A long article in B2B Marketing recently addressed a subject which is being increasingly discussed – marketing to people who influence buying decisions, rather than the ones who sign the order. You probably have your own idea of who your prospects’ influencers might be, but as The power of influencer marketing points out, there are a lot of potential candidates out there, including “journalists, consultants, academics, authors, sourcing advisors, management gurus, procurement advisors, systems integrators, regulators, government executives, standards setters, industry associations, resellers, lobbyists, events, forums and bloggers”.
With people reading so much more communications nowadays, the ability of influencers to get their opinions over must surely be greater than ever. That’s one reason why I’m steadily warming to the power of “social media” like blogs, Twitter and business forums, because the more you talk about yourself, or get others to talk about you, the more likely it is you’ll be influencing the influencers, even if you don’t know them. But it’s quite possible to go through the list above and see if any individuals spring to mind; then you need to ask yourself: “am I actively marketing to these people?” You should be.