How to Measure Relations with Opinion Leaders in the Media
Including two short case studies.

by Katie Delahaye Paine

When your message is the right one, a good communications program acts like a food chain: You educate key spokespeople and opinion leader, and your message gets consumed and re consumed again and again down through the food chain to ultimately reach your publics through a variety of credible sources.

The most critical group in this chain are the thought leaders and influencers; the analysts, consultants, financial analysts, key customers, academics and leadership figures that others turn to for advice and recommendations. These early adopters are invariably the first to try new products and then become the source of countless recommendations. In cosmetics it is hair stylists, in the medical community it is doctors and nurse practitioners, in high-tech it is the key industry consultants, in automotive it is the car enthusiasts. Every industry has their own, and every marketer targets them with varying degrees of success. Communicators need to make these early influencers their friends by including them in early briefings for new products.

Successful analyst relations. As with journalists, the ultimate measure of a successful relationship is if they recommend your product to reporters, editors and customers. And therefore the methodology to measure your results in analyst and influencer relations is similar to measuring results with the media.

First, you need to collect articles, transcripts and mentions in publications that your customers pay attention to. Then, analyze those publications to determine which sources their editors and reporters turned to for advice and information.

Mini Case Study #1:
Beauty Is Analyst Deep

The beauty care division of a major consumer packaged goods company was trying to figure out how to improve its overall awareness and preference with its target customers. They knew that the audience read the top 15 beauty books for advice, but weren't sure how to influence those publications.

So, we conducted a share of ink study to determine how much coverage each of their product categories (hair care, facial care, sun screen, etc.) received during the course of the year. We further looked at all the articles about those categories and quickly established a list of who was most frequently quoted.

As it turned out, hair stylists and salon owners topped the list. The client then made an effort to reach out to those groups both in their industry-specific trade publications and with events and specifically tailored programs. Ultimately, the media analysis effort yielded a rich database that allowed the client to spot trends in recommendations for specific products over time. They could further tie the specific recommendations to specific products and product efforts establishing a share of recommendations. The final stage will be to tie the share of recommendations to market share data.

Now It's Your Turn:
How To Measure Your Analyst Relations

Get Organized. To get started, turn to your database, spread sheet or analysis module to record the names of every publication, every reporter, and every person quoted for stories that have appeared about you, your industry and your competition. This will give you a list of most frequently quoted sources.

You now need to record several other details about the articles: Were they entirely about you or your industry or category? Did the influencer quoted refer directly to your organization, or was the quote about someone else? And finally, did the article and/or quote contain one or more of your key messages? This analysis will tell you which influencers are important and to what extent you are top of mind with the various influencers.

Now Find Out How They Feel About You. The next step is to gain a better understanding of how they feel about you and your organization. On-going relationship studies on an annual basis are recommended. Those studies would be conducted by phone or email and would ask the influencers about their understanding of your organization. Specifically, the questionnaire would probe to understand the extent to which they understand your strategies and mission, the extent to which they believe in management's ability to accomplish the task and their overall image and trust in your organization. You can use many of the same techniques that you use in journalist audits, asking if they agree or disagree with statements like:

• This organization can be relied on to keep its promises
• This organization has the ability to accomplish what it says it will do
• In dealing with people like me, this organization has a tendency to throw its weight around
• I would rather work together with this organization than not
• Most people enjoy dealing with this organization
• This organization takes care of people who are likely to reward the organization.
• This organization does not especially enjoy giving others aid
• I feel that this organization takes advantage of people who are vulnerable
• I think that this organization succeeds by stepping on other people
• I would recommend this organization's products/services to my clients

With opinion leaders it is particularly important to compare your organization to your peers and competitors since they will no doubt be pitching competing messages and stories to the same opinion leaders. Thus you need to make sure you ask them how your organization ranks in their minds relative to others in the industry.

Now Do Some Evaluation. The one factor that you need to consider when evaluating opinion leader relations is the impact of the consultant/client relationships. Frequently, industry analysts and opinion leaders are paid consultants to one or more organizations. Their access to inside knowledge of an organization is why they are considered "opinion leaders" and is an important part of the work they are paid to do. What this means, however, that your status, (lack thereof) as a client has a direct impact on their opinions. If nothing else, it is worth noting in your database if they are or are not a consultant to your organization or one of the competitors.

It is also important to integrate your research with other events within your organization. The Kensington Group does a quarterly survey of different analysts in the technology sector (software is always the first quarter of the year, followed by semicon, telecomm, and networking). They ask analysts things like:

• How do you like to be communicated to? What information channels are important:
  • Phone briefings?
  • Live visits?
  • Webinars?
  • Special sections on your Web site?
• What types of information are important:
  • Sneak peaks at new products?
  • Customer references?
  • Pricing information?
  • Access to executives?
• How do you feel about the vendor:
  • Are they responsive?
  • Are they credible/honest?
  • Are they "likable"?

Mini Case Study #2:
You Don't Know What You've Lost Until It's Gone

Tracy Eiler at Business Objects had been tracking analyst relations for a number of years. When budgets got tight a few years ago, she was forced to eliminate a position that was specifically charged with maintaining analyst relations. The following reporting period saw a dramatic decline in how the analyst community viewed Business Objects, particularly on the subject of responsiveness. Without the extra person, the company just couldn't be as responsive as they had been in the past.

Through the annual Kensington survey, Tracy charted the decline in relationships as well as a subsequent decline in quotes in the media, and presented these persuasive results to her boss. And so the position was reestablished. And Eiler could point to other tangible benefits, as well. "For public companies, there is a close link between influencers such as industry analysts and the financial community. They share information all the time. So it's very important to map all those relationships."

Tracking analysts can also help identify new opportunities for influence. A major computer company had established a core list of critical analysts that Paine & Partners were tracking. As it turned out, some of the members of that list were seldom quoted while other new names would appear. By providing them a regular update of new influencers each month, we were able to continuously improve the effectiveness of the analyst relations effort. Ultimately we were able to show that this effort nearly doubled the percentage of articles containing key messages over the prior year.

And timing is everything. According to Eiler, "In software, we have to brief analysts early, usually two to three months in advance, of a new product release. And for the top influencers (there are two to three of those in total) we bring them into the product development life cycle and into the R&D lab to give super-early input on product ideas." That's a radical departure from a "media embargo" that no one really adheres to, or counting backwards from a cover date.

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