How to engage with influencers

This advice is an older post, but it still bears up as a good template for engaging with influencers.

It is not specific to word of mouth marketing…

It’s ALL to do with alignment

Funny how two unconnected things come together at the same time to contrive an “Aha” moment. Serendipity, synchronicity or spooky co-incidence. Whatever.

Anyway, Christine (Influencer50’s biz development lead in San Francisco) and I are discussing methods of engaging influencers. With over 20 different types of influencer to consider, we need an integrated method for the process, while catering for the wide differences in agendas, personalities and expectations.

Then just yesterday I was re-reading a Hugh post on Digital Nomads, when he uses the word “Alignment” to describe Dell’s blog attempt to sidle up to mobile workers.

Aha!

Influencer engagement is ALL to do with alignment. It’s about finding out what influencers do, when and how they influence, and what their agenda and motivations are. Once you know this you can (and should) align your outreach activities with your influencers on an individual (or at most clustered) basis.

So what? There are two traps to fall into when considering alignment with influencers. The first is that it’s actually quite hard to align yourself with a host of differing types of people. In fact, it’s hard enough aligning with different types of journalist or analyst. What about academics, community leaders, customers, regulators and the other numerous influencer types? Some discipline and structure is require, which is what Christine and I are working on.

The second trap is perhaps less obvious, but it is more commonly encountered. It is that alignment requires you to align with the influencers, not the other way around. Most vendors want to get influencers to agree with them. You should be looking for ways to agree with influencers, even if this means changing fundamental things about your business.

They are the influencers, after all.

How to use ‘super-influencers’

Sometimes we come across super-influencers. We define these people as having a high and broad level of influence across a wide variety of decision types. Most often, upper-influencers hold the most senior positions in business and government. Think Davos or TED, and you’re close to defining a commuity of super-influencers.

The problem with super-influencers is that they are too high-level and too hard to reach that, unless you are trying to influence other super-influencers, the effort required to engage with them is disproportionate to the likely benefits. The entry price for a corporate executive to Davos is something like $250,000 and even then there’s no guarantee of sitting next to the person you really want to meet.

The truth is, most decisions affecting your corporate health are made in a much more mundane, but reachable, community. Which is why most influencers on an Influencer50 list are grounded in practical, though deep, influence on decision makers.

Still, when a super-influencer drops in your lap, you should feel obliged to use them well. So the next time your CEO announces a visit, what should you do?

Super-influencers are so-called because they influencer other influencers. So get your super-influencer in front of as many other influencers as possible. Attract other super-influencers and make an occasion of it. Get influencers talking to each other. Why? Because influencers get a lot of their influence from networking with other influencers. Make this happen, be seen as the facilitator, and your influencers will thank you for it.

More on SAP’s approach to influencer relations

Don Bulmer at SAP shares his experience of establishing an Influencer Relations program. I esepecially like the engagement model and the segmentation (with revenue opportunity) of influencer groups.

Don’s diagram of this is here.

Reaching out to influencers

There are two major dangers making contact with influencers. One stems from ignorance, the other from deep understanding.

Firstly, ignorance. We had an experience where we identified the key influencers on a market segment to a client. As part of the service we provide contact details. The client then wants to make contact with those influencers. It sends out emails to every influencer on the list, telling them how important they are. Saying how much attention they will be paid.

The typical response: “Please remove me from your mailing list “

I used to get this fairly frequently as an analyst. In my coaching workshops I still use examples of emails sent to me by vendor marketing or PR folks, inviting me to events or meetings. If the offenders were lucky, I’d politely decline their approaches. Usually it was easier to hit the “Send to spam” button.

Bang. There goes your opportunity to engage an influencer. You really didn’t understand the value of the information you had. The 50 most important people on your market, and you spammed them.

The second danger is that you understand only too well how important these influencers are. Which makes approaching them scary. What if you upset them? Or they’re hostile to your firm?

There are some basic rules of engagement. The first is to pick up the phone. Most busy people these days get over a hundred emails a day, most of which go unread. A colleague of mine just received a reply to an email he sent 300 days ago! I told him he was lucky to get any response.

The phone, on the other hand, is direct, allows synchronous conversation, and demonstrates your commitment and approachability, and you can immediately address any questions or negativity in real time. Importantly, the phone is now not the norm, which is why it works.

The other key rule is that any phone conversation must be a peer-level discussion. You can’t contact influencers through a call centre, or use junior executives. They’re too important for that.

Only when you really know your influencers well can you send them email, to confirm discussion points or to arrange meeting logistics. Sometimes, the old fashioned ways of contact still work best.

WOM Conference blog posts

I’ve contributed some posts to the WOM Marketing Forum conference blog – I’m speaking at the event this Wednesday.

The posts can be read here, along with contributions from other speakers. Interesting stuff, and several posts examine the relationship between WOM and Influencer identifcation & engagement.

WOM conference speaking gig

I’m presenting at the World Advertising Research Center (WARC) Word-of-Mouth conference on 16th January. Looks to be a good line-up, with Emanuel Rosen (The Anatomy of Buzz) as the headliner. Paul Marsden (Collaborative Marketing and Net Promoter Score fan) and Ivan Palmer (WOM advocate at Wildfire) are also there, together with a bunch of wom experts. Looking forward to meeting the crowd.

I’m talking on “Working with Influencers – Connecting with the Customers that Count.”

If you can’t make it to the conference to hear the presentation, here’s the short version:

• All customers count.
• Find out who influences them.
• Market through influencers to customers.

Simple, really – you should try it.

Daft question #2 – Can we mail our influencers?

One of the things Influencer50 does for clients when researching their influencers is provide contact details of the top 50. It’s so that the client, or us if commissioned, can develop an outreach program. It’s difficult information to collect as some influencers are much more protective about their direct contact information – switchboard numbers are insufficient.

I was bemused one day by a client’s question that asked “do we own the list of contact details?” What do you mean “own the list”? I was flummoxed. Then the penny dropped – the client was thinking direct mail.

These influencers are the top 50 most important people in influencing your target market. And you want to send them direct mail – oh boy.

Outreach to influencers is like buying a birthday present for a spouse:

• It’s got to be wrapped up nicely, showing obvious care and attention.
• It’s got to be personalised, and suited for the specific needs/wants of the recipient. How would your spouse feel if you gave everyone the same present?
• It’s got to be planned and delivered on time – too early and it’s suspicious, too late and you’re dead meat.

Most importantly, you’ve got to know the recipient well. Now, most of us can’t hope to know our influencers as well as we know our spouses. But you should do your research to have some idea of what is important to each influencer. The last thing to do is to treat influencers as you do everyone else.

And don’t ever, ever take them for granted…

HP’s Lusher on AR and social media

Carter Lusher, AR head at HP and ex-Gartner analyst, posts on the use of social media by analyst firms (synopsis: not enough) and wonders on the impact of blogging on influence from analysts. Great issues.

The current position, as I see it, is that bloggers have relatively little influence on CIO-level execs and business folk. They do, however, have influence in the more techie arenas. Big generalisations, of course, but it seems to hold for most markets, and makes a reasonable starting hypothesis. Demographics are also an important feature of socila media’s reach (but this may be changing: if The Archers are podcasting, anyone can…). Country differences also exist (e.g. France is generally more blog-friendly…).

It’s important to recognise that bloggers are often influential because of their “day job” and just happen to blog nowadays. Richard Holway is a good example. Blogging is a means of access, and it allows previously inaccessible people to gain exposure. So you find DBAs and developers emerging as influential bloggers – their influence is expanded out to the web, beyond the confines of their employers.

In researching case studies for the book, I discovered that blogging and other social media need to be dedicated activities, with time and budget allocated. Otherwise it’s just dabbling, as Carter points out in IDC’s approach.

The key question is always, influential on whom? If analysts are trying to influence CIOs then there is no immediate need to blog, because CIOs generally don’t read them. James Governor is successful because he aims at the more techie audience, and is thus more influential on that audience.

The trick, then, is to monitor blog readership closely, and to respond when the sitation changes.

Daft question #1 – Who owns the influencer?

My commercial director Scott sent me a link to this post by Pete Blackshaw. Pete is a founder member of WOMMA, of which Influencer50 is a member. So Pete must know what he’s talking about, at least in a B2C context.

But the question – Who owns the influencer? Oh, please. This is so 1990s. I remember endless (and pointless) debates about who owns the customer and various organisations getting upset because their partner firms claimed customer ownership. Completely pointless, because NOBODY OWNS THE CUSTOMER. Customers are fickle and are as able and likely to change suppliers as change their underwear. Especially these days, when your competitors are one click away.

So, here we are again, ten years later. Same question, even more pointless debate, and the same answer:

NOBODY OWNS THE INFLUENCER

What a crazy concept. True influencers have their influence largely because they are not affiliated to anyone. In fact, the more someone tries to “own” them, the less influential they become. That’s why rent-a-quote analysts lack substantial influence – they’re paid for (“owned”) by a vendor to endorse a product or position.

The only value I can see coming out of asking “Who owns the influencer” is the shock – similar to being hit in the face with a spade – of realising that, more than likely, the influencer owns you! Or at least access to your market (which amounts to the same thing).

Treat your influencers not as peasants on your land but as royalty, to whom you need to pay dues.