Managing (and if lucky) controlling your circle of influence

I’m a great believer in six degrees of separation. It amazes me that you can be sitting on an airplane somewhere far from home, strike up a conversation (well, I would but that’s just me) and find that there’s some connection point between you and what you had believed to be a perfect stranger.

The six degree of separation rule absolutely applies in the world of marketing.

Just think for a minute about the sphere of influencers a marketer touches in their daily job. There are your customers, of course. There’s also your own employees and executive – who if you’re lucky, see their role as one of a thought leader for company. Then there’s media, industry analysts, financial analysts, authors, bloggers, the list goes on. Each of these individuals or groups forms a spoke on the circle of influence, and in the middle sits the marketer.

In my job as a marketer, it was my and my team’s responsibility to establish a positive and open communication with each of these influencer groups. But these relationships do not exist in parallel – or I should say – should not exist in parallel. A truly optimized circle of influence is an interconnected circle of influence – where each of the influence groups is connected to the other.

This connectivity between the circle should not be left to chance. Rather the marketer should directly facilitate connection points between the spokes of the wheel acting as the relationship broker. Here are some practical ways to connect your circle:

1. Connect customer to customer – cultivate reference accounts (both private and external) who will speak to prospects or allow their stories to be told. Encourage the formation of local user groups and grassroots networking events allowing customers to connect to each other. Establish social media type vehicles on your own site allowing customers to connect to each other virtually.
2. Connect industry analysts to customers – if you want to place “up and to the right” make sure the analysts covering your company are taking to customers. Facilitate private conversations (some customers are reluctant to talk on the record), bring analysts to keynote customer events such as user conferences, and seek out opportunities for your customers to speak at analyst conferences. Customer evidence gives analysts confidence you have executed on your strategy.
3. Connect media to industry analyst – when a reporter is doing a feature or news story, they need to generate a thoughtful article with depth and dimension. In addition to providing customer references for the journalist to speak to, consider supplying the reporter with an analyst contact for third party opinion or research on the technology or market. Analysts and their firms are interested in thought leadership exposure.

These are just a small handful of ways you can facilitate your circle of influence. This process, managed in an ongoing way can translate into better exposure and ‘buzz’ for your company and its products in your core market.

Cheers!