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Influencing industry influencers: how do you do it?
Every industry has influencers -- business, industry and market analysts, journalists, pundits and even users whose opinions influence buyers' decisions. How do your marketing strategies and tactics identify and engage the key influencers in your industry? And how are your efforts using online resources such as social media and Focus.com?
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Don't treat them as an audience and blast them all with the same exact message, or as an extension of your target customer base and hit them with an unvarnished sales pitch.
Each one of them is an individual in the business of bringing new and interesting information and insight to a particular audience, and, like you or me, they do not want to work harder than they have to. Target your story to each one separately and make it easy for them to understand and tell your story to their audiences.
Do your homework on each person you plan to or want to brief. Learn about his or her audience, viewpoint, interests, biases, history, previous coverage of you, your category and your competitors, etc. Then, customize your pitch so that it makes sense and is compelling in that context.
These are busy people with a zillion people vying for their attention. In your briefing, keep it simple and make it memorable. Use simple, clear language. Avoid acronyms and jargon. Don't lecture or preach. Early on, ask them questions about their views on the topics that are central to your presentation. It makes them feel included and it tells you what they believe and what they do and don't know about your subject.
Follow up the briefing with a short email or phone call to answer anything that they asked about but you couldn't answer in the briefing, to see if they are confused about anything you covered in the briefing, or if there is any more information they need to write the story you want them to write.
If you do all of the above, they will probably write about you. After they do that, if it is good, be sure to thank them and ask permission to keep them in the loop about your company or product in the future.
If they write about you and it is not as good as you would have liked, be sure to thank them anyway, see if you can do to clear up any misunderstanding, and ask them for their advice on what you could have done differently, either with your product or presentation, that would have resulted in a more positive review. Do not even think of ignoring them in the future until you have done all that and they still pan you two or three more times.
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