From Mass to Influencer Marketing

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From Mass to Influencer Marketing

🔥 According to some views, today's marketing is losing effectiveness and is even considered "broken" (Brown and Hayes, 2008). A possible reason is that it does not contribute to sales in as direct and tangible way as before. The wide public is targeted by too many messages that are similar to each other and not very believable.
Could a company target only specific third parties, which are interested in their service or product and which could affect the purchasing decisions of customers? Such approach would save money and lead to efficiency and eventually to an increase in sales.

INFLUENCER MARKETING
Influencer marketing is the approach which attempts to identify specific third parties, referred to as influencers, and to find the best way to approach them (Brown and Hayes, 2008).

INFLUENCERS

• DEFINITION: Brown and Hayes consider an influencer as "a third-party who significantly shapes the customer's purchasing decision, but may never be accountable for it". This means that influencers are completely different from prospective purchasers.
• TYPES: There are multiple categories of influencers, which include suppliers, management consultancies, customer firms, journalists, authors and management thinkers, government agencies and regulators, systems integrators, venture capitalists and financiers, distributors and other channel partners, industry bodies, forums and federations, academia, industry and financial analysts, online forums and blogs, competitors, internal influencers, etc (Brown and Hayes, 2008).
• ROLES: Influencers may have a different impact on the decision-making process, thus they play different roles in it. Brown and Hayes (2008) identify the following major roles: idea planters, predictors, trend setters, proclaimers, aggregators, scopers, recommenders, persuaders, negotiators and validators.

THE DECISION-MAKING PROCESS
A decision-making process is often complex and there are typically many parties involved (besides the decision-maker) who inform, support and validate the decision. The critical points to influence a decision are at the beginning of the process and at its end. Usually influencing in the beginning of the process has a greater and easier impact on the outcome (Brown and Hayes).

The roles influencers play in the different stages of the decision-making process can be seen below:

Figure: Influencers and their roles in the decision process (Brown and Hayes, 2008)
PITFALLS OF INFLUENCER MARKETING

• It differs from traditional marketing, and involves a change of the approach of the marketing department within a company that wishes to apply it. Marketers have to change from mass marketing, targeting prospective purchasers, to establishing a 2-way relationship with each influencer.
• It requires alignment between the marketing- and salesforce since the sales people are the first to see the outcomes from applying the approach.
• There are multiple categories of influencers, which makes it difficult to assess which ones might be most influential and to what extent in a certain market. It might be useful to use the services of an external firm specialized in influencer marketing.
• The results take time – the message a company wants to convey to its customers would have to happen through the influencers, which means that the quality of the relationship with the influencers is of high importance. In order to achieve such a relationship takes time and effort.

⇒ Do you have any tips or experiences with influencer marketing? Reply me! Thanks…

Source: Brown, D., & Hayes, N. (2008), "Influencer Marketing: Who Really Influences your Customers?", Routledge.

		Comments by date▼ Comments by rating Rating
		3 Molokanova Professor, Ukraine
	From Mass to Influency Marketing In other words, influencer marketing is about the influence of people in the environment of the client on her/his decision-making. Due to the arrival of the web and social media, we are now all in the middle of and interacting with our external environment on a daily basis. Another thing is that someone tries to manipulate our thoughts in order to make money on this, but now people have grown wiser and quickly understand this. Therefore, according to some marketing is already dead.

		2 Teresa Dian Chew Consultant, Malaysia
	Influencer Marketing Powerful Tool in Social Networks I agree with the concept of influencer marketing in the today's digital economy, leveraging on its viral power. In my opinion influencer marketing has to be done with integrity and sincerity, not for the sake of self fame. I recently attended an architecture and interior trade fair, and through my posting of my photos with the backdrop of a beautiful custom made soft furnishing carpet. One of my Facebook community showed interest to purchase this 2m x 3m carpet of exotic design. I managed to refer the purchase through one-on-one engagement through my social media platform. In our capacity as image consultant and business artist, we have helped market brands and services through influencer marketing, which could not have been possible using mass marketing.

		2 Latif Salifu Kasim Entrepreneur, Ghana
	Influential Marketing? What's the Difference? To what extent is influential marketing approach different from using an opinion former or leader? This is the first time I hear about this tool as a marketer.

		0 Paramathmuni srinivas Kumar India
	A Conscious Based Approach to Influence Marketing I think we can influence the decisions taken based on the conscious based factors. For example, the respect given by the buyer towards the skill of the advertiser and his product/service company would ultimately lead to a decision which is effective. Similar to that of skill, the effective decision making can be influenced by respecting the other's conscious-based factors like hunger, thirst, sleep, reflection, intellect, intense craving etc in self and others involved in decision making process (enables better engagement of employees and client). In the above process, the people involved are presumed to be following high ethical standards.

		2 EDUARDO WEXMAN Management Consultant, Chile
	Influencer Marketing in the Wine Industry The wine industry is one example where influencers, specifically wine journalists and critics have been playing a significant role for decades. A wine that receives a good score from Wine Spectator, W...

		4 Eugene Laslo Consultant, Hungary
	Ethics in Advertising??? @Srinivas: I am having some doubts about the viability of the combination of advertising and following ethical standards. Unless the ethical standards are enforced by law, hoping for ethical advertis...

		2 Khalil Rajati, Iran
	Influencer Marketing in the Pharmaceutical Industry For pharmaceutical products the influencers can be different: For OTC PRODUCTS influencers are pharmacies, sales force, media... For GENERIC PRODUCTS influencers are government, physicians, s...

		0 Paramathmuni srinivas Kumar India
	Ethics in Advertising @Eugene Laslo: you would agree that ethics as such is complex subject. For example to lie in general is unethical, however if one is to choose between being ethical by not lying and to lie in order to...

		4 Jaap de Jonge Editor, Netherlands
	Micro Influencer Marketing Social media like facebook, twitter and youtube have made it possible for many new "micro-influencers" to recommend or disapprove certain products and services. Some of these social influencers can h...

		1 Sivakumar Business School Marketer, India
	Evangelism Marketing - Story Building (PR) - Opinion Leaders Evangelism marketing - Story Building (PR) - Opinion Leaders: I see this influencer marketing concept as a new name given for the above mentioned three concepts which are already in use. I may be wron...

		3 Salvatore Clemente Business Consultant, Italy
	From Mass to Influencer Marketing What about word of mouth marketing? This is the oldest and cheapest form of influencer marketing, boosted today by the digital transformation. You could use it to quickly created a history around your...

		1 oscar charles sanga, Tanzania
	The Power of Persuasion to Influencer Marketing What do you think of persuasion role in this? You see, Influencer marketing has a great impact to someone who has already made the decision to purchase some product/service. But not on the one who di...

		3 David Harland Consultant, United Kingdom
	Difficulties with Influencer Marketing I've been observing a ($2b t/o) firm over the last couple of years, plus some others in relation to their marketing and specifically their social media and influencer strategies. What strikes me is th...

		1 Mike Allen Strategy Consultant, United Kingdom
	History of Influencer Marketing Pfizer started this approach with USA farmers in the 1950s and it was adopted by Dennis Tolliday (Sterling-Winthrop) and Barry Haigh (Innovex) in the UK. Using a database developed by Walsh. The syste...

		2 Sarah Daghman Lecturer, Russian Federation
	The 4M's of Influencer Marketing With the arrival of social media, influencer marketing is now an important new approach to marketing and public relations. It refers to the act of partnering in Marketing/PR efforts with developers of...

		1 Daniel Adanri Student (Other), United Kingdom
	Harnessing the Power of Social Media Influencers What is Influencer Marketing? Definition Influencer marketing is also known as influence marketing (IM). It is a marketing strategy that focuses on leveraging the popularity and influence of individu...

		2 Molokanova Professor, Ukraine
	Difficulties with Influencer Marketing Information technologies, along with huge advantages, have brought huge threats to the world, which a nonspiritual society is not able to fight against. I think that our society underestimates the har...

		1 Jaap de Jonge Editor, Netherlands
	Sponsored Content and Social Influencers Social influencers like celebrities typically earn money from sponsored content. But followers tend to dislike that and some will vote with their feet. This is neither in the interest of the celebrity...