What exactly is Influencer Marketing? And, why is Influencer Marketing so important? In this post, I’m going to lay out some viewpoints and “answers” using a couple charts I slapped together to illustrate a few key concepts. You’ll notice that I do not use three dimensional magic slides or Venn diagrams. This is not because interrelationships or multitudes of external factors and internal dependencies are non-existent. This is just one way you can view the world. I tend to create and use simple diagrams quite frequently and typically don’t waste a lot of time on bells and whistles.
Every marketing team must think of its role within the context of a vendor-to-buyer relationship. Generally speaking, there are two areas that sit in the path between vendor and buyer: influencers and the sales cycle. You could pretty much fit anything imaginable into these two areas. The first diagram depicts that relationship.
You’ll notice that the yellow sales cycle piece has been magnified in the figure on the bottom. I’ve done this to show how having Influencer Marketing directly impacts the sales cycle.
Marketing must aim to accomplish two pretty bold objectives:
A) Generate awareness and demand
B) Shorten sales cycle within those opportunities
Awareness and demand generation both drive Influencer Marketing as well as get driven by Influencer Marketing. When you’re using a respected domain expert (such as an analyst) to jointly run a webinar to collect leads, you’re essentially running an Influencer Marketing campaign. Conversely, if your marketing manager or director is conducting a webinar alone, you’re not running an Influencer Marketing campaign. 
The red cell depicting “Influencer” is not growing. The goal must always be to grow the red cell because by doing so, you’re essentially going to force the yellow sales cycle cell to shrink – thus, bringing yourself closer to the customer.
The same thing applies to awareness generation. In my mind, not all awareness generation is equal. Those that get your name out through influencers weigh more than those that don’t. Press that says you launched a product is weak. It just tells prospects that something is available (which, quite frankly, means nothing). Press that quotes a buyer’s influencer (e.g., industry analyst, customer, partner, reseller, etc) says “I recommend it” (which makes an impact during the sale cycle however subtly or profoundly).
The term “influencer” in the broader sense refers to both internal and external influences on a purchase decision. The influence impacts the individual with purchasing authority. Let’s put some meat to the bones by diving into the sales process a bit here.
Immediate within the sales cycle, there are three to five parties that are usually involved in any purchase – buyer (with purchase authority), researchers/gatherers (can be within buyer’s team or a recommender outside the team but within the company, or a peer recommendation), influencers (can be inside expert or outside consultant), and anointers (CXO or business-level sponsor). The lower picture illustrates where these parties typical sit within the sales cycle. Note that there is a black cell indicating evaluation/testing/trial. Depending on your product, this can be an excruciatingly long process or a relatively short one.
Influencer Marketing aims to shorten this overall yellow cell by helping the customer at every juncture of this lengthy process. This is how a customer-centric marketing organization thinks … helping customers and thus, helping itself. When a prospective customer is researching available solutions for its problems, you must make yourself easy to find. You don’t want to be omitted during this gray cell period. Then, as the prospect concludes the research stage, you must ensure that your products enter the trial/testing stage. After your products do what you say they will do, most sales engagements usually enter (or re-enter) a final stage where the findings are presented along with a recommendation for purchase to the final authority. Both recommenders and anointers at this stage can become obstacles. This is why it’s important to market to business-level influencers early on. You want to move them up to the start of the sales cycle – not leave them in the dark. Giving your primary buyer a simple business-level white paper for the anointer could accomplish this objective.
Now, let’s jump back to the top portion. 
If you run successful Influencer Marketing strategy, the increased awareness and demand generation will lead to more sales opportunities but it will ALSO shorten the research stage (in gray) and remove/reduce the period following the trial/testing stage. This revised diagram shows where you want to go. As the red box gets bigger, the yellow box gets smaller or shorter. Within the yellow box, I also show what has changed to make it smaller.
Here are some summary statements …
· There are two types of influencers: Market influencers and Buyer influencers (former is a component of the latter – critical to recognize)
· Market influencers are industry analysts, press, tech partners, channel partners, etc … all the respected experts who have no direct stake in the customer’s organization
· Buyer influencers are paid consultants, team members, peers or friends in the same industry, end users, business executives, industry analysts, etc … all the trusted people who have a direct stake in the customer or customer’s organization
· Marketing must strive to A) generate awareness and demand as well as B) shorten sales cycle
· Generating awareness through and with market influencers transfers directly into the sales cycle and impacts it; awareness generated without influencers is a random shot in the dark
· Everything marketing does must serve to shorten the distance between buyer and vendor
· Demand creation or lead generation are only effective if conducted strategically within the context of influencer marketing – otherwise, you’re just producing lists and not doing anything to shorten the sales cycle and increase win rate; lead generation without influencer marketing is creating a bigger headache and counter-productive (it’s the difference between giving sales list of people to persuade vs. handing them persuaded people)
· Power falls to those who get the first recommendation; getting on an RFP list is fine if you are the instigator of the RFP ; if not, you are dead (get ready to compete on price)
· Once you win a customer, they become BOTH buyer influencer and market influencer; this is why leveraging customers across marketing programs and putting them at the center of your universe is so critical … customers are the only influencers who can serve to both expand the red box and shrink the yellow box at the same time!!!
- John
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