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MAY 2017
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THINK
MARKET SHARE
UnderThe Influence
Up your outreach game with influencer marketing
From superfans to brand ambassadors,
the people who love products and the
companies that produce them are
the new key to successful marketing
campaigns. Influencer marketing is
where it’s at for 2017, and to use it
successfully, you need to know what it
is—and what it isn’t.
Influencer marketing hinges on
brands finding and inspiring—and in
some cases paying—individuals who
can extoll the virtues of their product or
service to others. YouTube “celebrities”
are among the more well-known types
of influencers, particularly in the
beauty industry.
The strongest partner of
influencers is social media. Influencer
communications almost always have a
strong social media component to their
evangelism, and they often produce
original content around the product or
service they’re promoting.
While this may sound like a
substitute for traditional word-of-mouth
marketing, experts say word-of-mouth
marketing is the tool by which key
individuals influence their circles—
friends and family. And while nearly all
influencer marketing includes word-of-
mouth marketing characteristics, not
all word-of-mouth marketing is driven
by influencers.
Influencer marketing shouldn’t be
confused with advocate marketing either.
The latter relies on incentivizing already-
loyal customers to continue promoting
a brand, whereas influencers don’t
necessarily have to be current customers.
Additionally, influencers are often paid in
the form of compensation or products.
If you think you’re ready to pursue
influencer marketing as a strategy,
concentrate on these points:
1
Identify key brand or product
influencers who are related to, or part
of, your target audience.
2
Create a marketing campaign directed
toward those influencers.
3
Create a secondary marketing
campaign for influencers to use in
building brand awareness among
their audiences.
SELLING POINT
ProblemSolved
Customers want solutions. Which
ones do your products provide?
Creating a unique value proposition to position
your business above your competitors’ is a
universal challenge. But if that value proposition
is anchored by a product or service, you’re not
hitting the customer’s soft targets.
American economist Theodore Levitt once
said, “People don’t want to buy a quarter-
inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole.”
Now imagine that you could anticipate your
customers’ problems—would you still pitch a
product, or would you pitch a solution? How
would you develop your approach?
Sonja Jepsen, vice president of consultant
relations for Fidelity National Information
Services, offered these suggestions in
Entrepreneur
magazine:
1
Treat sales like customer service.
You have to know your customers’ needs
in order to position what you sell as a
unique solution. This requires sales teams
to have in-depth knowledge and expertise
regarding your product or service. Look at
Apple Store employees as an example.
2
Educate the buyer.
Customers who
learn how your product solves their
problem see the product from a new
perspective and can more clearly
recognize its value.
3
Get everyone on board.
Solution
selling isn’t just for salespeople. Each
department in your company has an
integral role in this new approach to
building business.
4
Connect sales and marketing.
A
sales ‘liaison’ can help bridge the
knowledge gap between sales and
marketing, and it can ensure marketing
staff are clear about the sales team’s
needs and can develop leads based on
desired demographics and
communication preferences.