Influencer marketing

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Influencer marketing is a form of marketing that has emerged from a variety of recent practices and studies, in which focus is placed on specific key individuals (or types of individual) rather than the target market as a whole. It identifies the individuals that have influence over potential buyers, and orientates marketing activities around these influencers. Influencers may be potential buyers themselves, or (in the case of business-to-business transactions) they may be third parties.

1 What is “Influence”?
- 1.1 The history of Influencer Marketing
2 Influencer Marketing as a marketing discipline
3 Identifying influencers
4 References
- 4.1 External links
- 4.2 Links to this page:

[edit] What is “Influence”?

Most discussion on the generic topic of social influence centres on compliance and persuasion in a social environment, as exemplified in Robert Cialdini’s book Influence: Science and Practice^[1]. In the context of Influencer Marketing, influence is less about argument and coercion to a particular point of view, and more about loose interactions between various parties in a community.

[edit] The history of Influencer Marketing

Influencer Marketing can be traced to the work of Adrian Payne and others at Cranfield University in the UK, in 1991. Payne identifies six markets central to Relationship Marketing, one of which is an Influence (sic) Market.^[2] Payne includes as influences a range of constituent sub-markets, including government regulators, standards bodies, lobbyists, stockholders, bankers, venture capitalists, financial analysts, stockbrokers, consumer associations, environmental associations, and labour associations.

Influencer Marketing gained a boost in 2000 with the publication of Malcolm Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point,^[3] in which he identifies key types of individual that, together, can create social epidemics. Gladwell segments these influencers into:

Connectors: individuals with extensive networks of contacts.
Mavens: experts in specific subjects
Salespeople: persuasive individuals that convince others to change (adopt new products, change habits, etc)

Gladwell’s ideas have been adopted and extended by a variety of authors. Ed Keller and Jon Berry use the same concept in their 2003 book The Influentials, backing up their analysis with considerable primary research. In Unleashing the Ideavirus,^[4] Seth Godin identifies Sneezers, individuals with influencer that spread new concepts in a viral manner (see viral marketing).

Influencer Marketing is emerging as a useful addition to more traditional marketing activities, because it uses influential individuals to convey messages, rather than the selling company itself. There is a substantial link between Influencer Marketing and word of mouth marketing. Arguably, word-of mouth works best when centred on influencers: influencers supply the initial credibility and authority that allows a messaged to be conveyed quickly and reliably through word-of mouth techniques.

[edit] Influencer Marketing as a marketing discipline

Influencer Marketing, as increasingly practiced in a commercial context, comprises four main activities:

Identifying influencers, and ranking them in order of importance.
Marketing to influencers, to increase awareness of the firm within the influencer community
Marketing through influencers, using influencers to increase market awareness of the firm amongst target markets
Marketing with influencers, turning influencers into advocates of the firm.

Influencer Marketing is enhanced by an continual evaluation activity that sits along side the four main activities.

[edit] Identifying influencers

The first step in Influencer Marketing is to identify influencers. Influencers are specific to discrete market segments, and are used as conduits to the entire target segment. While there are lists of generic influencers (such as the Time 100) they have limited use in marketing programmes targeted at specific segments.

Market research techniques can be used to identify influencers, using pre-defined criteria to determine the extent and type of influence. For example, Keller and Berry (2003) propose five attributes of influencers^[5]:

Activists: influencers get involved, with their communities, political movements, charities and so on.
Connected: influencers have large social networks
Impact: influencers are looked up to and are trusted by others
Active minds: influencers have multiple and diverse interests
Trendsetters: influencers tend to be early adopters (or leavers) in markets

Most of the literature on influencers focuses on consumer markets. There is less insight into business-to-business influencers. A key distinction between consumer and business markets is that most influencers in consumer markets are consumers themselves. In business marketing, influencers are people that affect a sale, but are removed from the actual purchase decision. Consultants, analysts, journalists, academics, regulators, standards bodies are examples of business influencers.

Not all business influencers are equal. Some have more influence than others, and some mechanism of ranking is required, to distinguish between key influencers and less impactful people. A model for ranking business influencers has been developed by Influencer50, thus:

Market Reach – the number of people an individual has the ability to connect with.
Quality of Impact – the esteem in which an individual’s view and opinions are held.
Frequency of Impact – the number of opportunities an individual has to influence buying decisions.
Closeness to Decision – how near an individual is to the decision-maker.

Liquid Intelligence has developed a methodology for identifying and targeting influencers throughout the supply chain, from manufacturers through wholesalers and retailers, to consumers.

Fred Reichheld, a consultant at Bain & Company, has developed a methodology to determine the extent to which firms’ growth is influenced by customers’ propensity to make referrals to colleagues.^[6] Reichheld distils his research down to a single question: how likely is it that you would recommend company X to a friend or colleague? From answers to this question, a Net Promoter Score is determined, which correlates strongly with a firm’s growth rate.

[edit] References

^ Cialdini, Robert. Influence: Science and Practice, Allyn and Bacon, 2001
^ Christopher, M. Payne, A. and Ballantyne, D. (1991) Relationship Marketing, Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford, 1991
^ Gladwell, Malcolm. The Tipping Point: How Little Things can make a Big Difference, Abacus, 2000
^ Godin, Seth. Unleashing the Ideavirus, Simon and Schuster, 2000
^ Keller, Ed and Berry, Jon. The Influentials, Free Press 2003
^ Reichheld, Fred. The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth, Harvard Business School Press, 2006