Is the penny dropping for AR professionals?

Carter Lusher and Skip MacAskill two long-standing Analyst relations professionals, both ex-Gartner, now heading up AR at HP and Cisco respectively. I recently linked to Carter’s post on influence here.

Skip’s recent post on influence is important because he states a belief that “the traditional business models that analyst firms have employed for years will become less relevant within the next three to five years.”

He also thinks that the “traditional” firms won’t disappear completely, but they will be hard pressed by emerging information delivery models and processes – along with a new breed of alternative influencers – that are fast-moving and in-the moment.

Finally, Skip believes that “that the number of users that buy a product or invest in a technology off the back of a traditional Gartner, Forrester or Yankee report will significantly decrease over the next five years.”

These are important comments from the AR perspective, notably so because AR stands to lose as much as analyst firms. As Skip notes, “I don’t welcome that development with any type of mirth or glee – as an Analyst Relations guy, I’m quite interested in things like job security and my function’s own continued relevance – but I definitely sense a shift in the air.”

I think that the way forward for AR is for it to broaden out into a wider understanding of where influence is actually applied, beyond analysts to encompass consultants, academics, bloggers, procurement bodies, financial authorities, regulators, government agencies, consumer groups, and the rest of the influencer community.

The difficulty is, most vendors have no idea who really influences their customers and prospects, and wouldn’t have anything to say to them if they did know. That’s why I wrote a white paper on the subject a year ago, to shake vendors out of the “Analysts equal influence” mindset. It is still pertinent today.

The question for AR now is, do you take note of what senior AR pros are saying on the shake up of influence and act on it? Or ignore it and hope for the best?

Influencer marketing in a nutshell

I sometimes get asked what Influencer Marketing is, in 30 seconds or less. Try this for starters.

In fact, replace "analyst" with "influencer" and you're very close. If you also replace "customer" with "influencer" you're there.

(Credit where it's due - the whole, original, post is here)

Facebook: agenda setter or over-hyped?

Here's an interesting juxtaposition. Richard Holway points to Mark Zuckerberg from FaceBook topping silcon's list of agenda setters. Facebook represents the zeitgeist of this decade, towards social networking, with all the implications that has for influence.

Except that The Economist has today published a sceptical article on Facebook, questioning Facebook valuations and its role as a one-size-fits-all social network. There's also an interesting (if brief) examination of whether social networks exhibit network effects of their value increasing with usage (aka Metcalfe's Law). It argues that smaller communities are valued more highly, since they represent members with similar interests.

This contrast in views is relevant to discussions on influence, in two ways. Firstly, it helps inform the debate on how, or whether, Facebook and other social media can enable or enhance influence. Is the value of a social network based on its popularity or its focus? Can we predict which social networks will be populated by most influencers?

The second point on influence is that I'd consider both Richard and Tom Standage at The Economist as influencers on the adoption of technologies. Who's right? Who carries the most weight with technology adopters? Who's opinion will sway valuations? How can you assess the influence of two heavyweights with countering opinions?

Answers on a postcard, please...

Daft question #2 – Can we mail our influencers?

One of the things Influencer50 does for clients when researching their influencers is provide contact details of the top 50. It’s so that the client, or us if commissioned, can develop an outreach program. It’s difficult information to collect as some influencers are much more protective about their direct contact information - switchboard numbers are insufficient.

I was bemused one day by a client’s question that asked “do we own the list of contact details?” What do you mean “own the list”? I was flummoxed. Then the penny dropped – the client was thinking direct mail.

These influencers are the top 50 most important people in influencing your target market. And you want to send them direct mail – oh boy.

Outreach to influencers is like buying a birthday present for a spouse:

• It’s got to be wrapped up nicely, showing obvious care and attention.
• It’s got to be personalised, and suited for the specific needs/wants of the recipient. How would your spouse feel if you gave everyone the same present?
• It’s got to be planned and delivered on time – too early and it’s suspicious, too late and you’re dead meat.

Most importantly, you’ve got to know the recipient well. Now, most of us can’t hope to know our influencers as well as we know our spouses. But you should do your research to have some idea of what is important to each influencer. The last thing to do is to treat influencers as you do everyone else.

And don’t ever, ever take them for granted…

HP's Lusher on AR and social media

Carter Lusher, AR head at HP and ex-Gartner analyst, posts on the use of social media by analyst firms (synopsis: not enough) and wonders on the impact of blogging on influence from analysts. Great issues.

The current position, as I see it, is that bloggers have relatively little influence on CIO-level execs and business folk. They do, however, have influence in the more techie arenas. Big generalisations, of course, but it seems to hold for most markets, and makes a reasonable starting hypothesis. Demographics are also an important feature of socila media's reach (but this may be changing: if The Archers are podcasting, anyone can...). Country differences also exist (e.g. France is generally more blog-friendly...).

It's important to recognise that bloggers are often influential because of their "day job" and just happen to blog nowadays. Richard Holway is a good example. Blogging is a means of access, and it allows previously inaccessible people to gain exposure. So you find DBAs and developers emerging as influential bloggers - their influence is expanded out to the web, beyond the confines of their employers.

In researching case studies for the book, I discovered that blogging and other social media need to be dedicated activities, with time and budget allocated. Otherwise it's just dabbling, as Carter points out in IDC's approach.

The key question is always, influential on whom? If analysts are trying to influence CIOs then there is no immediate need to blog, because CIOs generally don't read them. James Governor is successful because he aims at the more techie audience, and is thus more influential on that audience.

The trick, then, is to monitor blog readership closely, and to respond when the sitation changes.

The value of referrals & references

Serendipity strikes again. I’m arranging a reference call between a prospect and a client, and then HBR alerts me to this article (subscription required) on the value of word of mouth (WOM) referrals. And then Brand Republic points me to a Robin Grant post on the latest Nielsen* research that shows, yet again, that people trust people more than anything else.

The HBR article is interesting not so much for the mathematics of referral value (yawn) but because it identifies a gap between those who say they’ll make a referral, and those that actually do so. Strangely, the higher value customers tend not to carry out the promise, whereas lower value customers are more inclined. Thus there’s a difference between a customers lifetime value and their referral value (which, the article states, could be significantly higher).

In the world of Influencer Marketing we often say that reference customers are the ultimate influencers. In the absence of direct experience of a product or supplier, a prospect will defer to a peer as a proxy for personal experience.

The Nielsen research and HBR article talk about referrals in a B2C context, whereas Influencer50’s focus is predominantly B2B, which typically involves references. The difference between a referral and a reference is timing, occurring at the beginning or the end of the decision process, respectively. But otherwise they are the same, a recommendation, with the same high impact.

In my experience, references in B2B are just as difficult to realise as referrals in B2C. Why is this?

• They’re generic: a reference is best if it maps closely to our own needs. That’s why banks like to get references from other banks. But most reference customers are used indiscriminately – case studies are notoriously bad for this approach.
• They get tired easily: the goodwill established in a reference client erodes quickly. You have to use them soon, and appropriately, or lose them.
• You don’t always have references: if you’re entering a new market, or have a new product to launch, you’re starting from scratch.

Understanding the whole ecosystem of influencers, not just customer references, is important for these reasons. You can use non-customer influencers to backfill your reference programs. This also means you keep your customer references fresh and focused for those situations where you really need them.

*The full Nielsen report is here.

Daft question #1 - Who owns the influencer?

My commercial director Scott sent me a link to this post by Pete Blackshaw. Pete is a founder member of WOMMA, of which Influencer50 is a member. So Pete must know what he's talking about, at least in a B2C context.

But the question - Who owns the influencer? Oh, please. This is so 1990s. I remember endless (and pointless) debates about who owns the customer and various organisations getting upset because their partner firms claimed customer ownership. Completely pointless, because NOBODY OWNS THE CUSTOMER. Customers are fickle and are as able and likely to change suppliers as change their underwear. Especially these days, when your competitors are one click away.

So, here we are again, ten years later. Same question, even more pointless debate, and the same answer:

NOBODY OWNS THE INFLUENCER

What a crazy concept. True influencers have their influence largely because they are not affiliated to anyone. In fact, the more someone tries to "own" them, the less influential they become. That's why rent-a-quote analysts lack substantial influence - they're paid for ("owned") by a vendor to endorse a product or position.

The only value I can see coming out of asking "Who owns the influencer" is the shock - similar to being hit in the face with a spade - of realising that, more than likely, the influencer owns you! Or at least access to your market (which amounts to the same thing).

Treat your influencers not as peasants on your land but as royalty, to whom you need to pay dues.

How analysts can increase their influence

It turns out that I’m becoming known for my “analyst bashing” blog posts and other writings. It's not a reputation I've sought. But I've made no secret that I think analyst influence is generally overstated, and that’s with eleven years of inside knowledge at Ovum and IDC. I’ve seen analysts with huge influence and those with very little. The real issue is, how do you tell them apart?

As Richard Holway told me:

Any fool can be an analyst
But very few get to be influencers.

Bill Hopkins’s AR text Influencing the Influencers maps out very clearly why a few analyst firms carry the majority of influence within the analyst community – I commend you to read it. As Bill states in the book, “Some influencers are more vital to you than others.” Though it’s completely obvious if you think about it, many vendors (and AR agencies) don’t think about it, and propagate blanket importance of analysts. PR agencies do the same with journalists.

I think a primary challenge for all analyst firms is to make their analysts more influential. The first question to be asked, as always, is who do they influence? A better way of understanding the relevance of this question is to ask another: who do vendors want to be influenced by analysts? Usually, vendors are trying to influence decision makers, so that they buy products and services. It’s logical, therefore, to want to know which analysts have influence over those decision makers, that can sway a decision in one direction on another. These are what Hopkins calls Deal Makers and Breakers.

Clearly, then, the more analysts are influencing decision makers the more influential they are to vendors. And while it’s risky to categorise all analysts within one firm together, a firm’s business model will point to the likelihood of influence on decision makers. So Gartner, with its end-user research focus and consulting business, is likely to be more influential than, say, IDC, which has a predominantly supply-side viewpoint.

Additionally, the closer an analyst gets to the decision maker, the more influence they will have on that decision. In my experience, this deep level of influence is delivered only through client engagements and consulting. So analysts that directly advise decision makers carry the greatest influence.

There is also an issue of when influence is being applied. Analyst research papers are used by end-users as guidance and pointers, sometimes in the development of shortlists. This occurs early in the decision making process. Consulting, again in my experience, happens later in the process where evaluations and recommendations are being made. At this point the stakes are high, and individual analysts much be sure in their understanding of both the needs of their client and the capabilities of the vendors they are judging.

I think that this is where many analysts, and analyst firms, cop out. They are unwilling, or unable, to help a specific end-user client make a final decision. They may claim that doing so would conflict with their vendor independence. Nonsense. Recommending a specific product to a specific end-user organisation does not conflict with independence, as long the same analyst is just as likely to recommend a different product to another client with different needs.

So I think analyst firms should tell their analysts to get out more. Talk to, engage with, and start influencing end-user decision makers. It’s the only route to real influence.

Influencing the competition

I met up with one of Influencer50’s competitors yesterday. It’s always an interesting experience discussing the market and client needs with a rival. Give and take is the broad rule.

Competitors are a primary source of influence for your market. Remember, the important thing about influence is who you’re trying to influence. I’m trying to influence my customers and prospects, and so are my competitors.

Traditional marketing dictates that competitors should be regard as hostile enemy, to be dissed at every opportunity. But that approach doesn’t work anymore – your customers are way too smart for that nonsense.

We show our clients how to engage with influencers, to enlist them in marketing activities. But if competitors are influencers how can you influence them in your favour. Isn’t this an oxymoron?

There are many types of influencer that you can’t expect to be overt advocates. Analysts (the good ones, anyway) for instance. So it is for competitors – they are unlikely to be your advocates. But you can make sure that you are on their radar screen. You can make sure that, when a prospect mentions your firm, your competitor knows who you are and has something other than hearsay to respond with. In fact, competitors appear well-connected with the market place if they understand the strengths and weaknesses of their competition (that is, you).

So meet your competitors. Discuss broad market issues. Discuss other non-present competitors (mine enemy’s enemy, and all that). Show them that you’re human, not an ogre. It also turns out that competitors are just as keen on meeting you as you are on them. There is quid pro quo at play, and it should benefit you both.

Handling detractors - What Ovum and IDC illustrate about Influencer Marketing

Last week I posted some thoughts on the current fortunes of my previous employers, Ovum and IDC. Both posts expressed my concern at their present situation and questioned their future direction, though for different reasons. The feedback I got from the firms, and from the wider community, illustrate some interesting aspects of influence. In particular, what should you do when a blogger (in this case, me) creates a negative view of your firm?

I should say at this point that I consider myself as an influencer in neither of the two firms. As a former employee, most recently from IDC, I guess I have some insight into the firms’ inner workings. But I doubt I’m affecting purchase decisions in a big way.

Anyway, this post documents the reaction from Ovum. I have to say I was surprised that Anthony contact li’l ol’ me, but flattered was I that he took the considerable time. Unfortunately his response, which I published in full with Anthony’s consent, was received by the wider community with more negativity, most notably by Richard Holway. Now Richard is an influencer – did Anthony’s response spark an otherwise sleeping discontent amongst Richard and his followers?

In contrast, I’ve heard not a peep out of IDC. Have they read my post? Maybe not. Do they care? Probably not.

There are three strategies to deal with a so-called detractor. You can (1) try to convert them, (2) surround them with other (more positive) influencers, thereby neutralising them, or (3) you can ignore them. Ovum is attempting strategy #1. IDC is practising #3 (by default or design).

Microsoft’s Blue Monster gig with Hugh McLeod is an example of #2, where MS are attempting to engage with its influencer (and wider) community to address the tide of negativity towards it. Smart move, executed creatively.

How would you handle a detractor?