Influencer Marketing Run Amuck

Read any thoughtful marketing blog, you will find "Influencer Marketing" is on the rise. Companies are trying to reach their customers through people and organizations that influence those customers.

It's very powerful and practiced in a number of ways. Some organizations sponsor blog posts, with some level of subtle promotion at the bottom of the post. I do this rarely at my own blog site and am always very open about the nature of that relationship (they are paying me for this).

Other tactics are getting guest blog posts published at an influencer's site. The great guest posts focus primarily on education, not "we're fantastic, buy our product." The thought here being if they provide a thoughtful view of a critical issue to the audience, some might be interested in learning more about the author and their company.

Data shows, influencer marketing can be very powerful in driving visibiilty, awareness. CEB research shows 45-55% of buyers rely on influencers or experts to help educate them on potential solutions, particularly early in the buying process.

As you might expect, Digital Marketers and Agencies recognize this and are doing everything they can to exploit those channels.

Somehow, I've ended up on the "Influencer List." I am convinced, by Agency and Digital Marketer behavior, there is some Master Influencer List. I don't think it takes much to get on the list, I suspect you just have to fog a social media mirror.

But somehow, being on that list has made me the subject of Influencer Spam. By that, I mean hundreds of companies and agencies trying to capture my attention and get me to start talking and writing about their product/solutions.

The agencies, to be honest, are the worst offenders. As a disclaimer, I have some great friends who own and work for agencies. They do outstanding work for their clients. There are others, I know do outstanding work as well. Unfortunately, too many do terrible work--representing their clients extremely poorly.

For example, just this morning (and it's only 6 am) I've received the following: An invitation from an agency to interview the CEO of a company about the importance of Chatbots in consumer product sales. An invitation from an agency in Brazil, to attend an influencer meeting on the latest techniques in oil and gas production, sponsored by his clients (The meeting is in Sao Paulo, I'm expected to pay my way, and the invitations was in Portugese.) A request to write a post about the power of gamification software, featuring the agency's clients. A request to interview an executive on Language Translation Software.

On a daily basis, I get inundated with these requests. If any of these agencies took the time to research, they would know I don't care and don't write about this stuff. My audience doesn't want to hear about this stuff from me! Fully 95% of the requests I get have nothing to do with what I write about and the spheres of influence I might have.

One would expect better. We know effective marketing means very careful targeting, reaching people who are likely to care about what you do. We know relevance is important in catching people's attention, we know that we should focus on the prospects business, issues and what helps them. In my case it's providing thoughtful content to my audience in hopes they might be interested in talking to me.

Since these agencies are supposedly top marketing professionals, you would expect them to practice their craft at a very high level. Yeah, I know I'm being naive. They are no better than anyone else--perhaps in many cases much worse.

Rather than executing what they know to be right, most effective, and most impactful, they are most concerned about volume and velocity. The more emails, the wider the distribution, some fool will eventually respond--most likely not the influencer you really wanted to reach.

You might be thinking, "So what's the issue, Dave, just treat this like all the other spam you get." Here's the problem--at least from an Influencer Marketing point of view.

My message is not to the Agencies. I'm not naive enough to think I can change their terrible behavior and practices. My message is to the CMOs, CEOs hiring the agencies.

These people are representing you poorly--or at least not in the way I would hope you want to engage your customers and prospects. Rather than creating a positive, relevant image of your products, services, company, and brand, their actions create a very negative image.

Perhaps it is unfair for me to jump to that conclusion. Tough! That's the way the people you are paying are representing you.

The good news about Influencer Marketing is that it works and scales. The bad news about Influencer Marketing is that it works and scales. To the degree your products, services, company, and brands are presented very badly, I'm likely to talk about it to my audience. I'm likely to be recommending against you, based solely on this terrible experience from your agency.

People like me assume you are knowledgeable about what your Agency is doing, who they are approaching, and how they are engaging influencers. We assume, this is the way you want to be presented and the way you would want to be presented to our followers.

Yes, it's totally unfair, probably unfounded, and possibly very inaccurate! Tough! That's the way you are being represented, the message people like me get is you really don't care because you are allowing your Agency to present you in that manner.

You are reaching out to Influencers because they have Influence. You need to make sure they are generating the Influence you want!