Influencer marketing

Sep/27/2008 08:56
technoratiscreen1
Influencer marketing is a form of marketing that has emerged from a variety of recent practices and studies, in which focus is placed on specific key individuals (or types of individual) rather than the target market as a whole. It identifies the individuals that have influence over potential buyers, and orients marketing activities around these influencers. With social media growing in double digits the number of influencers could be hard for marketers to track but Google could be working on a ranking system to identify key influencers. If this is in indeed going to happen than it could be a valuable tool for marketers.


Influencer Marketing is a marketing discipline that few organizations have mastered. Influencer Marketing, as increasingly practiced in a commercial context, comprises four main activities:

Identifying influencers, and ranking them in order of importance.

Marketing to influencers, to increase awareness of the firm within the influencer community.

Marketing through influencers, using influencers to increase market awareness of the firm amongst target markets.

Marketing with influencers, turning influencers into advocates of the firm.

Influencer Marketing is enhanced by a continual evaluation activity that sits alongside the four main activities. The idea is to use influencers much like pharma uses thought leaders but believe it or not more information and transparency is needed for this segment especially BLOGGERS who take the time to write and post on pharma products, marketing and disease conditions.

Blogs are Pervasive and Part of Our Daily Lives

There have been a number of studies aimed at understanding the size of the Blogosphere, yielding widely disparate estimates of both the number of blogs and blog readership. All studies agree, however, that blogs are a global phenomenon that has hit the mainstream.

The numbers vary but agree that blogs are here to stay

comScore MediaMetrix (August 2008)
Blogs: 77.7 million unique visitors in the US
Facebook: 41.0 million | MySpace 75.1 million
Total internet audience 188.9 million

eMarketer (May 2008)
94.1 million US blog readers in 2007 (50% of Internet users)
22.6 million US bloggers in 2007 (12%)

Universal McCann (March 2008)
184 million WW have started a blog | 26.4 US
346 million WW read blogs | 60.3 US
77% of active Internet users read blog


Demographics of BLOGGERS


“The word blog is irrelevant, what's important is that it is now common, and will soon be expected, that every intelligent person (and quite a few unintelligent ones) will have a media platform where they share what they care about with the world.”

Seth Godin
Author
Tribes

How can pharma embrace influencers?

There are a lot of ways to embrace influencers within a regulated environment. Here are some ideas:

1. Acknowledge their influence and treat them special. You would be surprised how many people are just looking for some recognition or acknowledgement of their issues. Ignoring them only motivates them more to BLOG.

2. Set up an Influencer Network: Why not share your next DTC spot or consumer literature with these influencers to ask their input? Sure we do focus groups but influencers are the people that you want to reach. Can you imagine making some changes to a DTC spot because of the input of some influencers? The viral components of such a program are phenomenal !

3. Ask for their input on every brand touchpoint: This includes sample packs, consumer brochures and websites. What is missing and what do they want to know in order to drive action?

4. Online Influencer chat: Why not set up a chat with influencers and marketing or medical people to discuss their concerns/suggestions about prescription medications?

See a pattern here? The goal is to get into a conversation with these influencers so that they can become part of the brand and the solution. Seems simple but given how long it takes most pharma organizations to implement anything their may never be a better time to start thinking about new marketing to influencers.


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