Uncomplicate – How to use influencer marketing to increase sales
Uncomplicate by Freshworks brings you crisp and insightful videos which will focus on answering one tactical question around sales & marketing, support & collaboration, employee engagement, and growth.
We all invest a lot in influencer marketing. We try to tap into the network of influencers in different fields, pay them $$$$$ to speak at conferences that we organize, write guest posts on our blogs, or speak at webinars. We push to do all this, and then struggle to justify ROI. As a result, we design out influencer program such that it is focussed on an end result.
But today, I uncovered a totally new angle to influencer marketing, when I spoke to Kyle Lacy, VP of Marketing at Lessonly. And yes, it is a lot more than just using board games!
I learnt that he uses influencer marketing as part of his account-based marketing (ABM) strategy to increase sales.
The bridge between sales and marketing
Kyle told me that he is against the concept of working with considering industry experts as influencers and using their names and expertise at conferences or for marketing campaigns like webinars. Kyle is guilty of doing this earlier: “..we interviewed Jay Baer every chance we could get, as he talks about content marketing, And it was great. We had a video series and all that going on”.
But his views have changed since. At Lessonly influencer marketing is not just a channel to use influential names and attract eyeballs. It is, instead, seen as a bridge between sales and marketing.
So what does an ideal influencer profile for Lessonly look like?
Sales teams typically have a list of target accounts they want to go after. These could be CXOs or the feet-on-the-street, boots-on-the-ground folk. Lessonly targets these ‘influencers’.
“VPs, directors, and senior practitioners have more influence with their peers – who are our prospects – than somebody doing a speaking circuit and has 100,000 Twitter followers,” Kyle says.
This also helps your sales teams build a rapport with the prospect, and get a fair idea of what ticks them off, what makes them happy, and what their day looks like. As a marketer, you cannot be of more help to a salesperson than providing such insights.
“If you think about it, it’s the best discovery process you can possibly have – interviewing prospects about why they’re good at what they do.”
Churn out content to increase leads
This approach also offers a good by-product: you can write blogs and other such content based on these interviews. Marketing teams at Lessonly take special care in ensuring that these are keyword rich.
“It gives us content without having to spend time trying to figure out what to write about, because it’s coming from the prospect instead of just all of us marketers sitting in our ivory tower trying to figure out what what our people want to hear or what they want to read,” Kyle says.
So, the next time you think of influencer marketing, make sure you look into the accounts your sales teams are targeting, and not the ones that are in the conference circuits.
