Looking for a useful definition of “influencer” within the context of influencer marketing? Duncan gives a great run down in a B2B Marketing Online feature on influencer marketing by Meg de Jong, acting deputy editor:
“Duncan Brown, European managing director at specialist company Influencer50, points out that in terms of B2B marketing, marketers will be specifically interested in those individuals that impact on the buying decisions of firms.
“Depending on the specifics of your business, a large variety of people – both internal and external to your target companies – could be identified as influencers. These include journalists, consultants, academics, authors, sourcing advisors, management gurus, procurement advisors, systems integrators, regulators, government executives, standards setters, industry associations, resellers, lobbyists, events, forums and bloggers, among many possibilities.”
I am surprised to find Duncan saying that it’s rare for customers to be influencers. Sales professionals repeatedly tell me that customer references and customer case studies are highly valuable in winning business — not only towards the end of the purchase decision, but during short-listing as well.
Otherwise, it’s a excellent overview of B2B influencer marketing.
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September 7th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
Hi Barbara,
My comment on it being rare for customers to be influencers is based on a market view of influence. It is indeed rare that customers influence the whole market and over a prolonged period of time. It’s more common for customers to influence specific deals (as opposed to the market in general) and to do so for a relatively short time. Vendors are always complaining that reference customers get fatigued quickly by the demands on their time from vendors, so they limit their accessibility. Most customer references last around 12 months.
So customer references are indeed important, and they do influence individual sales, but their use as market-level influencers is usually limited.
Make sense?
Thanks for the opp to comment.
Duncan
September 7th, 2009 at 10:01 pm
Thanks for expanding on this point. If I understand properly, you’re saying that customers typically influence a small number of purchase decisions and for a short period of time, whereas there are other categories of trusted advisors who influence purchase decisions across a large portion of a market and for a long period of time.