influence marketing Archives - Page 4 of 4 by Mark Murnahan

The Internet has changed. Wait, scratch that … the world has changed, and the people of the world are fully engrossed in “The Information Age”. Maybe it is even beyond that, and perhaps we can now effectively call this “The Static Age” because of the massive level of static we must sort through to hear or be heard. Right now, today, there are likely 42 squillion people writing about your industry on a daily basis, and unless you are the reincarnation of Elvis Presley, you will have a hard time capturing their interest.

It is time to take a closer look at an important metric of your website traffic. Who is coming to visit, and will they return? Did you do something that knocked their socks off? Did you have something to say that totally blew them away enough to subscribe and come back? Allow me to explain why this matters, and what you can do about it.

Good Bloggers Know and Care About Readership Churn

The number of bloggers in 2010 has shot the moon. If you don’t believe me, that is fine. I should not need to prove this with numbers, because you surely already know it. You probably already saw another blog (or three) in the last 1 minute and 22 seconds. The blast of information is fast, furious, and growing like a flu pandemic. Some of it is great information, but most of it will interest you as much as a knitting class interests a race car driver.

Much of the massive blast of information simply does not apply to your life. Even if it is reliably useful information, I think we can agree that a lot of what we see on the Internet is filed away in the “time wasted” category and we will not be going back to read more.

So what about you? Will you find yourself filed away in the bottom of your readers’ Internet history? If you want to avoid this, you must get a couple things straight right now. In my short list, I will include that you must be useful, pay attention to your readers, give them a great reason to come back, and do not disappoint them when and if they do.

There is Still Hope for Bloggers!

I have written about good reasons to blog. The reasons I have listed have been implemented and trusted by many readers. I write things to help people, and I do not take them for granted. Even with all my efforts to be useful, it would be astonishingly simple for people to forget where they got that useful idea (whatever the idea). I know this, because I forgot where I have found some great ideas, too. I am telling you … there is a massive wave of information, and even the best of us cannot keep it all filed away perfectly. So it is extremely important to help people remember you. If you are in business, it is important to help people remember why to come back to you when they want more, or they know somebody who does. How can you do that?

If you are blogging to advertise your goods or services, you will have a hard time getting people to pay attention. Something far more important is to give them something they care about. Give them something useful. Since you cannot do something amazing every day (nobody can), you should give them a picture of other things you write about. Give them an archive. If they think that you may be just a little bit interesting, let them see if there is more where that came from. I will blog about how to create various kinds of blog archives soon, but for now, just be aware of the idea and that it can help others see more value in what you provide.

If They Want More, Make it Easy and Non-Threatening

The next thing to do is be sure that if people see a value in what you provide that they can subscribe to receive more of it. You do not have to beat them over the head with it, but you cannot expect them to go out of their way to give you their attention, either. It is not a promise that you will be amazing. It is not a promise that they will ever do business with you, either. It simply means that they will have more opportunity to see what you are about, and if they eventually need what you offer or know somebody who does, they will remember you. Timing is a big issue in business, and most of the time, people do not need or want what you sell at the moment they discover you. Things can change, and if they are at least aware of you, you will have a lot stronger chance of getting the call when they need you.

Give them an easy way to subscribe. Google’s FeedBurner is easy and non-threatening because people will never need to worry about you spamming them. If they subscribe by email, it is safe because they are not giving it to you. I never worry about subscribing to a FeedBurner feed, because I know my email is not going anywhere but Google, and Google already has my email. They don’t spam me. As for RSS subscribers, like email, they choose whether to subscribe and they will not need to worry about you having their email address, and the only way you can really “spam” them is by putting it on your blog for the world to see.

It is this easy to ask somebody to subscribe. Allow me to lead by example.

Please Subscribe by Email or RSS

or Subscribe in a reader.

… and it is this easy to show them your past performance so they know what to expect:

See My Blog Archive

To summarize this, it is important to remember the value of repetition in marketing, and that if you want people to receive your message over and over again, you need to do something useful that benefits them. You have to give them a great reason to receive your repetition. Then, you must let them know that you want to be in their list of considerations when it is the right time for them.

No, this is not a precise tutorial on how to get things just right. It is a message on how to think about your marketplace and why people will want to hear from you again. Just like any business endeavor, when you reach the same people again and again, it is a whole lot easier than trying to continually find new people. This is true whether you are giving something away for free, or offering something for sale.

Now I ask that if you have an interest in what I said here that you subscribe to receive more, because I truly do not want to have to replace you.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

How To Reach the Right People … The Influencers!

I think for a lot of people trying to reach a market, the question of how to reach the right people totally confounds them. It is actually a bit tricky and it takes some serious thought. It gets easier with training, experience, and research, but it is always a challenging part of marketing. Good marketing often means reaching the buyer themselves, but the best marketing often means reaching the people who influence the buyer. It is called influence marketing. Knowing who is an influencer and who is a buyer is an important step to knowing the right message to deliver. Getting it wrong means wasting a lot of time and money.

Car companies learned about this a long time ago. They realized that, statistically, men will be more appreciative of the 7.0L V8 engine and the 505 horsepower, while ladies will care more about the handy button to automatically move the power seat back to where she left it (before her gearhead husband got in and moved it). They segment their market and deliver a different message to reach the right person with the right message. By doing this, they are selling features to each party, but they also know that if I want that 7.0L V8 engine, I will use that silly seat button they told me about to influence my wife. Now that is how to get a car sold! Reaching the right person very often means knowing more than just them, but also who influences them, and how.

If I was selling wedding dresses, I would know that the bride is not always the only participant. There is another important point of influence. I need to reach her father with the message that his little darling will feel like the princess she wanted to be when she was five years old and that this is that moment she had planned for all those years. I need to reach the bridesmaids who will tell the bride how gorgeous that dress makes her look. I need to reach the influencers or the whole thing could be shot down and I have just another expensive dress on the rack.

For me, I consider who reads my work. Exactly who is attracted to a blog about marketing? Probably people who have a product or service to offer, right? The fact is that it is mostly people who would never in a million years consider paying me to help them build their market. This is just fine for me, because it helps me focus on being useful. If I am useful, people will come back. If I am even more useful, they will pass it along to others in their circle of influence. Because I know that most of my readers are not directly in the market to buy my services, the focus is a lot more on being helpful. Reaching the right people means reaching the influencers, and not just the buyers directly. Seriously, most CEOs and VPs are not looking for me. My job is to be sure they find me, but when the message is delivered by somebody influential to them, it is better than if I deliver it right to them. That is crazy back-door thinking, right? Not really. Just imagine the marketing assistant who says “I like this guy, boss. We should talk to him.” That influence will always go a lot further than just reaching the boss and explaining how great my offering is. The right message is that I am not the competition, but rather here to be useful. The right timing means that readers will subscribe to my blog and find me again when their timing is right.

If you want to reach the right people, you often must look far beyond the obvious target. Think about how you can better reach your market influencers. It is Monday, and it is a great way to start your week.