Contents Stages of influence Marketing.
2 Working of each Stage. 2 Ø Traditional word of mouth: 2 Ø Celebrity Influence: 2 Ø Crowdsourcing: 2 Ø Social Influence: 2 Pros and Cons. 3 Ø Traditional word of mouth: 3 Ø Celebrity Influence: 3 Ø Crowdsourcing: 4 Ø Social Influence: 4 Sample Campaigns. 4 References. 8 Stages of influence Marketing 1. List each stage in the evolution of influence marketing.
The four stages of influence Marketing are:1) Traditional word of mouth 2) Celebrity Influence3) Crowdsourcing4) Social InfluenceWorking of each Stage 2. Define each (few paragraphs) stage and explain how each works. Ø Traditional word of mouth:Traditional word of mouth marketing, also called viral marketing, the message is disseminated about the company/product through customer interaction and experience. Much of this communication takes place informally where families, friends share their experiences or reactions with others in conversation. Ø Celebrity Influence:Celebrities range from TV starts, athletes, royal family chefs etc. Companies exploit these talents and employee them to advertise just about everything as celebrities are instantly recognisable and are most likely to attract customer interest and they are more likely to bring attention to the brand, sometimes people look up to celebrities as role models and powerful people who can attract consumer interest and bring attention to a brand in a way no other form of advertising can.
If the celebrity is authentic they can lend celebrity to a brand and influence the way, it is perceived.Ø Crowdsourcing:Crowdsourcing is the wisdom of the crowd on the brand, weather it is true or not people are most likely to trust review, comments or what other people talk about their experience with the product or service. Which enables them to see the genuineness or service delivered by the brand.Hence it is important to encourage people to talk positive on the product and most importantly, importance must be given to the negative comments or people with negative experience about the brand thus turning the negative into a positive comment which adds excellent value to the brand’s customer experience from negative to positive.Ø Social Influence: Following the 90-9-1 rule it is important to understand and find who is the one that can sway the crowd usually the 1% are the creators who are actively involved in activities sharing and have a good online presence. The 9% on the other hand are critics or editors and the majority of the people among the funnel are the 90% people who just buy, consume and look at just the purpose but don’t believe in commenting sharing speaking. Its very important to find the one person who would typically be responsible to sway the crowd and be influential in driving the product to the consumers without driving much cost and effort just be rectified solutions and good service.Social influence or social popularity is about the way people influence each other online through blogs, comments etc.
Pros and Cons3.Describe the pros and cons of each stage in either historical or modern context.Ø Traditional word of mouth:PROo Trust:When people hear messages about the company, product or service from someone they trust they are more likely to believe in them. Whereas when you pay someone to pass on the message it is mostly perceived that the person would only promote positive things about the product or company thus customer satisfaction is very important.it not only retains customers but also it gives more positive thoughts to attract others to the business.o Low cost: No direct cost involved, simply involves the interaction of customers who share their experiences.
CONS:o Lack of control: Limited control over messages, if a customer has a negative experience with the product or service it is difficult to control via word of mouth. Industry efforts have been more concreted to get control over by getting the positive customers directly involved. And thus, building positive relation with most vocal customers thus enhancing positive customer experience o Difficult to evaluate results: Tracking the kind of message being reached o the larger audience gets tough in such a marketing effort. Most of the word of mouth marketing takes place between consumers in an informal conversation.
Unless a direct conversation effort is taken place to understand what effort drew them to know about the product or business. Ø Celebrity Influence: PRO:o Helps tap new market:When a well-known face endorses the brand, it reaches out to new customers. People who are a diehard fan of the celebrity will at least want to try the product once thus involving people to try the brand and spread brand awareness. Dedicated fan followers may tend to purchase the product without a second though. o Builds trust and credibility:Celebrities are not less than idols in many cases and thus using celebrity to endorse a brand also involves emotional connection of the audience with the celebrity. Thus, leading to billions of people knowing and joining the brand and increasing the brand’s reputation and market value in a short span of time.CONS:o Endorsements are expensive:Celebrity endorsement is huge investments from company’s revenue and thus there is no turning back from that point on.
It involves millions and billions to invest in such a marketing. o Human errors:Celebrities are humans and prone to making errors but after huge investment if stardom is flashed off sue to some mistake or celebrity scandal they tend to lose followers and eventually it is reflected in the brand. The celebrity the brand is associated with gets a bad reputation, finding a solution to get back can be expensive. E.g. replacing another celebrity to rectify the effort will be double the cost of the initial investment.
Ø Crowdsourcing:PRO:o Saves time: If users with large followings write a positive review or share a positive experience about the brand or product it is more likely to be seen by their many followers, and its tendency to be shared increases reaching a large audience thus saving time and money on promotional efforts and working on other areas of the business.o Get a boost from online influencers:By finding the right influencer who views and supports the brand or organization and is also a right fit to the target audience can help reach out billion on viewers giving exposure to the brand by a positive review by an influencer.CONS:o The rise of social media: With the increase of social channels and social sharing with audience’s its difficult to understand the medium of communication over different channels, the brand eventually is needed and established by the audience, risking a person to be the brands influencer with can mostly affect the brand if its not the right fir its not always about the number of followers.
Reviews are meant to be honest opinions and paid reviews result in people questioning the genuineness of the brand. Ø Social Influence: PRO: o 90-9-1 Rule: The 10 % or the 1 in 90 can be very influential when the right influence is found among a bunch of people, usually involves people who have bad reviews or unpleasant experience with the brand or service and turning it into positive customer value can also be an influencing factor through which an unpleasant experience can be changed to a positive thus facilitating a good customer driven experience.CONS:o Social influence can cover the brand image focusing on the main influencer if not done in a minimalistic wayo Promoting free samples as testers for influencers involves a free cost for samples to give them the best to talk more bout the product can be good and bad in some instance.Sample Campaigns 3. List one or two sample campaigns that illustrate each stage.
Provide images, links to videos or other with an explanation of what makes it the type of influence marketing categorized and what makes it work (or not). Ø Traditional word of mouth: Figure 1: Red bull Word of mouth eventsRed Bull is a worldwide leader in the market for energy drinks, and they continue to keep growing with their awareness through word of mouth focused activities. Among that initiative that drives Red Bulls Word of mouth activities are:· The student Brand Manger programs: Where Red Bull advocates students to discuss Red bull events around respective colleges with the promotion of free energy drinks outside schools especially during exams.· Red Bull Bedroom Jam: Focused on Student demographic which includes student participation in talent events for their promotional events.
· Red bull Wing team: Employees drive around their fancy Red Bull branded vehicle distributing samples.The promotional events by students were very influential in creating awareness as it let students refer their friend for becoming a part of the talent shows and promotional events around colleges thus being a huge promotional success for the brand. These are one such example of companies trying to create a buzz and amplifying these by levering influences.Similar other examples for such campaigns include Dettol’s word of mouth campaign focused on influencer moms Link: https://youtu.be/GzvmnWmr2VA?list=PLf5JdxLlziDkGdRplmPlTZBaTM3PArFjCThe result of this campaign resulted in 5 times increases of overall brand awareness and purchases doubled thus resulting in 86% of the overall increase in the sale through this campaign.Ø Celebrity InfluenceFigure 2 Michael Jordan as Celebrity InfluencerMichael Jordan is one of the many influential active or retired athlete and has made an estimated $110M in 2015, he is a marketable individual in the US ahead of Oprah, Tom Hanks and other influential people.
Research says his awareness level is 98% among millennials which is incredible since most of them now haven’t even seen him play live given he retired 13 years ago, Making him even influential and extremely relevant. He is an ambassador for Nike, Gatorade car dealerships etc., The signature Shoe line with Nike sold 18 times more as many pairs as under Armour shoes.
Many millennials youth know him as a supreme star as he springs up in the air making each move so simplified in sport and thus tying him up with a brand such as Nike was absolutely a hit and drove people to triple the purchase.Ø CrowdsourcingStarbucks is a good example when it comes to crowdsourcing opportunity they took the opportunity of the Starbucks signature cups as a canvas for designers and artist to doodle thus leading them to start a campaign around simple design. The initial whit cup contest encouraged users to decorate the original cup take a photo and submit on social channels with the #WhiteCupContest. Which had amazing results over the course of time receiving 4,000 unique submissions. The winning design (Link: https://vine.co/v/Mn2XOvQmlz9 )was submitted by a Pittsburgh art student and her image was used on the limited edition reusable cups.
Each year Starbucks releases innovative design for the reusable cups which can be purchased for a $1 as an incentive to reduce waste This was a part of company’s effort to promote environmentally friendly products and shed light on young artist promoting their art.Ø Social InfluenceFigure 3 Revolve around the worldInstead of using fashion models for style ads, La based ecommerce retail takes top influencers to exotic locations with those involved in documenting the entire experience on social media. Beauty bloggers like Fleur have been involved in the #Revolvearoundtheworld posting images of themselves wearing the clothing to their audience’s. Thus, leading to 53% of women making purchases thus making this kind of content valuable helping widen reach and strengthen the image as a cool girl brand Also, a real-life example of a dear friend has been very influential to many young girls and has been promoting different brands via her Instagram and blogs through her post giveaways contest, thus influencing many youth’s young, trendy cool and has influence over many young girls. Link to her Instagram account: https://www.instagram.
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