What marketer hasn’t heard of Influencer marketing? Partnering with top influencers provides the opportunity to significantly boost awareness building and demand generation efforts. One example of influencer marketing in action is Curata inviting LinkedIn’s Jason Miller to provide a foreword for its eBook about how to create a content strategy, as well as conducting a joint webinar with him.

However, if you don’t focus on building deep relationships with your top influencers, you’ve simply missed the boat on a great opportunity. Jay Acunzo, VP at NextView Ventures and Host of the Unthinkable podcast, describes influencer marketing and the dire situation of many marketers as follows:

Influencer Marketing: A giant missed opportunity thanks to short-term thinking once again ruining the potential of a well-meaning marketer. Rather than build something lasting and owned, the brand used influencer marketing in a forced, transactional way. Aaand no customers cared.

Jay’s correct that influencer marketing should not be so transactional. Too many marketers focus on supporting one or two campaigns with influencers (and in many cases, cash payment), and there it ends. Even worse, marketers reach out with random requests to influencers they have absolutely no prior relationship with.

Developing a great influencer marketing strategy requires collaboration across teams such as content marketing, communications, product marketing and other groups. One factor that may help this process is the increased number of companies with an executive in charge of content marketing; they can lead this type of effort from a more strategic perspective. Forty two percent of companies have an executive responsible for content marketing today, with this number expected to hit 51% in 2017 – source.

Check out Jay’s full post below to learn more about the challenges of influencer marketing and how to overcome them in your organization.

Read original article at Sorry for Marketing…