Let Influencers Carry Your Positive Press

Who do your customers seek buying advice from? Who do they emulate and follow? Which is the one person or group that can influence them? Knowing the answers to these questions is necessary if you wish to utilize influencer marketing to publicize your products.

Influencers are people who have so much credibility within their friend circle, neighborhood, city or network that they can influence people's tastes, beliefs and opinions. An influencer can be someone as famous as Oprah or even someone like the guy next door whom everyone loves. In short, influencers are trend-setters. So what do influencers have to do with marketing? A lot, as most brands are slowly starting to realize.

Influencer marketing is an extension of word-of-mouth marketing and is something that companies are starting to exploit. According to the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, influencer marketing is when a marketer identifies, seeks out, and engages with influencers in support of a business objective.

Recently, when Pepsi launched its new flavor, Sierra Mist Ruby Splash, it used influencers to help spread the word. The influencers ran the gamut from the owner of a skateboard shop to a professional poker player to an young professional to an actress. The skateboard shop owner hosted an outdoor movie night; the poker player threw a bash for his first anniversary: the young professional distributed Sierra Mist Ruby Splash to the players at a softball game; and the actress brought drinks for everyone on her movie set. This way Pepsi was able to save big bucks on advertising and still get its product out to the target audience.

The above case study illustrates how a business can effectively publicize its product at a relatively low cost by using influencers but whether or not a business actively uses influencers for publicity, it still has to ensure that they are satisfied with the product. Influencers can literally make or break a business. An example from Adage Magazine that pretty much proves this point is that of McDonald's and Johnson & Johnson's Motrin with a common influencer group: mothers. One business utilized this group to improve its brand image while the other failed to pay attention to the influencers and, as a result, had to discontinue their ads.

Battered by attacks blaming the fast-food industry for making children fat, McDonald's Corp. recruited the prime accusers, mothers, to act as citizen consumer reporters. McDonald's offered some mothers a behind-the-scenes look into how their food is prepared in the form of field trips and on-site tours. The company realized that, when it comes to children, mothers are the most skeptical, protective and in charge of what their kids eat. Therefore, they were also the most important to convince.

On the other hand, Johnson & Johnson failed to take these influencers into account when they started an advertisement for Motrin. The ad featured a voice-over of a mom who carries her baby in a sling because it's good for her kid and she sees it as "a fashion statement" and validation of her as "an official mom." Some mothers considered the ad to be an affront because they thought it made it seem like they were fashionistas and more concerned about themselves and their pain than their children. The mothers vocalized their aversion to the ads through blogs, Twitter and other social networking sites. Ultimately, Johnson & Johnson withdrew the ads and publicly apologized to the mothers.

So, now we know the immense importance of influencers. But just knowing that is not enough. Businesses also have to know how to identify the right influencers for a particular product or service. In order to do that, it is necessary for businesses to know their target audience inside out. They should be able to flesh out their buyers' demographics and psychographics as thoroughly as possible and with maximum detail. After that, it is just a matter of careful research and observation, such as conducting surveys and in-depth interviews, to find out who they are most likely to listen to in relation to your product.

After identifying your influencers, there are numerous ways to encourage them to publicize your product. One way is the method adopted by Pepsi and McDonald's in the examples above. Other ways include singling them out for special perks, promotional gifts or discounts and giving them sneak previews or free samples of new products. However you do it, the primary concern is to make them feel that their opinion matters to you and you'll do whatever you can to make their experience a positive one. Then let them share their positive opinion with the rest of their friends and networks!