Executive Influence Transforming Your Top Team into

Powerful Influencers

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•  Influence marketing is the practice of marketing to individuals who, in turn, have influence on a larger audience – repeating and amplifying your message to dozens, hundreds, thousands or millions of others.

•  Many different types of people or entities can be influencers:

The role of executives in influence marketing

Your company’s executives can and should be amongst your most potent influencers

Analysts & academics

Employees & executives

Traditional & digital media

(journalists, bloggers)

Consumer influencers & tastemakers

(bloggers, top customers) Politicians & government

agency personnel

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•  As companies become more transparent (due to the ubiquity of information on the web), the C-suite is more exposed to the public and expected, more than ever to become the physical embodiment of a company’s brand

•  As executives grow their own influence, the influence of that company grows as well

•  Our own research1 shows that there may be a correlation between executive influence and market capitalization

Executive influence can have far-reaching effects on a company’s success

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1Appinions First Annual CMO Influence Study, October 2012

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When should you apply executive influence?

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To change attitudes towards a brand

To change perception of a particular executive

To help shift the marketplace conversation

Copyright © 2013 Appinions. All rights reserved.

•  Executives are a class of influencers who intrinsically have contextual influence for your brand, industry or area of interest

•  They are a conduit to express a point of view that is meaningful enough to potentially elicit action from others

•  It certainly helps that your executives already have skin in the game

What is an Executive Influencer, anyway?

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We consider thought leadership to be one of three pillars of Executive Influence

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Thought leadership is: Becoming an authority on relevant topics •  It allows you to put faces on your business •  It may provide your customers or audience with

a level of trust for your company

Thought leadership alone is not executive influence

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The three pillars of executive influence could each stand alone, but together provide a stronger foundation

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Executive opinions in traditional

media

Executive Influence

Executive social media

presence

Executive thought

leadership

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There’s the old way of marketing… and the new way

Traditional Executive Marketing Executive Influence Marketing Determine key topics for executive engagement by understanding influential conversations

Executives use social media and thought leadership to demonstrate corporate involvement in causes

Executive bylines on corporate blog, or create content for other publications

Executives build relationships with key journalists via social media

Executive social engagement

Executive engagement in online events and video; long-tail amplification of executive event content

Story-mining sessions & building storylines for journalists

“Buying” board memberships on non-profit boards

Executive bylines in publications

Executive desk sides with journalists

Corporate social engagement

Speaking engagements at conferences

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•  Influence should not be limited to your CEO •  Build credible influencers from within your management and

employee ranks –  Executives and employees score higher than CEOs as trusted

sources (50% vs. 43%) according to Edelman’s Trust Barometer, giving them more clout as credible influencers

•  The potential benefits of creating credible executive influencers are worth your time (and resources)

Give your internal influencers the skills to be influential

Source: http://www.scribd.com/doc/121501475/Executive-Summary-2013-Edelman-Trust-Barometer

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Our recommended process for developing Executive Influence encompasses three phases

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1 4 3 2 5 6

●  Discovery/define objectives

●  Audit influence landscape

●  Develop strategic framework

●  Benchmark initial findings

●  Develop tactical plans & content

●  Execute content & influencer outreach

●  Quantitative changes to KPIs

●  Qualitative learnings & opportunities

Prepare Implement Analyze

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Scenario One: Change Perception of an Executive

•  Scenario: An executive comes under fire in the media for an internal decision she made

•  Recommendations for Leveraging Executive Influence: –  Use other executives to tell the inside story in the media of how

and why the decision was made, publically supporting the main executive

–  Executives use company social media and content platforms to explain the rationale behind the decision, and to publicly support that person

–  For the next major decision, get ahead of the story by having the main executive prepare a video or online event elaborating on the pros and cons of the decision and inviting feedback from employees and media

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•  Scenario: A brand wishes to attract new customers within their product category

•  Recommendations for Leveraging Executive Influence: –  Engage the most influential media using executives as

spokespeople –  Build momentum on existing and growing opinion trends about

the brand/products by leveraging executive social media and relationships with brand influencers

–  Create differentiated messaging for executive thought leadership based on opinion research for competitive brands

Scenario Two: Raise Visibility of a Brand

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•  Scenario: A brand wishes to shift into a new product category and needs customer/media support to do so

•  Recommendations for Leveraging Executive Influence: –  Executives provide interviews to vertical/niche media on how and

why the decision was made to enter the new product category –  Executives network via social media with influencers in the new

product category –  Executives appear with influencers from

the new category in online events and video explaining the new product

–  Place executive thought leadership content on blogs/sites of influencers in the new category

Scenario Three: Shift The Marketplace Conversation

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To learn more about our Executive Influence module, click here.

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