitive mobile business tool these days? Did RIM influence the development of the survey, to seed the idea in our minds…

It gets more interesting. The survey asks how many days a week the reader wears a suit.

Of course, this question could merely be trying to detect trends in sartorial standards amongst business people. But, coming as it does after obvious questions on influence, I can’t help wondering whether wearing a suit is deemed by the FT to indicate influence.

The bigger question is whether, these days, a suit indicates influence, or lack thereof. I gave up wearing a tie to business meetings four years ago, since most of my clients were dressed in chinos or jeans. A suit is becoming unnecessary in client meetings, and may possibly alienate the client that is dressed casually. People like people that are like them. Knowing your audience is critical, lest you commit a wardrobe faux pas.

So, suit or no suit for influence?

Or maybe I’ve been working too hard and need to lighten up on the whole influence thing…

*Please don’t fill in the survey unless you’re a genuine FT reader – I wouldn’t want the results to be skewed by influence voyeurs…

The opposite of influence…

…is demonization (according to Seth).

The future of advertising. Shock: there is one…

You may have detected a general disdain for advertising on this blog. If so, then (a) good, as that’s exactly what I mean, and (b) I’m not in the slightest apologetic for this. I hate most advertising, mainly because it’s not aimed at me, yet I’m (usually) forced to watch/read/listen to it. It’s just annoying.

Still, advertising makes for interesting discussion, since it’s changing rapidly and radically. A great synposis of the advertising industry was broadcast last night (Monday 16th) on The Bottom Line, which you can listen to here. It features Richard Brown, Chief executive of Eurostar, Guy Laurence, Chief executive Vodafone UK, and Sir Martin Sorrell, Chief executive of the world’s biggest advertising company, WPP.

Interesting insight into the general decline in advertising spend, the change in the mix of advertising towards digital, and the impact of the global recession.

What is a lead?

Marketing is often measured by counting the leads it creates. Many see this as a primary role of marketing – to feed the pipeline. The trouble is that it becomes an end in itself, rather than the means to a sale. So we count leads as the output of marketing – it follows that we classify anything we can as a lead, in order for it to count towards the total.

That’s basically why we use direct mail and other broadcast techniques in marketing. High volume outbound activities generate high volumes of inbound enquiries, which count as leads. Don’t they?

Such leads are often not much more than a name and phone number. They may be responses to a free offer or white paper, in which case they may not even be expressions of interest in you (just expressions of interest in your subject – not the same thing at all).

If you’re measuring marketing by counting leads it’s mandatory that you also measure leads-to-sales ratio. Together they measure the efficiency (number of leads) and the effectiveness (eventual sales) of marketing.

Influencer Marketing can generate leads, but they are qualitatively different from mass-produced leads from events and DM activity.

What typically happens is that the number of leads diminishes, as you get better in passing on to sales those leads which have a higher likelihood of turning into revenue. You need to warn sales, and your senior management team, that this will happen, as otherwise they may hit the panic button. Recalibration of marketing measurement is required.

Awareness isn’t the problem

We have a client for whom we’re doing some influencer perception interviewing. This involves speaking to a sample of their influencers to find out what they think of our client versus their competitors. We measure awareness, favourability and approachability (= willingness to engage).

This is one of the fun projects to do. It means we get to call a bunch of influential people and ask fairly straightforward questions. It’s fun because our clients can’t do it (“Hi. Can you tell me what you think of me?”). It’s also fun because it invariably yields some pretty uncomfortable truths about how a firm is perceived. (And you now understand something about what I perceive as fun…)

Anyway, for this particular client they scored a very high mark for awareness.. Nearly all of their influencers are very aware not only of the firm but of the specific technology offering that was the focus of the research. They have 91% awareness amongst influencers.

Powerful, no?

Err, well, no, in fact.

Because they also scored horribly badly in our favourability score. Influencers hate them.

I mention this story because last week I was talking to a prospective client who was fixated on creating awareness, as an end in itself. It’s common amongst marketers detached from the sales process. I think it may stem from the AIDA mantra common in business schools and marketing courses: Awareness leads to Interest leads to Desire leads to Action (i.e. someone buys something). Awareness, then, is a prerequisite to a sale.

Of course this is a very vendor-orientated view. Decision-making buyers take the same steps, but in reverse. (Buyers buy backwards, as Skip Miller says.) It all starts with a need to take Action in response to some sort of problem or opportunity. This creates a Desire to solve the problem, leading to Interest in prospective solutions. With a need to find three or more vendors, in order to reduce risk and find an optimal price, the buyer makes themselves aware of, or responds to pre-existing awareness of, solution options.

Awareness is the last thing on a buyer’s mind.

So back to our client, who shall remain anonymous for obvious reasons. Awareness isn’t the problem. No amount of awareness-building PR and marketing will fix the problem. Lack of interest and desire is the problem. The solution to which requires a very different answer.