Every industry has a number of high-profile influencers who contribute to how the sector is portrayed in the media, shape best practices and steer future developments. In a perfect world, you will have one of these “thought leaders” employed in your organization’s ranks. You might even be one yourself.
Because people are often inspired to buy from people they identify with and respect, showcasing your own influential opinion and/or maintaining close contact with your industry’s wider influencer community should be a vital component of any marketing strategy.
Who Are the Influencers?
Influencers come in many different guises. They could be:
- Academics
- Activists
- Analysts
- Bloggers
- Business Partners
- Celebrities
- Consultants
- Investors
- Journalists
- Politicians
- Prominent Business Leaders
- Scientists
- Social Media Commentators
The list really is quite extensive and will vary depending on the nature of your business and its geographic reach.
The first step in building any influencer marketing program is identifying the individuals you want to target, and then putting together a plan of how you would like to engage them. Email is, of course, a vital component of this strategy.
Influential Communications
The way you communicate with your industry’s influencers should be very different than the way you communicate with your audience of prospects and clients. The purpose of this communication isn’t necessarily to generate sales (initially) but to spark other kinds of engagement, such as media coverage, introductions, recommendations and partnerships. The sales will come later.
You will want to deliver greater detail about your products or services, offering full technical specifications or detailed comparisons with competitive offers. You’ll probably also want to keep the community informed of future developments before they are ready to be marketed to the general public, as well as drip-feeding information about your business that is of little or no interest to the end user (partnerships, new hires, etc.).
Email’s Role
Creating an “influencer” list in iContact will help you target your industry influencers with very specific communications. Depending on the size of your list and the sophistication of your messages, you may wish to segment this list further (journalists/bloggers, business partners and others listed above).
The call to action (CTA) in any influencer marketing campaign is simply to learn more and engage with the brand. Remember, you’re informing, not selling. Most influencers won’t buy your product or service – but their influence (if harnessed correctly) will help you raise your profile and ultimately sell more.
How do you engage with your industry’s influencer community? Share your comments below: