Building brands beyond media influencers: Three (3) ways to build lasting connections, relationships

The urge to drive a brand or product through massive influencer spending continues to blind businesses to reality. Varying tiers comprising Nano, micro, macro and mega influencers litter the social media space, pitching products and services. While brand awareness level through such efforts can be said to be impressive at 69 per cent positive consumer sentiment rates according to Global Banking & Finance Review, it has been discovered that relationships built via real connections are what sustain a brand long-term.

Get this. The sustained strong market performance of big brands that have survived waves of market changes can be traced to targeted segment engagements.

For instance, the L’Oreal, Canson, and La Roche brands deepened their roots in their markets by identifying key communities and crafting an effective program of continuous direct relationship with them.

Canson, a company that manufactures drawing paper and has been in existence for 450 years, entrenched its market dominance by weaving a relationship with teachers. L’Oreal, which has been in existence for 115 years, relies on a relationship with professional hairdressers. La Roche Posay skin care business, which has been around since 1975, established a relationship with dermatologists.

Influencers will draw eyeballs and convert a good number of their followers to patronize a brand. However, an influencer’s relationship with a brand is unpredictable. The same influencer will shift attention to a different brand once his contract expires with the current brand. But the bond created at interaction with a key user community lingers on and can be built upon and strengthened for centuries.

Friendships are hardly broken where a lot of investment and history have gone into building them. Canson, La Roche, and L’Oreal are riding on the wave of real relationships built and sustained with their user segments.

Strong ties are not created from a distance via social media and advertising tools. A brand should learn to be involved with its user communities by participating in occasions that show that they both share similar values. The brand should also be creating these occasions. The Indomie Noodle brand in Nigeria understood this relationship strategy. The brand continues to create and participate in occasions that connect with kids in the primary and secondary schools. The ties are getting stronger and stronger as the business retains a dominant market share. These are lessons for businesses seeking to go beyond the initial buzz generated by influencer marketing.

Precisely, here are the steps businesses should consider in creating sustainable ties with the market:

1. Ask what group will carry the brand – L’Oreal understood the impact of the hairdressing trade on penetrating users. It built and strengthened relationships with hairdressers. That relationship continues to sustain the brand, ensuring hairdressers are motivated to prescribe the brand’s products to users. Who are the prescribers for your user segments? Besides using influencers, bond with prescribers who see you frequently and speak mouth-to-mouth with your target users.
2. Seek to understand the prescriber and user segments – Segments bond with brands that share similar values with them. Find out what the desires and aspirations of the prescribers are. You can’t relate successfully to a segment you don’t understand. Take time to study the segment. Go for data. Conduct research. Run survey. Ask questions and follow up.
3. Build a program of engagement – Crafting or participating in the events that appeal to the prescriber and user segments is an effective tactic for building a favourable relationship with the segments. The goal is to show the target that the brand is becoming part of their world. This investment almost always turns into sales in the long run.