Your audience trusts their influencers more than your brand. And that's OK.

Everyday, we all search to be convinced.

The internet has turned us all into researchers, no matter what you thought of card catalogues and the Dewey Decimal System in your youth. (I just lost a lot of you, right there, didn’t I…)

While we can have a feisty discussion over whether every brand needs social media, I can emphatically proclaim that —

Every brand needs influencer marketing.

And I wouldn’t be splitting hairs. Social marketing is one vehicle that makes real influencer marketing possible.

What’s more, we want to be influenced. In fact, we go searching for it.

We want to be influenced, and once we think we’ve narrowed our choices, we want our choices validated.

Because it’s all about trust.
Let’s face it: we don’t trust the things brands say about themselves, because we know they’re self serving. We don’t expect that brands have our best interests at heart. We believe they are out to capitalize on our needs rather than, well, empower our self-driven well-being to use my own company’s mission statement.

If you are an empowerment brand, the last several generations of marketing and sales is arrayed against you. Despite your best intentions, your less than sterling peers have created an environment of pretty severe distrust. How are you going to be trusted in a world like this?

You partner with those who have already established themselves as go-to resources of information in areas where your story needs to be told, and where transactions involving solutions like yours can be made.

Consider the way you make major buying decisions. it doesn’t matter if you’re considering a new car or seeking to form a partnership with a new business vendor; the processes are virtually identical.

This is nothing new to you; you’ve seen various incarnations of “the purchase funnel” before.

A New Take on the Classic Message Grid

Each of the 16 "sectors" below in the funnel should contain an influencer type that you've identified, as well as the best channel to employ to mutually benefit both your brand and the chosen influencer. Obviously, there will be overlaps along the way. Understanding your audience's needs and who influences them, and where they best come in contact with them will take you a long way towards developing powerful communications approaches. 

For a larger version of the graphic above, view this article at our website, www.BSBagency.com

• Different media is most effective during different parts of the funnel.
• Your audiences depend on different media types during each part of the funnel.
• Each media can best employ a different influencer type.

Pairing a carefully defined audience with influencer + media + content at the right part of the funnel is what defines an influencer marketing approach.

I say “approach” instead of “campaign” because “campaign” implies a linear process; something you start, run, and evaluate. Ideally, a brand will fluidly maintain this approach by mindful observation and adjustment. Analytical feedback and consistent customer engagement makes this possible.

This approach will employ what has been popularly referred to as “content marketing” or “inbound marketing” to ultimately generate leads for your business. However, if you’re considering this primarily as a lead generation device, you’re missing out on the powerful relationship building power of influencer marketing.

Despite the internet and social media and double-opt-ins and SEO / SEM ad nauseum, the marketing methodology here really hasn’t changed insofar as “managing trust” is concerned. In the not so old days of the 80’s when I was being educated, we’d labor to conscientiously create “message grids.”

A message grid is informed by research. The research helps you translate customer problems into customer personas. These personas are like characters with faces and names and personalities that you an actually embrace and create content for. You can then honestly address their problems at the right times with truly valuable messages that ultimately create more than customers; they create advocates.

The biggest challenges are:

Determining what makes a great influencer along each aspect of the funnel

For example, if your brand has very little awareness, you don’t necessarily need an influencer that advocates for your brand; you may benefit more from a subject matter expert who can set the bar for excellence in your category; then you can shine bright when your customers get a little deeper down the path

Finding the best influencers

The best influencers often aren’t celebrities in their field — although they could be. They may be creators of a YouTube channel that address and engage your customers deeply, or a widely read and shared blogger or proponent who sticks primarily to Twitter. In key geographic markets, they may be brick and mortar proprietors with significant relationships and customer base.

Developing a mutually beneficial proposition with those influencers

Here’s where finesse and deep respect for the culture of the influencer and their specific audience comes into play. You need to craft a genuine value offer for your best influencers that will be good for their interests as well as yours. Perhaps it’s helping them generate great content. Perhaps it’s offering them access to a significant portion of your own audience. Perhaps it’s giving them a wider platform by having them review your product or service in a big arena that only you can make possible. Be creative, but above all, make sure you’re not myopic on the value just for you.

Influencer partnerships are one of the most misunderstood aspects of modern marketing. A lot of that confusion comes simply from misunderstanding how your customers go about the process of making decisions.

As with most marketing, actually sitting down and having great conversations with your best potential customers will open up a world of new exploration that can lead you to communications success on a larger scale. That includes understanding your customer’s influencers.

Sam Lowe is founder and Chief Creative Officer of BaudelaireSextonBlake, a marketing communications company dedicated to companies and brands that empower individuals to take control of their well being.