Lots of people play a part in a typical B2B purchase decision and naturally, identifying them is an important activity for any influencer relations program. You need to know who they are, including their name, job and location. First, you have to figure out who they are. That’s no so easy.
The big temptation is to start by asking the primordial question, “Who’s influencing the decision-makers at my accounts?”, and then jumping right to the obvious answers.
Not so fast!
It pays to back up one step. Start by thinking about the different kinds of people likely to be involved in purchase decisions for your products and services. This exercise helps you form a more complete picture of the influencer landscape. It also helps you avoid falling into ruts. This step encourages you to think about new types of influencers that may have emerged in your market and types of influencers your company tends to overlook.
In my case, I use the 24 categories of influencers from the Influencer Marketing book (page 55) with some additions for some clients. Generally, this basic list covers the ground and more:
Academia
Authors and management thinkers
Bloggers (and microbloggers)
Business and trade journalists
Buyers groups, purchasing lists and procurement authorities
Commentators and other individuals
Complementary partners
Conferences and events
Consumers and consumer groups
Customer firms
Financial analysts
Government agencies and regulators
Individual and niche consultants
Industry analysts
Industry bodies, forums and federations
Internal influencers
Management consultancies
Online forums
Peers (role-based, industry-based)
Retailers
Specialty consultancies
Standards bodies
Systems Integrators
VARs, distributors and similar channel partners
Venture capitalists and investors
Get the most out of this exercise by concentrating on the types of influencers likely to have an effect on decision-makers during the actual decision process. Influence can be exerted directly — one-to-one, influencer to decision-makers — or indirectly. Indirect entails exerting influence through intermediaries.
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Juniper Networks is updating its consultant relations strategy to better reflect the role these influencers play in customer decision-making. The new consultants program, under the umbrella of its channel partners program, is aimed “at partners who influence a customer‚Äôs buying decisions but don‚Äôt actually take part in the sale.”
This is an interesting approach to formalizing and updating consultant relations as part of a sales influencer program. For example, Juniper is looking to the consultants to provide neutral business or industry expertise as part of each customer’s decision-maker ecosystem. They bring in the consultant, or the prospect brings in the consultant. Either way, Juniper formally recognizes and supports the consultant during the sales process. This includes a stated emphasis on protecting the objectivity and independent advice of the consultant.
In a recent article in Business24-7.ae, Samer Shaar, a regional managing director for Juniper Networks explained:
“Independent players like Kallis, General Dynamics, Deloitte and Touche do not specialise in IT solution, but focus on the business concept. The system integrator and alliances come after that. Such an approach provides a business ecosystem that is functional and the neutrality of the consultant is also not lost… This is a trend and will become the next wave although it has not yet gone completely mainstream.”
It’s still fairly rare to see a corporate partners program embrace consultants in this way. Normally, the field organization ends up with the responsibilities — from ferreting out consultants in their accounts to putting together information packets and building relations without any special support from corporate.
It looks like a good approach.
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Can winning industry awards help sell products and services? According to the Influencer Marketing book, the answer is no:
“Industry awards are primarily self-congratulatory ‘feel good’ exercises, which have limited marketing value and all but zero influence on the top decision-makers.”
– Nick Hayes and Duncan Brown
They do credit awards with some value in the early stage of a decision process, such as in response to a Request For Proposal.
Is that the practical extent of the value of an industry award?
I agree with them insofar as few industry awards have the impact of the Oscars. However, that seems more a shortcoming of the typical awards organizer than the nature of awards in general.
Every industry has its awards programs that amount to little more than karaoke. It pays to avoid those. Or, bury them.
Likewise, every industry has its awards programs that do matter.
As with all forms of influence, the trick is knowing which is which.
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