From Analyst Relations to Influencer Relations

Duncan Chapple posts an interesting comment on the expansion of analyst relations (AR) departments to a wider Influencer Relations approach. He notes that in starting from an AR perspective firms may miss out key groups of influencers, or gather them together as “left-overs”, and subsequently treat them inappropriately. I agree.

I think AR (or PR for that matter) can be a good starting point to adopt an influencer model. AR is a defined function within most firms, and (importantly) has a line-item budget allocation. There is also an established body of good practice and plenty of discussion to keep AR fresh and top-of-mind.

If you’re coming at influencer from an AR starting point, then SAP’s model is a great archetype to follow. Don knows that his model will evolve over time, as indeed it has done already, but you’ve got to start somewhere. Redefining AR as a sub-division of Influencer Relations is a start, if for no other reason than it identifies the gaps to fill.

I do think, however, that the ‘Relations’ model (AR, PR, media relations, investor relations, influencer relations) is often seen as an end in itself. At a practical level, in most IT organisations there is little coherency between relations and any marketing or sales activity. Sure, an analyst may be wheeled out at a lead generation event, or quoted on a product website. But it’s hardly integrated marketing.

AR and PR firms complain that they’ve been pushing an influencer model for several years, but firms lack the budget or insight to implement such a shift.

Not true – firms are deploying influencer models, but they are mostly not starting from within the AR and PR functions. They are typically emerging from operational marketing functions. Why is this? It’s simply because marketing is increasingly ineffective through the use of traditional models. It’s hard to differentiate a message, even harder to get that message heard, and even if it is heard, you’re unlikely to be believed. Why? Because it’s you that’s delivering the message. Get an influencer to deliver the same message, and it’s more likely to be trusted.

More importantly, by understanding why customers don’t buy from you, and then mapping influencer-led messages onto those objections, you can create a portfolio of counter-arguments based on what influencers are saying. That’s Influencer Marketing.

Unsurprising, then, that most firms truly engaged in an Influencer model are coming less from an AR or PR start, and more from a marketing start.

Influencer Marketing, as we define it, is precisely aimed at growing sales. It does this through a process of influencer identification and engagement, leading to an embedding of influencer-led messages that support and enable sales.

Influencer relations may get you on a shortlist. Influencer Marketing will make sure you get the purchase order.

The Telegraph’s Most Powrful People list

Ooh! Another list of influencers! How novel. For anyone who’s thinking of using this as the basis for an influencer program, think on these questions:

1. What’s the basis on which these influencers were chosen? As far as I can tell, the methodology appears to be: pick the top firms in the UK in each sector, find out the name of the CEO, include on list, randomise names on list to mask lack of objective rationale.
2. Can this list be useful in your marketing campaigns? What are the chances of you creating an influencer program with the list’s constituents? Could you ever arrange a meeting with even ten people on the list?
3. Do the list’s constituents actually influence your customers’ and prospects’ purchase decisions? Are they often in front of real customers, informing and persuading, or are they busy running multi-million pound businesses?

The one good thing about the Telegraph list is that is may get you thinking about who really influences your customers.

Why you can’t guess your influencers

We often play a game with our clients. Write down the names of the top ten influencers on your market (or segment). If you guess correctly you don’t pay us.

It’s a safe bet – we’ve never encountered a close guess. But why?

I think there are two possible reasons. Firstly, most people have never thought about the question before. Although intuitively they know that their prospects are being influenced by a range of individuals, they’ve never considered who these people might be.

The second reason is that when considering influence, they use one, or maybe two, dimensions to measure influence. The most common ones used are frequency and market reach/awareness. Sometime they’ll use connectedness, especially if they’re considering the influence of bloggers.

The problem is that influence is multi-dimensional. Currently we use four dimensions of influence, and are piloting a further four (from which we expect two to be practical and consistently measurable).

It also explains why Bill Gates and Steve Jobs rarely turn up on our influencer rankings, along with the other obvious CEO of top companies. These individuals may influence industry trends and directions, but they rarely affect real decisions at the coal face.

Analyst of the year...

Better late than never, I've just read the IIAR's Analyst of the Year results. Really interesting stuff - check it out. The rise of the smaller guys is remarkable. Maybe they've done a better job of engaging with the AR community...

The full report is here.

A good analysis of the results is here.

Why links don't equate to influence

We write about the disconnect between links and influence in the book

But Hugh has a better way of saying the same thing:

I really must learn to draw cartoons...

Analysts, influence, and the pointlessness of lists

Aberdeen Group has announced the top 100 influential technology vendors in 2008. I’m assuming this isn’t a prank, since sensible folk like Jason Stamper at CBR have already commented on it. But it isn’t on Aberdeen’s own web site (yet) – I wonder if they’re embarrassed by it

Anyway, the list claims to show the top vendors that “excelled at providing value to the business community” – whatever that means. Jason does a great job of picking holes in the list’s composition, so I won’t repeat them.

So three macro comments:

1. Announcements like these do Aberdeen no favours. It is research generated purely for PR – there’s no other use for it. Are enterprises supposed to rush out and buy stuff only from the top 10? Are they supposed to not buy from the lower ranked vendors? In fact there is no insight, advice or action that can result (sanely) from this list. It’s a list for lists’ sake.
2. It brings into question the purpose of analysts generally. Can we respect the work of a firm that produces such pointless nonsense? This at a time when the very role of analysts is being discussed, here and here. Is Aberdeen really an anlyst firm? I hope not. If I was CIO at one of the “90% of the Fortune 500” or “75% of the Global 500” firms that “rely on Aberdeen's research” I’d have serious look at the value of my subscription. And then probably review my other analyst subscriptions too.
3. What is the point of a list? I think it’s either to recognise and reward performance, in which case it should be based on performance outcomes (like a league table). Or it should be an advisory statement, based on some survey data, that advises and/or challenges you to take note (like SAP’s influence chart). The recent WSJ list of business influencers has merit because it does both – “hats off to the top gurus, and you should be reading these guys…”

A list of 100 technology firms is neither recognition of success nor useful to decision makers. It’s pointless.

Who analyzes the analysts?

There’s a new blog to discuss analysts - analystanalyst. Immediately I like its tone: thought-provoking, humble, discursive.

Its key purpose is to “analyse the analysts.” You might assume that this was already being done by the AR firms: Lighthouse, Tekrati, Tiger Lily, KnowledgeCapital, SageCircle, and so on. I’m guessing the IIAR has some role in analysing the space too.

So is there a point to the blog? Indeed there is. Firstly it aims to hold to account analysts and their predictions/advice. All of the AR firms and in-house practitioners position analysts as essential. They are all pro-analyst. They all position analysts as key influencers, often generalising influence based on the firm analysts work for rather than their individual influence.

This, I believe, distorts the role and reliability of analysts. As analystanalyst says, “no-one analyses or compares (analysts) or holds them to their word, rather we just keep on paying them the money…”

Do I detect a degree of resentment in this statement? Why do “we just keep on paying them the money…”?

Analystanalyst is an anonymous blog (which is a pity, as this diminishes its credibility) but I’m going to guess that the author works for a vendor. This guess is based on the blog description stating that the author “comes into contact with analysts everyday, and more importantly with people who think what analysts say is gospel.” Most end-users don’t encounter analysts everyday.

So here’s a question: what would happen to your organisation if you didn’t pay the money? What’s the bottom line impact of cancelling your Gartner subscription?

One answer is that you’d lose the deep insight that analysts provide into market dynamics. Many (most?) vendors buy analyst research for market data, for strategic insight and for competitive analysis.

But how many of these firms justify the spend by claiming that analysts are influential on end-users?

So welcome, analystanalyst, whoever you are. You’re asking some tough but important questions.

Analysts and their share of influence

For the record, I’ve never said that analysts are no longer influential. (Some of my best friends are analysts…) What I have said is that the share of influence has shifted away from analysts towards a plethora of other influential categories, some new (eg. bloggers) and some old (eg. consultants, regulators, academics). In fact, what’s most relevant is that it is now possible, using sophisticated search capability (plus a good deal of research diligence) to detect influence (if you know where to look and don’t prejudge the answer).

I’ve also stated, in the book and elsewhere, that analyst influence is often overstated. Analysts are influential, but they are not at the top of the influence hierarchy. Indeed, I don’t believe there is an influence hierarchy.

HP, and now SAP, confirm that view that analysts are just one of multiple groups of influencer. It’s interesting that Don at SAP detected this 18 months ago and reacted by establishing an Influencer Relations division. What’s surprising is that so few companies have followed this lead. But I know many are watching this trend closely.

Who really influences customers?

Hot on the heals of HP’s survey results on who influences their customers, Don at SAP has released figures of a survey conducted 18 months ago. The post, with Don’s observations on the data, is here.

A couple of immediate observations of my own:

1. How important peers and colleagues are. This is consistent with many consumer-focused surveys too. But I’m not convinced this is helpful from a marketing viewpoint: after all, it still poses the problem, how do you get you message to those peers and colleagues?
2. Our customers’ customers are major influencers. This is really interesting, and rarely picked up on. It means that what customers buy must add value to what they in turn sell. So we, as marketers, must know what our customers are selling, and to whom.
3. The importance of your competitors (in SAP’s case, Business Software vendors). Often downplayed, or ignored, but competitors are trying desperately to influence your customers. What do you do about it?
4. Confirmation that analysts are most influential in the 2500+ employee bracket. This mirrors Forrester’s own research into the influences on small and medium firms.
5. Blogs are low in influence. Don suggests this may have changed in the past 18 months. I’m less convinced.
6. Where are the events? This contrasts with HP’s figures, but match Influencer50’s research findings that events are rarely influential.

This is good insight into the share of influence that exists in the IT industry. I hope more firms will share their results.

More on SAP's approach to influencer relations

Don Bulmer at SAP shares his experience of establishing an Influencer Relations program. I esepecially like the engagement model and the segmentation (with revenue opportunity) of influencer groups.

Don's diagram of this is here.

'Influencers possess less clout'

So says Pollara, a Canadian research firm. Nice headline. Except what the research says is that online influencers (bloggers, social media users, etc) have less clout than real world influencers. And that's in consumer markets.

This is evidence of a vocabulary drift that now equates influencers with bloggers. It's symptomatic of a lack of thought over what influencers are and how they work. The fact that a blog gets a lot of hits has no bearing on its influence. Why? Because influence is subject-specific. Hugh McLeod may have influence in social media, wine and suits, but none (as far as I know) in cars, scotch and pets.

The biggest issue I have in the influence of bloggers is that most bloggers that have any influence at all do so over other bloggers. The area that bloggers have most influence, as a group, is blogging and social media.

Most claims of the influence of social media are generic. They talk about the influence on "products" or "brands" or "services". But this is meaningless when trying to understand the influence on purchase decisions in favour of a specific product or brand or service.

Which is what matters to marketers.