While it’s not a new concept to treat individuals with ability to influence others as special–think about all the freebies celebrities get–it is an area being increasingly viewed as important to marketing.  What IS new, however, is that the Internet changed who can become one and how quickly.

There are individuals who are influential whether they are on or off ‘the grid’, such as analysts, journalists and standards/buyers groups, those who choose to become influential in a particular area, such as bloggers and columnists, and those who accidentally become influential by posting something, perhaps a video, that resonates with people and becomes popular.  It may not even be a person.  Clark Griswold the dog (who happens to be a male version of my Bella!) was an overnight sensation and is now influencing people to buy all kinds of products…which is another marketing lesson: helping people to have fun can increase your ROI.

Here are 10 tips for your influencer marketing campaign, per Influencers in this category (numbers correspond to quoted sources at bottom):

1. Treat everyone as important. Not everyone is an Influencer in your area of business, but if you treat everyone with the respect that they could be that’s always the best way. That one time you don’t respect someone as a potential Influencer you will inevitably wind up looking the fool. “Personally I would like to see brands realize every Customer can be an influencer and treat them in a way the builds them as advocates.”  While it’s normal to give Influencers preferential treatment, just be careful not to alienate customers who perhaps aren’t as influential (for now!).
2. Follow the content and get personal. “To become a Influence is the byproduct of continually producing high quality content.  Maximize human contact where possible – meeting for coffee or talking on the phone will form a much stronger bond between you, your brand and the potential influencer.”
3. Don’t forget the ‘little guys’. “While it’s relatively straightforward to manually identify the top-level “mass influencers” — such as journalists, celebrities or academics — the far larger number of ‘micro influencers’ has remained elusive. These micro influencers may not have a formal position that validates their influence, but they can be recognized among large audiences as being knowledgeable and trustworthy on specific topics. They also generate up to three times more word of mouth communications than non-influencers. Therefore, these micro influencers have a huge potential to drive purchase decisions and product contagion.”
4. Build a panel of vocal brand advocates or simply hire them.  Influencer marketing is “simply an extension of traditional word-of-mouth. We find that recommendations from ‘people you know’ are extremely important.  These advocates turn other consumers into advocates.”… “The Brand Ambassador hired by Company K was a nationally recognized authority figure in the category. His credibility enabled Company K to add more Brand Ambassadors at virtually no additional cost to increase the scope of the program.”
5. Sell to other companies how to connect with your “growing list of passionate individuals who are actively sought by their social group for recommendations.”
6. Track who’s writing about you and who could be. “Leverage social media [to] find people who are willing to review your product, spreading the word about your brand. These people are Influencers, and if you can access them, you’ll connect with the 82 percent of people who are influenced by the reviews they read online.”
7. Use Google+ circles to your advantage.  Something to do with Google+ that is different than what you’re already doing on other social networks!  “Customize different content to different groups…give [your] best content or news away to [your] most engaged or high value members.”  “Consumers could tell the brand what type of content they want, and the brand would create circles and share content accordingly.”
8. Influence and reach are not the same thing.  Another way of saying it: “It’s important to note the difference between credibility and fame.  Influence generate[s] both feeling and action on the part of your consumer base.”  As my high school Spanish teacher used to say, “Escuche y repita!” (“Listen and repeat!” I can’t believe I still remember that): reach is not the same as influence, but influence comes out of reach.
9. Target trade channels.  This is a stealthy way of infiltrating and overtaking markets.  “Company R targeted Trade Channels where the majority of the selling activity was very subtle and took place almost entirely after normal business hours. This made it nearly impossible for a Company B representative to encounter a Company R Brand Ambassador at work.”
10. Keep it focused.  “The program was limited to a single venue that was heavily visited by the targeted consumer group. This significantly increased adoption while keeping costs low.” … “The program was limited to a modest but very passionate consumer group that influenced the category. This significantly increased likelihood of adoption by a larger group while keeping costs low.”

One of the greatest challenges is identifying and targeting influencers in an effective manner.  To that end, I have made it my goal to scope out, use and review influencer marketing tools to help both of us achieve our goals.  The first in this coming series is available now, Manage Influencer Marketing with BuzzStream, on my second blog, BYOB.net, a hand-curated resource of products and services to help you Build Your Own Business.

Happy marketing ROI hunting!

1. Hosni Mubarak was an Influencer! By Frank Eliason
2. Marketers: How To Get Noticed by “Influencers” by Joe Chernov
3. The new marketing model: Peer index marketing By Azeem Azhar
4. P&G’s Panel of Women Helps Amplify Word-of-Mouth Marketing by Chris Laird / Frontera Marketing — The Power of Influencer Marketing: Part 4
5. InkFluence – Hidden Influencers
6. Does Word Of Mouth Marketing Work Better On Social Media? by Lauren Dugan
7. The Social Layer: Six Thoughts On Where Google Plus Is Going by David Armano / How I’m Using Google+ (Hint: It’s About Relevance) by Melissa Parrish
8. Frontera Marketing — The Power of Influencer Marketing: Part 1
9. Frontera Marketing — The Power of Influencer Marketing: Part 2
10. Frontera Marketing — The Power of Influencer Marketing: Part 3 / Frontera Marketing — The Power of Influencer Marketing: Part 4

Undeniably, the importance of traditional advertising has diminished as we have gained greater access to what our friends think, via social media.  People naturally place more weight on their experiences and their friends’ experience with brands and products than on ads.  At the same time, our ability to block advertising is on the rise as well.  So what is a marketer to do to catch the attention of prospects and create a positive ROI on their marketing investments?

First, we have to understand why people behave the way they do when it comes to decision making.  In Advertising on the Brain it states, people “have an emotional and a physical reaction, before we engage in rational thought.”  In other words, we feel first, react second, and think last (sound like anyone you know?).  Emotions are the connection between our feelings and our actions.  In the same article it says, “It would really come in handy to have a yellow highlighter pen in your brain that says ‘This is important, remember it.’  That’s what emotions are; a yellow highlighter pen in your brain. We can’t make decisions without them because emotions are our brain’s way of signaling importance biochemically.”  Bottom line, marketers have to affect people’s emotions in order to get them to act.

Most advertising fails to elicit positive emotions, which proceeds action.  Any negative emotion felt, intentional or not, is carried over as a negative towards the brand/product.  As example, I often see in my neighborhood an ad on bus benches that states “All work and no play makes Jack a great realtor!”  Every time I see it I want to pick up the phone and tell Jack that his ad stinks and he should hire a real marketer instead of trying to do it himself! The problem here is that we all know the phrase from childhood “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” When I read Jack’s ad, I am reminded that he is a “dull boy,” and quite honestly I would never hire anyone who is “all work and no play.”  He must be burned out by now, and certainly is not one I’d entrust the purchase or sale of a home to.  Maybe he’d fall asleep in the middle of a transaction.  This was unintentional eliciting of a negative emotion, but what about intentional?

An ad on TV right now for the ASPCA with a Sarah McLachlan song playing in the background is intended to elicit a negative response, to get you to pick up the phone and donate to the organization.  The only problem is, I can’t stand it!  I have a weak spot for animals, and I will mute the TV in order to not cry.  Does it make me want to donate?  Not really.  I have enough pets that I “donate” to living in my own home, and I have trepidations about ASPCA because they are a kill-shelter.  If I had the funds to do so, I would rather donate to a no-kill shelter who I know is not taking my money to kill animals.  If I were them, I would take a different tactic to show me feel-good stories of the before and after of their animals being placed into homes successfully.  If I saw enough of those types of ads, I may change my feeling that the ASPCA kills more animals than they place, and they might actually open my wallet someday.  Or they could talk about community programs for low or no-cost spay/neuter and shots, and I’d be more inclined.  Or they could work hard to change apartment rental policies to not discriminate against pets, as they currently can’t against children without risking getting into trouble.  Anything but showing me horrible images of pathetic animals with sad eyes, that make me cringe and change the channel!

The rise of engagement advertising is simply this – marketers have to be mindful of the emotional reactions that they create, be authentic in creating positive emotional reactions, and make it easy for people to try their brand/product, thus (hopefully!) solidifying the positive emotion that makes them talk about their experience with others.  In Charting A Shift from Communications to Engagements it says, “The new marketing is about creating 360⁰ brand experiences, not messaging.  Consumers should buy into to your brand’s ideas, not just your product.  Instead of defining ‘Reasons To Believe’, you need to define ‘Reasons To Be.’ “  Brands no longer are “contained in any communication or campaign, but rather is understood through its many touchpoints.”  Create enough positive touchpoints, and you create positive ROI.

Of course, creating multiple positive touchpoints requires a creative mind. You have to be willing to risk failure, and ideally allow a minimum of three months to test any marketing/advertising ideas to see what works.  It takes using your intuition, something women seem to utilize a little better than men, which explains to me why so many more women are in the marketing field than men.  No judgment here, just observing the facts. However, as stated in Reinventing the MBA: 4 Reasons to Mix Business With Design Thinking, “An over-reliance on intuition is every bit as limited as management by the numbers.”  Really it takes both intuition and analytical thinking to create excellent engagement marketing experiences.  In addition, also stated in the same article, it takes humility and team-building skills as well as a willingness to be “always ready to praise…colleagues and friends.”

One of the ways we can utilize the principles of engagement marketing is through the use of “tryvertising.”  From Trendwatching, tryvertising  is defined as “[incorporating]…’obvious’ activities like handing out product samples, and more subtle, integrated product placements that are part of an experience or solution. It’s everything from new-style sachets containing single servings of liquid products, to hotels partnering with luxury car makers to offer high end model test drives to guests during their stay…The challenge here has always been a certain lack of relevance: there’s no guarantee samples are tried out at the right time, in the right spot, and by the right target audience.  So what about more targeted, more relevant new-style tryvertising? Product placements that become part of the landscape, part of the real world where consumers hang out and certainly don’t mind trying something as long as it makes sense to them?”  Read the rest of Trendwatching‘s introduction to tryvertising, to know how Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Mini Cooper, IKEA, Nike, Starbucks, HP and other brands are using it.

Experiential marketing is another way of saying engagement marketing.  As an aside, you may want to join the Experiential Forum, as I did, to join in the conversation about the latest-and-greatest in experiential marketing.  In The Last Campaign: How Experiences Are Becoming the New Advertising it states, “65% of U.S. consumers report a digital experience changing their perception about a brand (either positively or negatively) and 97% of that group report that the same experience ultimately influenced whether or not they went on to purchase a product from that brand. In a nutshell, experience matters. A lot.  Of course, brands that were ‘born digital’ intuitively know this. Google and Amazon are pioneering experiential brands. That’s why Amazon continues to pour money into improving its customer service rather than run traditional advertising or marketing campaigns. As Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has said, ‘We are not great advertisers. So we start with customers, figure out what they want, and figure out how to get it to them.  Zappos…built its brand the same way, as has Facebook.”

Experience matters.  A lot.  If you have an amazing engagement campaign, but your retail staff aren’t plentiful enough, don’t know where anything is, or how to help you resolve your problem (Orchard Supply Hardware, this past weekend!), it matters.  A lot.  If your customer service reps don’t know how to handle the frustrated customer and act snotty, it matters.  A lot.  If your website makes it difficult to find what the person wants and see the price before they put the item in a digital basket, it matters.  A lot.  As marketers, we often have to step back, look at the entire process and be critical of how it works through the eyes of the customer.  It matters.  A lot.

Lastly, I want to talk about guerrilla marketing, which is also a form of experiential or engagement marketing.  The term guerrilla marketing has become a catch-all phrase for non-traditional marketing, but it really is its own form of disruptive marketing and we have opportunity as marketers to bring it into the world of digital media that we are now in.  As stated in Guerrilla Marketing Goes Tweet, “People are focused on social media; they’re walking around with their smartphones and updating their statuses and tweeting. The more we give people opportunities to do that, the more exciting it is, such as creating art at an event where people can save it to their profiles…The more we can incorporate social technology into real-life events, the more people get excited about it.”

Marketers should be on the prowl to incorporate promotion of art into their work.  After all, art creates positive emotion, which begets action.  Not to mention, it helps those who are less business and more creative-minded earn a living.  To read more about guerrilla marketing tactics that companies are now using, I recommend the blogs Guerrilla Gorilla and Guerrilla Communication Blog.  Google “guerrilla marketing” and you are sure to find much more.

I hope this post helped your thinking about creating positive emotional and experiential marketing tactics, resulting in the positive ROI you are looking for.

Having read much about nothing, Twitter’s ROI is the best look I’ve seen about whether or not using Twitter makes sense for your business and has potential for positive marketing ROI.First the bad:

• People go to Twitter instead of through regular customer service channels, but unfortunately most companies aren’t staffing customer service people in those roles.
• Twitter is uniquely both a one-to-one and one-to-many communications channel.  As a company, you communicate with one but they can yell about how unhappy they are to many.
• The movie industry has taken a hit – when they release a stinker people know about it pretty quick, shortening the drop-off period.
• Companies that ARE using Twitter, aren’t doing anything they couldn’t already do with other means of communication.

The positives:

• Part of creating marketing ROI is finding and talking to influential people.  Influential people tend to talk a lot and like to create an audience.  You can find people who like to talk a lot and have a decent audience on Twitter.
• Part of creating marketing ROI is being clever and relationship marketing within small groups of people.  Both its undiscovered uses and  passionate alike-thinking people creates opportunity for those who can figure out how to entertain their audience in the most compelling way.
• Twitter creates marketing ROI for companies who thrive on immediate exchange of information, but it is difficult to measure impact.  Metrics may be: does Twitter help to generate revenues faster, retain a customer, improve relations with a market-influential person, result in more blog discussion or followers, minimize losses from missed deadlines, or increase responses to emergencies.

The article discusses several tactics that companies have used, which could have been achieved through other channels:  Dell selling off marginal equipment, Best Buy providing  access to its catalog, DriversSide informing people about recalls on their vehicle.  None were unable to be done without Twitter, but were re-purposed from other marketing channels.  It then leaves the reader with the thought there may NOT be anything that Twitter can do that another channel can’t, save for a highly selective group of people/companies:

“If you are a Hollywood studio, a major personality or a public relations worker in any big enterprise, you will be using it frequently. But as a truly different tool for building business, I think the jury is still out.”

Personally, I believe that there are things that will be discovered that make Twitter a unique marketing tool for some types of companies…particularly those who can benefit from “now communication.”  I look forward to finding some and blogging about them.