Historically, marketers think in terms of campaigns that come and go year to year. But to do influence marketing well, it can’t blink on and off. How do you explain to an organization that an influence campaign is always on? How do you structurally manage something like that over the long haul? It’s really easy. You equate influencers to the press. You don’t ignore the press when you’re not running a campaign. We expect that they could be contacting us at any moment. We have to be on our toes. We have to have our representatives and our people who are authorized to speak available 24/7. So, when you start treating influencers like the press, you invite them to the same events, you give them the same embargoed material and they respect that. It then becomes an evolving relationship. You simply have to treat these influencers with respect and nurture a long-term relationship. I’m not going to deliver you a crop of influencers by Friday, and maybe not even in the next three months. You need to put this on the same footing as the press and investor relations. This is the third external leg. - www.businessesgrow.com