From Customer Relationship Management to Influencer Relationship Management

In today's digitally fragmented and social-media-dominated world, traditional forms of advertising—driving awareness through push advertising—are becoming less effective, and more and more consumer brands are turning to influencers as important network intermediaries to leverage the power of word-of-mouth marketing. Influencers are individual consumers who maintain large numbers of followers that seek to interact with the influencers' unique content on a regular basis. To enable companies to systematically manage the relationships between brands and influencers, the concept of customer relationship management is being transferred to fit the new challenges. The four stages of the influencer life cycle are explained and possible KPIs listed in this chapter.