Best Practice Report

Identifying IT Buyers' Hidden Influencers

Finding And Nurturing Your Brand Presence Beyond Your Formal Channels

July 24th, 2007
Michael Speyer, null
Michael Speyer
With contributors:
Eric Brown , Emily Van Metre

Summary

Small and medium-size business (SMB) IT sales are influenced by many parties, including peers, consultants, bloggers, and technology resellers. The influencers that buyers turn to vary by product, can change over time, and play different roles at different stages of the sales cycle. To determine which influencers to work with, vendors need to identify and characterize the influencers in their market. This requires a comprehensive influencer identification program and the establishment of criteria for ranking influencer impact on the decision process. Doing this will allow vendors to prioritize influencer marketing spending, discover previously unidentified influencers, and track changes in influencer use over time.

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