At work, I am most excited about helping our portfolio companies reach their goals related to marketing and PR.  Each week, I will write about my interests, ideas and insights from OpenView Labs, the consulting group that serves our venture capital fund and portfolio companies. 

I have recently started contributing to the Content Marketing Institute.  Check out my posts and read more from content marketing experts. 

I'm @amandamaksymiw on Twitter.  Follow me!

The content and views expressed in this blog do not necessarily reflect the views of OpenView Investments, LLC, its affiliates or portfolio companies.

Newsletter Best Practices

As the summer winds down, we are in the 24th week of our newsletter experiment.  Each week we release a newsletter full of tips and tricks that are hand picked by the OpenView team to provide the best new ideas and insights to senior management teams of expansion stage companies looking for investors or not.

Since it has been a couple of months since I have discussed the newsletter in a blog post, I'd like to share some insights and issues of my own about creating and sending newsletters. For this analysis, I took note of our open rates (how many unique times the newsletter is opened) and click through rates (unique percentage of subscribers clicking through the links).  Next, I focused on identifying 'hot topics' that get opens and clicks, in addition to reviewing list performance over time.

Sharing our Numbers
The following image shows our open rates and click through rates for the past 9 editions of Viewing Value.  During this time we have been focusing on increasing both statistics to improve our subscriber engagement.  I typically look at these two main statistics two days after each edition was sent.  Is this an accurate picture of our subscribers' engagement?

Since I do not know the answer to that question, I decided to compare the two-day old statistics to older statistics.  In the past 9 issues of Viewing Value the click-through rate increased up to 1.6%.  More often than not, the open rate increased as well.  See below for details.

Note:  These stats were pulled two days after each edition was released. 


Note:  These stats were pulled on 8/30/2010.


Contents that Get Opens (and Clicks)
We cater to senior managers at expansion stage software companies within our newsletter.  This general audience typically boils down to CEOs.  We have found that a few specific topics seem to resonate best with our audience.  They are:

• Increasing sales
• New, efficient marketing techniques and strategies
• Leadership insights
• Compensation

How did we figure this out?
In addition to analyzing our subscribers' engagement as topics of the newsletter varied, we also include one survey question in every 4-6 editions of the newsletter.  The question asks, "Which topics are you most interested in seeing covered in next week's edition?"  It never hurts to ask!

Which List is the Most Engaged?
Our subscriber base is comprised of several opt-in lists (i.e. web collect, blog collect list, existing portfolio companies, prospect companies, employees).  Here are our better performing lists:




Web Collect


Prospect Companies


Portfolio Companies


One issue we are having is accelerating our list growth.  What are some strategies or tactics you have deployed to boost your list size over time?

Legal Considerations for Your Content Marketing Strategy

Boston venture capital firm OpenView Venture Partners will be releasing a new content site in the coming weeks.  The new site is focused on providing best practices, frameworks, and ideas for senior management teams at expansion stage companies about the important topics  -- customer development, whole product development, and company development.

Most recently, I have been dedicating a lot of my time executing various activities to ensure the OpenView Labs site will be full of fresh daily content once it is introduced to the world.  I have already shared some advice on working with freelancers in your content marketing strategy.  This week, I'd like to discuss a legal component to the site.

On the Labs site, we will be creating and distributing various types of content -- podcasts, articles, practice kits, and videos -- that we want others to consume and share. 

 

- Do we need to protect our content? 

- Should we copyright it? 

Earlier this morning, I connected with Jeremy Aber, senior advisor to OpenView and its portfolio companies, about Creative Commons licensing. Essentially, a Creative Commons license allows businesses to protect their copyrighted material while indicating and encouraging others to share it.  This new license option is free and growing in popularity.  Currently, the notable users of a Creative Commons license are Google, Wikipedia, Nine Inch Nails, Flickr, and Whitehouse.gov. 



For more information I encourage you to read Jeremy Aber's post outlining the basics of Creative Commons.

What do Mullets, Mormon, and Maniacs have in common?

As a marketing analyst on the OpenView Labs team, I have spent some time researching the best practices process for inbound marketing campaigns.  Essentially, one of our expansion stage portfolio companies would approach the Labs looking for help on increasing web traffic, getting more inbound leads, increasing trial sign-ups, etc. in a quick, viral way.  They were looking for the silver bullet of viral marketing so to speak. 

We all know that a silver bullet to any strategy does not exist, but I recently stumbled upon a great presentation that claims to be very close.  Last week Erick Schonfeld wrote an article on TechCrunch highlighting a recent presentation on viral marketing from Jonah Peretti, CEO of BuzzFeed. 

Peretti shares a well-thought approach to creating something viral.  He offers insightful tips on when you should try (and try again) in addition to how you can get started today.

Here are Peretti's 5 steps to going viral: 

1. Create media for the Bored at Work network:  There are millions of people trapped at their desks everyday.  Create something that the masses will enjoy consuming and sharing.
2. Practice the Mullet Strategy:  Just like the infamous hairdo, keep the business up front and the party in the back.  This means to maintain a corporate looking appearance while still catering to the fun.
3. Try Big Seed Marketing:  Don't be afraid to spend some money to get really creative campaigns out there.
4. Target the Maniacs:  "Crazy people run the web."  Capitalize on that.
5. Be a Mormon, Not a Jew:  It is not of the quality of the content that matters.  It is the quality of the effort you put into spreading it.

Jonah Peretti Viral Meetup Talk

HubSpot, maker of inbound marketing solutions, has experienced a lot of success with its viral videos.  Many of their videos meet most, if not of all Peretti's tips above.  Here is one of my favorite viral videos from HubSpot:



Has your company had any success in viral marketing?  What tips can you offer?

Using Freelancers for your Content Marketing Strategy

OpenView Venture Partners, a Boston venture capital firm, will be releasing a new website in the coming weeks.  The new site will be a pure content site, focused on providing best practices, frameworks, and ideas for senior management teams at expansion stage companies.  We will be providing different types of content about the important topics for expansion stage companies -- customer development, whole product development, and company development.

Most recently, I have been dedicating a lot of my time executing various activities to ensure the OpenView Labs site will be full of fresh daily content once it is introduced to the world.  I have learned many key lessons along the way.  I will continue to share them as we get closer to the release date.  For now, I'd like to discuss our use of freelancers.

Lesson:  Don't be afraid to outsource some content creation 

I have been working with several freelancers on summarizing and creating new content for the Labs site.  We have found that we are able to create valuable, informational content much quicker if we would work with great writers outside of the OpenView team.

Tips for Finding Exceptional Freelancers

1. Utilize Craigslist to find talent.  Surprisingly I have found several exceptional (and cost-efficient) freelance writers on Craigslist.  I posted a brief description looking for freelance writers who are deadline oriented, had excellent communication skills, hard working, and of course engaging writers.  Beware, if you post on Craigslist, you will have a lot of emails to sift through, but it will be worth it. 
2. Interview the standouts.  After reviewing the resumes and applications that came pouring in, I took time to speak with the standout candidates. 
3. Assign some homework.  If the interview went well, I requested that each freelancer complete a homework assignment similar to the work they would be doing for me if I hired them. 

By following this process I have found several excellent freelancers to work with.  Please feel free to email me if you are looking for someone to fill in your content creation gap. 

Stay tuned as I share more lessons in the coming weeks!

A Boston Venture Capital firm is invested in Content Marketing

Each week I spend a lot of my time working on OpenView's content marketing strategy with other members of the marketing team.  Currently our content strategy consists of blogging, a weekly edition of tips and tricks, video creation, microblogging and other social media sites, in addition to the creation of case studies, articles, and practice kits.  I recently blogged about our strategy in greater detail on my guest blog for the Content Marketing Institute. 

After spending a good amount of time creating and distributing new, valuable content for our target audience of senior management teams in expansion stage companies, I'd like to share some of the errors I have witnessed, in addition to some of my own bloopers I have made along the way.  After all, mistakes are what we learn from!

Top Bloopers in Content Marketing

• Not promoting new content on social media outlets:  If you don't do this, you are missing out on a huge opportunity to promote your content to your network.  Utilize Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, discussion groups, etc.  Here are some tips on getting started.  
• Avoiding commitment to the content marketing strategy from the senior management team:  If you want to get your company started on blogging, you will be most effective if you have someone senior championing blogging and setting an example.  Otherwise, some employees will just think it is a waste of time.  Here is some insight on senior manager buy-in, in addition to some facts on our blogging strategy.
• Sending the company's newsletter from a personal account:  Up front, you need to decide the best person to deliver your newsletter from.  This will be different for every company.  Perhaps the CEO is a well known in the space and his/her name means more than your company name.  The point is to choose a sender and stick to it so that your subscribers don't get confused. 
• Including a dead link in a newsletter, tweet, blog post:  Recently, I sent out a newsletter and its first post had an error in the URL.  Imagine my shock when I received the newsletter and couldn't click on the post!  My attention to detail was focused on the content and grammar, which means nothing if a link doesn't work.  Be sure to test and retest to avoid my mistake!  (Here is the link to the "You need more sex!" by Scott Maxwell if you missed it last week).
• Forgetting to ask your audience for feedback:  Any content marketing strategy should be based on the needs of your customers or users.  If you are not communicating with your customers, you are blindly producing content. 
• Being scared of trying something new:  Since you content marketing strategy is most likely to be a newer strategy for your company, why not take some risks?  Test different release schedules, write about different topics, design a few newsletter templates, etc. and see what happens.  This is how you learn.

What are some bloopers you have witnessed (or committed)? 

A newsletter may be an excellent tool to have in your content marketing strategy.

 As you may know, I contribute a monthly blog post to Junta42's Content Marketing Institute.  I am thrilled to be a part of this project because it is great to share some of my lessons learned working on the content marketing strategy of Boston venture capital firm OpenView Venture Partners, in addition to learning from all of the industry experts who are active contributors. 

If you are interested in content marketing or inbound marketing, I highly recommend the CMI, if you haven't checked it out yet. 

Earlier today, The Content Marketing Institute published an article outlining the following 5 easy steps for creating an email newsletter from your blog.  We have used this approach since we launched Viewing Value -- our weekly edition of tips and tricks geared towards senior management teams of expansion stage software companies.  Each week we hand-pick the best blogs written by members of the OpenView team and send them to our subscriber base.  Since we have started sending the newsletter we have seen a 135% jump in the number of unique visitors to our blogs. 

Want to try it out for your company?  Follow CMI's 5 quick steps:

1. Start with a blog
2. Select an RSS-to-email service
   
3. Create your email template
   
4. Invite subscribers
   
5. Select your frequency

For more details on getting started, read Brian Massey's post on CMI.

Are you interested in creating some videos for your business?

1. Your company's elevator pitch
2. The history or a timeline of your company
3. Your company's one word
4. Your aspirations
5. Meet and greet with the senior management teams
6. Overview of your product suite
7. Screencasts of your products
8. Explanation of features/benefits of your products
9. Tips and tricks for using your software
10. Map out the competitive landscape within your business
11. Interviews with your customers
12. Interviews with your partners
13. Film your customers using your product
14. Video case studies showcasing your customers' success stories
15. Video testimonials
16. Rewrite a popular song's lyrics to match your business and belt it out
17. Act out a funny skit
18. Tours of your office space
19. How to's relevant to your industry or product
20. Educational videos on relevant topics
21. Film your user groups or networking events
22. Turn successful written content (blogs, whitepapers, ebooks) into video

Lights! Camera! Action!  Key tips in planning your next video shoot.

As you may have noticed, Boston venture capital firm OpenView Venture Partners has upped the ante on various content marketing initiatives.  We have been creating all sorts of content such as blogs, a newsletter, case studies, and videos.  Recently we have been dedicating a lot of time to our video creation. 

For the past few weeks Devon and I have been sorting out all of the details for our next video shoot which is scheduled for tomorrow!  Since we are hosting our portfolio companies for a forum on customer service Thursday and Friday, we are going to jump on the opportunity.  Many of our companies are based outside of Boston, so it is very unique to have so many different senior management teams from our companies all in one room.  Needless to say, we are taking advantage of the situation by hiring a video production crew to help us create the best videos with the help of our portfolio company members. 

Throughout the day we will be pulling people from our portfolio out of the workshop to interview them on camera about their experiences working with us.  In a period of one day we will be creating the footage to make nearly 20 new videos!  Talk about leverage!  It took a little bit of planning, but once we narrowed down the topics we wanted to cover all of the other plans seemed to fall into place.  After this week is over, we will have nearly enough videos to release one per week for the rest of the year. 

Here are some of the planning steps we followed:

• Identify a solid video production crew that will take care of all of the setup, filming, and post-production work.  In the Boston area, we have used Maverick Productions and D2 Productions for this type of work. 
• Narrow down a set of topics that are the most important for you to cover now.
• Build a list of participants you'd like to interview on camera.
• Identify the main points you wish to cover in each video.
• Develop interview questions and prompts to guide your participants throughout the filming.
• Plan out a rough schedule to follow during the day of the shoot.  Each session may be anywhere from 5 minutes to 1 hour depending on what you'd like your participants to communicate.
• Communicate all of this information to your participants in advance to ensure they are comfortable speaking on camera, in addition to communicating your message.
• Have participants sign video release forms during the shoot.

I am super excited to be a part of the crew on Thursday.  Stay tuned for our upcoming editions of OpenView TV. 

Let us know what topics you would like to see covered on OpenView TV in the future!

Every effective marketer knows that it is essential to track and measure marketing KPIs to ensure success.

The same holds true for all branding activities.

After all, you are are pumping hundreds if not thousands of dollars per month into various branding initiatives every month.  Do you know if your content marketing strategy or inbound marketing programs are driving a positive ROI and which are draining the well? 

Many months ago my colleague Tien Anh shared an excellent resource for all marketing KPIs -- Marketing Metrics: 50+ Metrics Every Executive Should Master from Wharton School Publishing.  It is a great guide for senior management teams offering information about all facets of marketing -- margins and profits, product management, customer profitability, sales force and channel management, pricing strategy, advertising, and more. 

Here are the critical metrics (from the book) you must track if you have the goal of building a brand in mind:

• Awareness - percentage of potential customers who recognize a brand
• Attitudes - a measure of a potential customer's belief or response to a brand
• Usage - a measure of a customer's behavior (purchase habits or loyalty)

Branding metrics can be tracked fairly easily.  Try conducting an email survey to customers and prospects every few years and compare the findings to your sales revenue to extract insights. 

Great resources for marketing KPIs:
Marketing Metrics: 50+ Metrics Every Executive Should Master
Market Me Now
Marketing Profs

Which KPIs do you currently track?

About 3 months ago OpenView Partners launched Viewing Value, a weekly edition of tips and tricks to provide the best new ideas targeted at senior management teams of expansion stage software companies if they are looking for investors or not.  (If you are in the dark on what Viewing Value is, sign up to receive the next issue!  There is a form in the upper right hand corner of this blog).

I recently took some time to analyze our newsletter statistics from the past couple months.  To start, I found a baseline for two key statistics -- open rate (how many unique times the newsletter is opened) and click through rate (unique percentage of subscribers clicking through the links).  Next, I focused on identifying 'hot topics' that get opens and clicks, in addition to reviewing list performance over time.

What are our 'hot topics'?
After reviewing several editions of Viewing Value, I started seeing trends of topics that received higher-than-average click rates.  Our subscribers are very interested in driving valuation, increasing sales and leadership strategy.  This fits in perfectly with our subscriber base which is comprised of founders and senior managers of tech companies!  Topics that are slightly controversial also seem to fare well in our newsletter.  Here are our most read posts from our newsletter:

• How one word can drive valuation
• Why do SaaS companies suck at making usable products?
• Thoughts on senior executive compensation

What about buzz words?
There are a few words that seem to attract more engagement and click-throughs.  Here are some ideas that have worked for our newsletter:

• Must see, must read
• Inclusion of #s, i.e. top 7 reasons
• Important, critical
• Increase, boost, drive
• Profitable, profitability

We've had some great learnings along the way.  Here are a few key tips that you can adopt to your newsletter:

1. Compare several of your past editions with a critical eye.  Here are some questions to focus your analysis:  What subject line received the highest open rate?  What piece of content received the greatest click through rate?  What types of content do your subscribers gravitate to?
2. Pay attention to your list performance over time.  Are you having greater success with one list over another?  This type of analysis will help you dial in on specific subscribers that are eating up your content.  You can then use this information to perfect your targeted subscriber base over time.
3. Provide content that your subscriber base is interested in.  If you don't know exactly what the hot topics are, do some research.  Talk with your customers and prospects or distribute a quick survey. 
   
4. Sharpen your subject line.  A subject line is the first opportunity to grab a reader's attention.  Don't waste it!  Include your buzz words and incorporate numbers.
5. Include eye candy within your newsletter.  Try to include at least one bit of information you know that everyone will be dying to read.  It could be a funny piece of content or be about something that is really well known.   The point is to catch your subscribers' eyes.

Here are some other great content management marketing resources to review when creating newsletters:

• 7 ways to maximize newsletter content from Newt Barrett
• nearly every post from Copyblogger

What are your favorite newsletter tips?

A great tool for any content marketing strategy

Each week Boston venture capital firm OpenView Venture Partners releases a brand new video on OpenView TV to shed some light on the OpenView team and how we work.  Since we launched OpenView TV we have been using Spotlight a video publishing platform provided by Reality Digital, a company that received expansion capital from OpenView Venture Partners in 2008. 

Spotlight allows us to manage, publish, and socialize our video content on our website.  I really like how simple the tool is to use and how easy it is to organize our different video files.  You can organize by playlist or topic.  It has given me complete control over the videos we wish to post on our site since the media manager can directly publish to our site.  Spotlight allows us to design video players based on a few standard templates, giving you the ability to customize the look and feel to fit the OpenView brand. 

Some other great features include:

• Manage metatags and insert logos
• Organize all media
• Allow your fans to create and submit user generated content
• Moderate user submitted videos and comments
• Play high quality video
• Syndicate with YouTube with just a few clicks
• Monetize with a built-in ad server or third party ad integrations
• Track the performance of different content and playlists

For more information visit the Spotlight website and sign up for a free 30 day trial.

Go ahead, see OpenView TV for yourself!

Many senior management teams understand that outbound prospecting is key to success within the expansion stage.

After all, many companies cannot continue to maintain a steady rate of growth in the expansion stage by relying on inbound lead generation alone.

We often assist in developing solid outbound prospecting engines for our portfolio companies as a part of the operational support we provide.  We have recruited, hired, and trained several individuals to work as employees within the Boston office of OpenView Venture Partners or within our portfolio companies offices across the country.  To learn more about how we help, I encourage you to read my colleague Devon Warwick's blog which focuses on business development.  We've also released a case study describing the success one portfolio company has had after implementing an outbound lead generation model with our help.  You can read all about Intronis' success in our Lead Qualification Model Case Study.  As we have worked with our companies on implementing different outbound prospecting models, we have learned about one of the most important components of success:  CONTENT.

Why Content Matters
No matter how good your sales reps are, if they don't have content to support their efforts, it will be very challenging to succeed in an outbound initiative.  Just think about it. 

• Can your reps clearly communicate your company's value proposition?
• How will your reps explain your company's advantage over your main competitors? 
• Do you have any email templates or calling scripts?
• How can your reps share success stories from your customer base? 
• What takeaways will your prospects receive during demos or webinars? 
• Do you have product descriptions prepared?
• Can your reps deliver product reviews to your prospects?
• Do you offer any free downloads? (i.e. white papers, ebooks, etc.)
• How do your reps address your prospects' top issues and pain points?
• How will your reps demonstrate useful how-to information to your prospects?

These 10 questions all point to one answer in one shape or another:  CONTENT.

Senior management teams at expansion stage companies are often tasked with doing more with less.  Influence marketing could be the answer.

An influence marketing program, or one that targets few key individuals or groups of individuals that have influence over your target segment, may be a nice component of your overall marketing mix. 

Here's why:

1. The new rules. 
There is a new game in town and it has changed the way buyers in B2B and B2C markets behave.  People no longer want to be shouted at. Instead, your prospects are looking for information on the Web and speaking with 'experts' to learn more.  Your prospects are crazy for content and they are looking to consume it.  So how does this fit in with influence marketing you ask?  Influence marketing can be an extremely valuable channel for you to commute your content.  Bloggers and writers that focus on your company's space are searching for content to report on.  Help them out (and help out your company) and start engaging with them so you can engage with your prospects.  

2. You can do it. 
It is easy to get started, especially on a small scale.  While influence marketing can be a full time job, it does not have to be as high-flying as that of an expansion stage company. 
Start small. 

• Identify the top 3 bloggers within your space, take 10-15 minutes a day to review their blogs and start engaging with them. 
• If you can get the support of another senior manager (hint: the CEO), encourage him/her to do the same. 
• If you have another 5 minutes, peruse LinkedIn for major groups within your niche and join in on the discussion. 

3. It can be free. 
Influence marketing does not have to cost your company anything (other than the time your employees put into the program).  On a small or large scale, be creative and figure out how to engage with you key influencers instead of paying for expensive marketing programs.  The idea is that creativity and perseverance can really pay off in an influence marketing strategy. 

In this post, I would like to share three content marketing tips for newsletters any expansion stage company can implement in order to attract more attention. 

Earlier this year, I blogged about newsletters being a great tool for your content marketing strategy for building your expansion stage brand.  (Here are the resources on getting started, optimizing, and a few key lessons learned for newsletters).

Since we have launched Viewing Value, OpenView's edition of weekly tips and tricks geared towards senior management teams of expansion stage companies, I have been researching new ideas, testing out a few different tips and tricks I have found, and brainstorming improvements with colleagues. 

Here are 3 quick ideas to implement to make your content more sharable:

1.  Include a hyperlink to automatically populate a clever tweet to your newsletter. 
This is a really easy tool you can incorporate into your newsletter or blog post.  It is a big step in making it incredibly easy to share your content via Twitter. 

To do make your content easily shared on Twitter, insert a hyperlink with the following link:  http://twitter.com/home?status=Enter your desired status here

Here is an example: 
If you click Tweet This!, as long that you are signed into Twitter, your status should automatically say:  I keep up with the Open Marketer.  Do you? 

2.  Include a mechanism that allows your readers to easily forward your content to a friend. 
This functionality is built into many tools.  For example, in ExactTarget (our newsletter tool), you have multiple choices on how to integrate a 'forward to a friend' button.  Try to think outside of the box here.  The point is to remove all boundaries that may inhibit sharing of your content. 

3.  Encourage your fans to share your content.
Create some sort of contest or rewards program to encourage your readers to forward your content.  For example, if a reader forwards your newsletter to 10 new subscribers, the reader could receive your latest ebook or white paper as a download. 

If you are looking for investors, be sure to stay up to date on OpenView TV.  Each week, we share the next edition providing insight into how our business venture capital firm works.  We share operational support stories in addition to introducing members of our team.  Stay tuned!

This week, Jeff Sutherland explains how he works with OpenView Partners' portfolio companies on implementing Scrum.



Visit our website to watch more editions of OpenView TV.

Many expansion stage companies have created blogs to serve as the main component of their content marketing strategy. 

Why should you blog?

• It is an effective tool to establish your company as a thought leader within your space as well as drive leads. 
• It can fuel the content creation component of an influence marketing program that your team can then use to engage your company's key influencers.
  
  

Several of OpenView's portfolio companies blog on a daily basis and every member of the OpenView team is required to write one blog post per week.  Recently, Firas Raouf wrote a post titled Content Management Marketing through Blogging in which he outlined OpenView's blogging strategy. 

Here are the latest and greatest tips on blogging I could find this week:

• Create content for people.  Sure, SEO is important to consider when creating any content online.  After all you want your content to be found by your target prospects.  Even if you starting blogging for SEO purposes in the first place, remember not to lose site of the readers whom are looking to consume your blog content.  People love unique, valuable content and search engines do too!  Simply, just remember whom you are writing for and balance your SEO activities.  For more SEO tips, please read the Online Marketing Blog.  
• Work out your blogging muscle.  The Copyblogger recently shared 3 great ideas on becoming a better blogger.  Blogging can be viewed as training for any physical activity - the more you practice and train, the better you are.  So how do you work out your blogging muscle?  Stay out of your comfort zone by writing a post every day and switching topics.
• Let your analytics guide you.  If you write a blog post regularly, the great thing is that you can almost instantly test to see if the content is resonating.  Did one post really skyrocket and receive tons of traffic?  Write more about that topic and keywords and ignore topics that have received minimal page views.  If you are stumped on what to blog about, take a look through your blog analytics report.  Pay attention to the posts that have received the most traffic and the most comments.  Read Hubspot's 3 Content Creation Tips for more ideas.

I recently wrote a guest post on Blogs.com that outlined my favorite blogs written by members of the top venture capital firms in the US.  These 10 blogs provide entrepreneurs looking for expansion capital with great insights and resources around business growth strategies and many more. 

Here are my top 5 picks

• Both Sides of the Table by Mark Suster, GRP Partners
• A VC by Fred Wilson, Union Square Ventures
• Feld Thoughts by Brad Feld, Foundry Group
• Red Eye VC by Josh Kopelman, First Round
• Highway 12 Ventures, a group blog

For my full list of my favorite VC blogs, be sure to check it out on blogs.com.

Last year, I spent a majority of my time implementing an influence marketing strategy for one of OpenView Partners' portfolio companies.  I spent time researching and building the database of key influencers, communicated the company's message and building the relationship, in addition to securing some ink.  So what is influence marketing anyway?

Introduction to Influence Marketing
Influence marketing is about focusing on a few key individuals or groups of individuals that have influence over your target segment - and ideally your target personas.  When making a sale, it is necessary to understand a few key people within an organization such as the decision maker, the champion, and end user.  Often times, the champion helps 'close' the sale within the company.  The same holds true when it comes to marketing.  It is necessary to understand exactly who influences your target persona.  Then you can essentially start marketing to a set of influencers rather than marketing directly to your target persona.  (If you need help on this, please visit Tien Anh's post on the creating personas).

For example, identify the major bloggers or writers within your space and begin to build a relationship by sharing news, setting meetings, and conducting demos. Trust me, these bloggers and writers are often itching for the next big story.  If you have it and share it with them, they will blog about it and share it with their followers. 

How to Get Started
If you are an expansion stage company thinking about implementing an influencer program, here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Start with a target persona and use that definition as a guide for the rest of your influencer program.  A target persona will help identify your influencers.
• Set reasonable goals so that you know what you are working to achieve.
• Get a content marketing strategy in place!  As you work on building relationships with key influencers, it is important to have some valuable content to share.

As an analyst at OpenView Labs, I have spent a great deal of time developing and implementing an influence marketing program for one of OpenView's expansion stage portfolio companies.  I have spent some time researching influence marketing and there are quite a few different approaches to take in terms of understanding how influence works. 

Pyramid Approach
TippingPoint Labs created a simple, digestible version of how influence works.  The Influence Pyramid gets the gears cranking for those new to influence marketing.  The pyramid paints the picture of four tiers of influence and helps understand how the community as a whole, is creating and consuming content.  This pyramid approach may help your brand create a solid content marketing strategy by drawing out exactly who influences whom.  The model seems to play better in a B2C environment, but it can be adapted to work in a B2B setting.  For more detail, check out Tippingpoint's post on the Influence Pyramid.

Eco-System Approach
Influence50 has develop a complex model depicting the influencer landscape that may be better served once your company or brand has a good understanding of the topic as a whole.  The following infographic displays a more holistic approach understanding who influences decision makers.   The important thing to note here is that your competitors are trying to influence the same decision makers!  For more information, check out Influencer50's resources on the ecosystem. 


Each model has its own pros and cons.  The ultimate point is to bring clarity and inform senior management teams so they can begin to harness the power of influence marketing. 

Which approach do you prefer?  Have I missed another popular model?