I first learned of the term ‘influencer marketing’ at a Social Tools for Business conference in London last year when I had a brief conversation with Duncan Brown of Influencer50. As a quick intro Influencer50 is a marketing agency working with tech companies to engage in influencer marketing programmes.

So what is influencer marketing?

At its most simple level, influencer marketing is the practice of targeting marketing activities at those people who most influence the sales decision buying process. But surely I hear you say, all sales and marketing activity is designed to reach those influencers. You know, the people who buy your goods and services.

Well yes, but in actual fact in influencer marketing, the influencer is defined by Duncan as:

Influencers are not your customers. Influencers have no budget. They are not your market. They influence your customers, influence budget, influence your market.

or on Wikipedia:

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 arketing activities around these influencers.

So you see, not only does your marketing have to target the guy with the credit card, but also those that ffect whether or not he uses that credit card. For example, if you’re selling stationery you not only need to communicate with the administrator who places the order, but all the other people in the compnay who influence the decision of what to buy, i.e. the product users and specifiers. In fact the list could be endless so it’s important to identify and target specific individuals who carry the most influence, those who Influencer50 say are the people responsible for sales cycle objections.

For a slightly different definition head to Influencer Marketing 101 and watch Marcus Colombo’s short video. He’s a practising influence marketer and effectively says his job is all about getting sample products into the ands of those that influence the market.

It’s clear then that influencer marketing is not just about communicating with potential buyers of your product, but other influencers and information gatekeepers in what marketers call the decision making unit (or DMU). There are two different approaches to influencer marketing as well:

1. Influencer50 suggest it is more about joining up your marketing and sales teams to identify the objectors (and objections) that most impact their sales figures and then devising a plan to communicate with these people, and

2. the second approach is to ensure product samples get to the right people at the right time, for example ournalists, analysts and more increasingly bloggers or other social commentators.

So why is it important?

Much has been written of late about how traditional marketing methods no longer have the same impact. It is probably fair to say that both consumers and businesses have become more resilient to traditional marketing methods such as advertising and direct marketing. However they have not actually become immune, yet. In reality these methods are still powerful tools for any marketer as long as they are well integrated.

That’s where influencer marketing seems to fit for me. Influencer marketing could well be the glue that brings together our existing marketing campaigns and ties them into your sales campaigns. In other words it is taking an integrated approach to your sales and marketing, which seems very sensible and key objective for many marketers in big companies these days.

So what can you do about it?

I’m no expert and I would suggest heading over to Duncan’s blog to learn more. But it would seem there are some simple steps that a small and medium business could take to introduce influencer marketing techniques into the sales cycle.

Have a look at the Influencer Marketing Wheel below:

Well, with that written I’m off to look at the biggest sales objections I receive and who they’re from. If the big boys like HP, Xerox, Microsoft and co are engaging in Influencer Marketing then there’s no reason why us small business shouldn’t try it out also.

Duncan, if you’re reading this, I hope I’ve done influencer marketing some justice. However it would be great to get your comments. Please fell free to drop me a line or post a comment..