Influencers

Marketing Outreach Programs

The social marketing outreach program gets a large audience to accept a brand, without undue barging (Marketing Schools, 2015). Portal for marketing outreach are easily available on computer and smartphone, cost effective, and fact-based. Promotion starts with creating a conversation about a brand using an influencer (Marketing Schools, 2015).

Marketing Influencers

Outreach programs follow the four M’s of marketing, that is; make, manage, monitor, and measure effectiveness of influencers (Brown, 2013). Making the influencers occurs at the three customer stages, research or information seekers, awareness or procrastinators, and advocates. Managing influencers engages them in actual marketing aimed at diverting attention towards the brand. Monitoring involves gauging the effectiveness of the influencer groups. Measuring collects feedback about the success of the entire campaign (Brown, 2013). 

Influencer marketing uses opinion leaders, experts, and iconic personalities to endorse a brand. Influencers are not controlled by the brand owners, so they are trusted by consumers (Marketing Schools, 2015). Influencers use portals like blogs, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Email. I would use bloggers because they reflect on issues before blogging. I would gauge the blogger’s opinion about my brand, before giving them information that nudges them gently towards the product. (Marketing Schools, 2015). Bloggers are segmented into consummate, moderate, occasional, and newcomer groups (Brown, 2013). I would also use YouTube because it has multimedia presentation, is not coercive, has much homegrown humor that captures viewer’s interest, and allows mass viewership, feedback and viewer rating. Facebook and Twitter portals are popular, have immediate response, and when an influencer posts reviews about a product, the reviews can be followed by many readers, who respond with comments and votes (Collier, 2015). The downside of Facebook is that a trending product quickly loses appeal when a new one begins to trend. Email portals allow mass outreach, multimedia presentation, personalized feedback, and detailed product information. However, it is a closed forum for one-on-one communication, addresses are laborious to collect, and it lacks an automated survey function.

Strategies:

A successful marketing outreach plan identifies relevant influencers, analyzing their social media tools, and bonds with the influencers before recruiting them in advocacy. The plan then identifies the influencer’s product preferences without barging them and supplies them with easily understood brand information. Finally, the influencers start a conversation about the brand using multiple portals (Marketing Schools, 2015).

The best personalities to use in outreach programs are athletes or sports enthusiasts. They are easily recognizable and revered for their excellence (Collier, 2015). Many people identify with sports, and would easily overlook an athlete’s flaws and focus on their prowess, and free spirits. They use a worldly language which is sometimes anecdotal. They portray a body language that is loaded with meaning, and so make good advertisers.    

Conclusion

Influencers are effective in market outreach programs. The popular portals used in social market outreach include Facebook, blogs, Twitter, Email, among others.  For a successful program, influencers should be iconic personalities such as athletes, journalists, and other eminent personalities. An effective plan to carry out the program is to follow the four M’s of marketing, that is, make, manage, monitor, and measure the influencers.   

References

Brown, D. (2013). Breaking from Tradition: The Four M’s of Influence Marketing. Convince and Convert: Social Media Strategy and Content Marketing Strategy. Retrieved 2 December 2015, from http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-media-case-studies/breaking-from-tradition-the-four-ms-of-influence-marketing/

Collier, M. (2015). Think Like a Rock Star: How to Create Social Media and Marketing Strategies that Turn Cus. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsoqGBb8EhQ

Marketing Schools. (2015). Influencer Marketing: What is Influencer Marketing?. Marketing-schools.org. Retrieved 2 December 2015, from http://www.marketing-schools.org/types-of-marketing/influencer-marketing.html