4 ways to Influence the Influencers in your market

By Kathy-Ann Fletcher

Who do your customers consult before they make a purchase decision? Do they ask friends or associates, or seek the opinion of industry analysts, consultants and researchers for advice or reviews and rankings? Whoever they turn to or whose advice they follow, these are the key influencers. They are the opinion leaders that you need to be in regular contact with and who you need to influence. This is one of the most cost-effective ways to increase your customer base.

1.       Know who they are – Each industry or sector has different people or entities that are the key opinion leaders of that market. Investigate who these are relative to your industry/ies and learn as much as you can as far as who they are what it takes to influence them and what influences them. This will help you influence people in your market that are influential in your circles. Additionally, it will determine the content that you send their way. For instance, you won’t share with the press in the same way that you would share with and analyst.

2.       Follow them – Become their friend on Facebook, follow them on Twitter, subscribe to their blog. This will help you gain a deeper understanding of them and the content that they distribute and those who they influence and the influence they have on their followers.

3.       Develop a relationship with them – Just sending an email with a pitch or calling up an influencer will get you nowhere fast. Take time to cultivate a relationship with them. You should posts comments on their blogs, retweet their tweets and like their statuses on Facebook. These actions will help you gain their attention, so that when you do contact them, there is already a level of familiarity with you and what you have to offer.

4.       Develop a strong pitch – don’t go the way of the generic pitch. Develop something that is personal to each influencer you are approaching so they see the direct benefits they get from introducing you to their followers. You may want to make this pitch a soft sell rather than a hard approach. Ask for the party’s opinion on your product/service so that you could offer the best possible solution to their followers. This is where you can give them a compelling story that they may feel is interested enough to share with their fans.

To our readers do you know any additional steps that can be used to influence the influencers? Chime in as this list is by no means exhaustive.