Gillian MacPherson

As Senior Director, Product, Marketing & Insight & Word-of-mouth Specialist, Gillian is an expert in targeted consumer promotions. Gillian is the driving force behind a new influencer marketing program from ICOM, the North American leader in data driven marketing solutions that engage consumers and build loyalty. This innovative program leverages the power of influential consumers, enabling brands to engage and nurture their natural brand ambassadors and execute large scale programs that transcend traditional word-of-mouth campaigns.

With her pulse on the shifting changes in consumer behaviour today, Gillian continues to be the strategic force behind the development and implementation of a variety of new initiatives in consumer promotions, research and influencer marketing.

Gillian joined ICOM in 2000 as a Senior Business Manager accountable for product development and enhancement. Her career has spanned progressive roles at leading CPG companies including Playtex Products and Bausch & Lomb.

Today, Gillian lends her voice and expertise to respected organizations including CMA, as well as clients and partners.

Channel Surfing for Influencers: Social Media

In my third of four posts about which channels work best to reach and engage influencers, I take a look at the new kid on the block: social media.

Marketers are sometimes torn between doing what has worked most effectively in the past and testing out new technologies and channels that have the potential to be real game-changers in the future.

The bright shiny object of the last few years is, of course, social media, a channel that’s still not completely understood but that has, in theory, the potential to radically change the way we market.

Why? Well, to start with, based on our research, influencers are spending 7 hours per week in the US and 9 in Canada on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and blogs. That’s already impressive but when you add to that the finding that influencers are connected, on average, to 108 (US) and 137 (Canada) people in their own social media network, that’s something that gets the attention of marketers – as it should.

While social media shares ease of use with the email channel, it’s this community or network that may hold the key to the channel’s true potential. These individuals have chosen to be connected based on an affinity for a particular community, and are actively engaged with others in it and outside that community too.

Bill McCloskey at ClickZ offers some fascinating examples about the potential power of social media, including this one:

“…look at Marvel Comics, which is one of the top performing ‘advertisers’ in the Twitter space. As of right now, Marvel has around 44,000 followers [63,000+ as I write this post]. But over the last few weeks, it sent out 151 Twitter offers. But more than that: 246 ‘influencers’ have directly rebroadcast that message to their followers. Add it all up and Marvel has exposed its offer to over 66 million eyeballs over the past few weeks!”

Those are some impressive numbers and just a hint of the potential opportunities social media offers marketers. However we do need to distinguish the difference between influencers: some will talk; others will pass along information (as per above) and of utmost value are those that truly influence others – by eliciting action. So whether on social media sites or via email or on the phone, you must understand what you are trying to achieve and ensure that you have designed appropriately.

One more thing bares repeating from my last two posts: even if some channels are better than others to reach particular consumers in particular ways, the fact is these channels work best for marketers when they work together.

For instance, email messages that offer a social-sharing option (like Twitter and Facebook) generate a 30% higher click-through rate than emails without it, according to a new study by email marketing company Get Response. And if the email includes three or more social-sharing options, that click-through rate jumps to 55%.

The bottom line? Social media offers a unique and advantageous opportunity to find, reach, engage and have a continuous dialogue with individuals – both within their social media communities and in their network at large. Just needs to be done right!

In the fourth and final part of this series, I’ll blog about the true answer to the question – which channel is most effective at finding, reaching, engaging and motivating influencers?

Gillian MacPherson

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Channel Surfing for Influencers: Email

Part 2 of a 4 part series

Which channel is most effective at finding, reaching, engaging and motivating influencers to spread the word about your product? In this second of four posts, I take a look at email.

In part 1, I blogged about some of the reasons marketers still consider direct mail an effective way to reach influencers, but the truth is that was only part of the story. Because while DM still has a role to play in engaging influencers to spread the word about your brand, email is also a powerful channel and one that’s becoming more so all the time.

There are, of course, the obvious reasons email is so effective: it’s easy for consumers to forward – a sort of digital word of mouth – and, especially these days, it’s easily accessible whether you’re on your BlackBerry, iPhone, Mac or PC, at home, at work or on the run.

An email campaign may also be cheaper and less labour-intensive to launch: although these days consumers report opening up less of the vast amount of emails received so perhaps cheaper is an illusion. But we do know that recent technology has made targeting, tracking and offer redemption much easier than in the past.

Perhaps where email marketing can be most successful at reaching consumers and convincing influencers is in its interactivity. You can include a url link to your website or blog or Facebook page in which the consumer can immediately connect. And of course you can design an email to offer a level of animation to engage the senses.

Plus, based on a study we just conducted, people have very specific reasons why they like to be marketed via email, including:

• Speed: It’s in your inbox – or in your trash – in a flash
• Convenience: You can read it at work, at home, or anywhere in between
• Environmental: Unless you want to print it out to save or share, trees and our environment get a break

That said, the truth is DM and email can live with each other because they both have an important role to play, as ClickSquared’s Dan Smith explains:

Not all customers respond to communications in the same way… In certain industries – charities come to mind – direct mail remains the primary method for new donor acquisition. Email is used primarily to solicit renewals from existing donors – and in the absence of a response, is often followed by yet another direct mail piece.

The circle of life – marketing style.

In part 3 of this series, I’ll focus on the new kid on the block – social media.

Thoughts?

Gillian MacPhersen

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Channel Surfing for Influencers, Part 1: Direct Mail

Which channel is most effective at finding, reaching, engaging and motivating influencers to spread the word about your product? In the next four posts, I’ll take a look at the pros and cons of the most widespread channels, beginning with direct mail – hope you’ll join me and share your thoughts.

When VCRs achieved mass-market success in the late 1970s and early 1980s, many pundits predicted the demise of the movie theatre. Who would want to drive to a cinema and sit with a bunch of strangers to watch a new movie when you could now do it in your own living room or bedroom? A lot of people, it turned out. VCRs, then DVD players and other home movie systems, didn’t kill off old school movie-going. They simply created a new channel for Hollywood to market its product. Both have lived together quite successfully ever since.

The same, it turns out, has happened with direct mail. Pioneered on a mass scale in the 1950s by Lester Wunderman and others, this way of reaching consumers and businesses caught on with marketers because, unlike traditional print, billboard and broadcast advertising, direct mail’s effectiveness could be tested, measured and improved on in subsequent campaigns. Despite the advent of email marketing in the 1990s and social marketing today, marketers still consider direct mail a viable and effective way to engage consumers in general and influencers in particular.

Why? Well, for starters, there continues to be a segment of the population that likes to receive things in the mail. While I’m selective about what I like and don’t like to find in my mailbox – I’m not big on grocery flyers, for instance – I do like when I get useful information about products or services that I can hold right in my hands.

I’m not alone and marketers know it. After all, with 90% of word-of-mouth happening face-to-face (Keller Fay Study, 2010), marketers understand the usefulness of offering influencers something tangible they can carry in their purse or pocket and pass along to the friends and family members they’re influencing – like a brochure, a catalogue, even a business card with a name, email address or url printed on it.

And direct mail is also still the king of easy and accurate personalization, in spite of digital marketing’s advances. Plus it continues to beat traditional media in its ability to target industries, regions, niche markets and other highly specific local audiences.

Finally, as effective as marketing via email, Facebook or mobile may be, none has (yet) managed to beam a sample or gift into consumers’ homes without using direct mail to get it there. The tactile surprise and delight factor that direct mail offers highly engaged consumers cannot be underestimated. You know they’ll open it immediately and pay particular attention to the contents from a brand they know and trust.

In part 2 of this series, I’ll focus on direct mail’s spry marketing cousin: email. It’s fast and inexpensive, but is it influencing influencers? Tune in next time when we discuss...

Gillian MacPhersen

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Developing a Product? Enlist Your Influencers

Traditionally, product development has had a pretty standard approach – market research to uncover the key insight or consumer need, product development, concept testing, in-market testing and finally launch. Even then current stats show only 1 in 20 new products make it. That’s a lot of time and money for a low likelihood of success and yet it’s critical for brand growth.

Today, a more efficient and cost-effective trend is taking shape, thanks in large part to online forums and the advent of other social media tools – and one that’s right up the alley of influencers who want to be more engaged and share their thoughts and ideas. Some companies are pro-actively inviting influencers to be part of the early product development phase. Why? They’ve realized it’s a great opportunity to include the consumers most involved with the brand and the category, enlisting them to create ideas and rate them.

The concept is straightforward: get your most involved consumers to submit ideas and rate potential new products. Ideally, you get a couple of key benefits: (i) better ideas flow through as they’ve already been vetted by knowledgeable consumers; (ii) time to market can be much faster because you can get info quickly and react faster, especially if you’re working online; (iii) potentially the amount of data or feedback you get can be greater than a few focus groups, making it more reliable.

Plus, the earlier customers – and especially committed influencers – have their say, the more likely a launched product will resonate and succeed with a wider target audience.

Here are just two examples of companies doing this well:

My Starbucks Idea blog for instance, offers Starbucks lovers the chance to share their coffee culture ideas and vote thumbs up or down on the ideas of other customers.

And Dell’s hugely successful IdeaStorm, asks customers to share ideas on the kinds of products they’d like to see Dell develop – 10,000 ideas have been generated through the site in three years and nearly 400 have been implemented so far.

To put it simply, where once the product was the focus of product development, today customers (and their ideas) are. And, it turns out, when customers are given the wheel, they’re more engaged with the brand, respond more positively to the company and talk more about the product.

Or as Paul Rand, President of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) puts it:

“Brands that actively listen and engage, on a sustainable basis, with their customers, consumers and influencers – from product development through social media and customer service – have learned the power and return of being talkable.”

Getting influencers involved and talking early can make all the difference.

What have you heard about using influencers to drive product development? I’ve got to believe more brands are doing it, but few are publicizing it.

Gillian MacPherson

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Influencers: They Work For Social Media Too!

A bit of news and a blog post I recently read re-confirmed the power influencers have across all mediums -- and how successful some companies have become at harnessing them to create word of mouth.

According to a new report from Forrester, last year 145 million Internet users in the US generated 500 billion online impressions, with 6% generating 80% of these peer-to-peer influencing impressions. (That’s a lot of social media potential.) For those of you who read The Tipping Point, sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

And then there’s Seth Godin’s analysis of the iPad launch – 300,000 sold on the first day without a ton of advertising dollars spent – underscoring just how successful Apple has been at cultivating influencers and using its ‘tribe’ to get the word out whenever it needs to.

All this to say that a lot has changed since we began our work in word of mouth marketing. Marketers have caught on – some like Apple, long ago – that it’s not simply about harnessing influencers for the purpose of driving sales or building awareness – although that’s the ultimate aim of course. The bigger immediate interest is in how to enlist and leverage them and their networks via Facebook, Twitter, blogs and the like – then how to get them to talk about you and what you offer.

In my last post I discussed how influencers don’t necessarily participate in the social media realm any differently than the random population. What they do better is to stay more closely connected with friends and family through a variety of means, including social media.

Findings showed influencers spend approximately 8 hours/week on Social Media Sites with over 100 connections – that's pretty substantial!

But its important to remember – and I know I probably sound like a broken record – that despite all the hoopla, influencers actually still do the majority of their talking in person. That means it’s vital that any information marketers send to influencers – be it via email, mail or your social media presence – should be in a format that can be easily passed along to friends and family.

The bottom line? Just as we heard years ago about the importance of tailoring communications to off- or online channels and audiences, marketing to influencers today means first of all finding and understanding these individuals, then developing authentic and honest conversational communications that speak to them and what’s important to them – and then motivating them to act.

Hey do you have a good example of a company using influencer marketing well – I would love to hear about it!

MARK YOUR CALENDAR AND GET SOCIAL – Join me and the rest of the organizing committee on June 22nd in Toronto at the CMA Social Media Conference: ‘The Science and Art of Social Business.’. It’ll be an eye-opening afternoon with 9 different case studies on how companies are surviving and striving in the brave new world of social media.

P.S. Ran a successful webcast, The Influencer: A Consumer Voice With Legs, last week in which we shared a lot of the research I've mentioned in this blog - you can access the live recording by clicking here.

Gillian MacPhersen
Join the dialogue on Twitter - @icomwom - we would love to hear your thoughts, opinions and experiences with WOM!

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