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.

Analysts influence, as measured by HP - update

I admit I didn't expect a reply to my post on HP's measurement of analyst influence, but a reply I received (see the comment on the post). Hats off to Bob at HP for disclosing the rankings of their survey.

The question is: what influences HP's customers’ decisions to place a vendor on the short-list when purchasing products and services. The rank is:

1. Experience with Vendor
2. TCO
3. Price [statistically significant gap between top 3 and next 5]
4. Analyst Reports
5. Events
6. Vendor Internet
7. Analyst Verbal [statistically significant gap between top 8 and rest]
8. Financial Analyst
9. Marketing Collateral
10. Blogs/Social
11. Media Coverage
12. Direct Marketing
13. Advertising

Inital observations:

- how powerful vendor experience is. We always see competing vendors as strong influencers in any market, but I didn't expect them to rated top.
- financial considerations are key, but not necessarily the financial performance of the vendor itself (if the low ranking of financial analysts is indicative).
- events are much higher than I'd have expected.
- interesting difference between analyst reports and analyst advice in forming a shortlist.
- social media and blogs are on the radar, but still low.
- very low showing for the media
- why does any firm bother with direct marketing and advertising these days?!

Also, I'm surprised at the absence of advisory consultants and players in the supply chain (VARs, SIs, etc). It may depend on the markets being surveyed.

Still interesting stuff and valuable contribution to the wider influence debate. Thanks to Bob for sharing the info.

Bob asks the community to share its data - we're currently putting a paper together on the Influencer50 research. Anyone else?



The original HP announcement is here.

Influencers are old hat

When I was at the CMO Council Summit in November there was a panellist that said (and I’m paraphrasing here), “Influencers? We’ve been doing that for years. It’s old hat.”

I confess, the comment bugged me then. It still does. I was reminded of the comment when in Ghent a few weeks ago, while being interviewed by the Belgian press. Two of the journalists I spoke to suggested that companies have been doing influencer marketing for years.

I know what seeds the belief that considering influencers is well-established. It’s research like Overstreet and Katz & Lazarfield. It’s books like Dale Carnegie’s How to win friends and influence people. It’s Everett Rogers and the theory of diffusion of innovation. And so on.

There are two concerns I have in regarding influencers as old hat. First, if influencers are old hat, where are the influencer relations people? We have press relations and analysts relations. Whither influencer relations? In fact, influencer relations is just beginning to appear, in forward thinking companies like SAP and Wipro (check out the Wipro case study in the book).

Second, I actually think that influencers are old hat, insofar as they have always been there. Despite the talk about so-called “New Influencers” (bloggers and the like) it’s the “Old Influencers” that still dominate.

What’s new is the recognition that (a) we have a way of identifying them, and (b) we can then engage with them to improve marketing and sales.

That is very much "New hat".