When historical business leader Dale Carnegie wrote “How to Win Friends and Influence People” back in the 1930s, he never could have imagined how much the power of influence would explode thanks to the Internet and digital marketing.
As we enter into 2020, influence is a critical part of growing your business. It’s something business leaders need to cultivate, measure, and invest in to reach more of your target audience — no matter what industry you’re in.
Before jumping into building your influence, though, it’s important to understand why influence has become the currency of today’s business world.
People Want to Do Business With Influential People
“Arouse in the other person an eager want. He who can do this has the whole world with him.” — Dale Carnegie
Influence is about trust. People want to read, follow, engage with, and do business with people they trust.
Did you notice the progression? It wasn’t by accident:
- Reading is simply taking the time to consume something that another person has to say.
- Following is taking a more vested interest in what the person has to say.
- Engaging with is actually taking an action in relation to what the person has to say.
- Doing business with is entering into a formal agreement with the person based on what the person has to say.
If you want to advance your target audience from merely reading what you have to say to actually doing business with you, trust is a huge piece of the puzzle. Your ability to influence others and build their trust helps with this advancement.
Here’s where things have shifted in today’s modern business. Your target audience wants a true partnership or relationship when doing business with you. It’s not limited to a transactional relationship of “I pay you x amount of dollars every month and you provide me with this service.”
It’s deeper. It’s a relationship. It’s finding solutions and working intelligently together. That requires a significant amount of trust to find the right partner in business.
To get to this point of establishing a modern working relationship, you need to be able to convey the trustworthiness of your brand and the trustworthiness of yourself as a business leader.
How to Start Influencing People to Do Business With You
“To be interesting, be interested.” — Dale Carnegie
To influence others and to build trust, you need to have something to say. You need to build your profile in the market. You need to show that you’re involved, invested, and, yes, interesting.
Your target audience wants to see that you’re attending a conference, that you’re excited about the conference, and you have unique insight about the conference that will help them in some way — whether personally or professionally.
Business leaders that sit on the sidelines tucked away in their own space are limiting their influence in today’s business world.
- You need to have a strong social media presence — with heavy emphasis on LinkedIn — talking about what’s happening in your industry.
- You need to have strong blog content on your company website talking about relevant topics that your customer base cares about.
- You need to be in contact with your email list through regular newsletters talking about industry topics.
The more talk about your industry, the more that you show deep involvement in your industry, and the more you share insight about the latest trends and developments, the more you will build a following, respect, trust, and influence.
These are the things your customers care about when deciding whether to do business with you. Taking these actions will help your prospects advance from merely reading what you have to say to entering into a business partnership with your company.
How Marketing Refresh Helps Cultivate Influence
As a digital marketing agency, we work directly with business leaders to help cultivate influence through a content marketing strategy that generates new leads.
We strategize content for blogs, social media, and email that positions you and your brand in the right manner to build influence and trust.
- Typical blog content: recapping an industry conference that your team attended with the main takeaways.
- Typical social media content: sharing articles, news, stats, and trends about industry developments.
- Typical email content: links to blogs, content, and stats about the latest trends.
We continually monitor the influence and trust you’re building through our monthly reports. Then, we use the metrics to strategize more content to keep the momentum going.
Having the right strategy in place and consistently delivering content to your target audience will help build your influence in 2020. The result is growing your business over time by creating new leads and business opportunities.
Ready to get started? Contact us today about creating a digital marketing program that’s right for you!
