Rapleaf's Phil Davis continues the discussion. With consumer voices playing a bigger and bigger role in a company's brand and reputation, knowing who your most influential brand advocates are has never been more important for your company's growth. This session will discuss ways to identify your most valuable customers, how to treat and engage them, and where to find more people like them.
TRANSCRIPT
Marketing to Your Influencers
Phil Davis
Agenda
• Identifying Influencers
• Engaging Influencers
• Finding More Influencers
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Conventional Wisdom
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HighPast
Spending
Good Treatment
and Satisfaction
High Future
Spending
“Total Customer Value” depends on individual spend
Presenter
Presentation Notes
But this is an incomplete view
Influencers…
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Customers with lots of friends and
impact
VIP Treatment,
Special Promotions
W.O.M. and many more customers
Have high “Total Referral Value”
Presenter
Presentation Notes
But this is an incomplete view
Marketing to Influencers
Influencers shape surrounding opinions
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Levels of Influence
Depend on friendships…
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Levels of Influence
social persuasion…
Did You Know?
% of buyers who rely on WOM for purchases:
Dining and restaurants
67%Computers and software
38%Travel and vacation
22%
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Identifying Influencers
1) Start w/ Rapleaf Data
2) “Share Me” email campaigns
3) Referral awards and programs
4) Reactions to online posts/updates
5) Update influencer scores based online and offline campaigns
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…now what?
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Here are some other ways -- 1) Email campaigns are one of the easiest, quickest ways to find out the reach of someone – it’s also cheap and if it’s good, then can be very powerful especially since a lot of the tracking is already built-in 2) Referral awards are win-win – companeis like gilt group and groupon are good examples of this. They build in referral awards into their memberships so if I referred my friends, I get $10 or $25 for the first thing my referrals purchase. 3) Typing in a “+” sign at end of bit.ly links let you see who referred the most people One thing to keep in mind is that instead of looking at each of these 5 things separately, you look at them each as a data point about your customers’ influence. Some companies have started building influencer scores for their customers. For example, high friend counts and klout scores may start off a customer with a influencer score of 30. and for every email they share or coupon code that is redeemed, their score increases by another 4 points. The benefit of this is that you don’t rely on any one metric but instead build your own influencer scoring system that’s based on your own audience. Now after you identify them, now what?
Engaging Influencers
1. Give away free samples and trials
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Engaging Influencers
2. Offer invite-only promotions and access to special events (and invite friends)
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Engaging Influencers
3. Build a referral program
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Engaging Influencers
4. Ask for feedback (and listen)
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Engaging Influencers
5. Setup customer service (and other) flags
Actor Kevin Smith, kicked off of plane for being overweight, shared his experience with 1.6 million Twitter followers
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Presenter
Presentation Notes
last month, Southwest airlines kicked off overweight passenger, calling him a “safety risk.” passenger was an actor with 1.6 million followers, and made sure his followers knew Would SW have done the same thing had they known who the passenger was? Maybe – but they would have handled it very differently. To avoid this type of situation, businesses should have flags that alert customer service reps when they deal with a high-profile and influential customer.
Engaging Influencers
6. Surprise them
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Presenter
Presentation Notes
People love surprises. Free shipping, extra goodies are easy to do. Can also mail them small presents on their birthdays and on the anniversaries of when they became your customers – maybe an item they’ve looked at the most frequently but haven’t bought yet. You get extra points for creativity and thoughtfulness but even fairly basic ones like free shipping can really impress them and make them want to talk about you to their friends. Also consider having your customers surprise their friends with small gifts.
Engaging Influencers
7. Establish a brand advocate program
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Engaging Influencers
8. Have executives, management call them
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Finding More Influencers
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• Reach out to happy customers
• Engage people who are already influential
• Find people who are passionate about similar things
Influencer marketing is not a short cut.
• Make every customer happy
• Surpass expectations
• Be creative
• Impress them
• Give them things to talk about
• Measure results
• Stay humble
Finally…
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Presenter
Presentation Notes
-marketing to influencers does not mean overnight success – it might be a short-term win but won’t be more than that if customer service and overall experience is bad. -Used in conjunction with other programs, influencer marketing can be powerful -if you can consistently make people happy and surpass their expectations, you’re in good shape for long-term success. Zappos, the online retailers, is a great example of this – everything they do is to try to make their shoppers happier and to give them a pleasant shopping experience. - Humility – don’t push people to blog/reciprocate your efforts to engage them, it may end up with opposite effect. Also, people generally don’t want to talk about how great your company or product is – they want to talk about how it’s helped them and made their lives better. Instead of thinking of putting your product front and center in their minds, think of yourself as more of a supporting actor that helps the customers be the protagonist in the story.
