One of the holy grails of marketing is persuading influencers or mavens or whatever you wish to call them that your brand or product is good/cool/useful. Marketing Profs have put up a really good article called Five Ways to Develop a Dialogue with Key Influencers.
“When you want to buy a new BBQ, whom do you ask? If you want to know which smartphone to buy, what blog do you read? And if you’re looking for a school in which to enroll your child, whose advice do you seek?
“Those people you’re calling, emailing, or reading—they’re special… the alpha crowd: They are influencers”
Here are their tips for influencing the influencers:
1. Selection/sort matters
The key is to figure out what would make a good influencer for your product/service/category/idea. Then think hard about where they would hang out and how can you find them.
2. Size matters
Build a group—right-sized, of course. Having 8-10 in a group is the right mix. Any more and people don’t listen well to one another. Any fewer and the momentum and energy aren’t there. That said, make the term of your influencer program about six months and then rotate people off and on, to keep people who can build your point of view and market access.
3. Two-way flow is critical
he key to building an influencer program is communication. The specifics of that are dependent on the influencers and the product.
4. Without listening, you’re dead already
Make sure your door is not shut when these opinion leaders, alpha consumers, and influencers come to you with a complaint or a question.
5. Spread the word using a calculated set of steps
To know whether you are doing a good job on an influencer strategy means knowing that the opinion leaders are getting their ideas circulated. Find out the kinds of publications, reviews, articles, radio stations they listen to, Web sites they visit. Learn where they are going because that will tell you where the next concentric circle of influencers is located.
via Logic & Emotion
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