What is investor/VC influencer marketing and how does it work?

I’d heard about business-to-customer (B2C) influencer marketing, which involves celebrities like the Kardashians being paid to recommend certain brands on social media. These people have large followings, of course, and the sales results of such campaigns have been amazing. Global growth hacker Christian Dillstrom, whom I have interviewed before, reminds us that there is also a business-to-business (B2B) influencer marketing, which he has been doing globally and which he says has a much bigger impact than B2C influencer marketing. Christian is involved in three types of B2B influencer marketing: investor/venture capital (VC) investor, media/blogger, and B2B influencer sales. I am interviewing him about each. The present interview is about investor/VC influencer marketing.

WHAT IS INVESTOR INFLUENCER OR VC INFLUENCER MARKETING?

It is a very effective way to make a group of investors or venture capital investors aware of your startup or established company. After all, the first and biggest problem you have getting funding is that too few investors know enough about your venture—or don’t know about it at all.

Investor influencer marketing changes that. HOW DOES SUCH MARKETING HAPPEN? Others may do it differently, but what I do is work with you to produce an interview that introduces your company as an investment opportunity.

This article serves as a lengthy sales pitch for your venture. It gets published in SlideShare, where it can be read by my 18 million monthly business readers. Once your interview is published, I invite up to 1,000 investors you are interested in to comment on it. WHY WOULD AN INVESTOR TAKE THE TIME TO READ THE ARTICLE? That is a key question. The answer is that with my 18 million monthly readers, I am one of the most widely read business authors in the worldwide SlideShare community. And I am one of the most experienced global growth hackers in the world. So, I have very high—and global—B2B credibility. This means that when I invite investors to comment on articles about interesting investment opportunities, very few will decline to read the article. DOES THIS MARKETING METHOD WORK EVEN WHEN AN INVESTOR WHO READS THE INTERVIEW DOES NOT COMMENT ON IT? Yes, commenting does not make any difference as long as most of the investors you’re interested in read the interview. Once they have read it, they can get in touch with the interview subject if they want to learn more about his venture. Of course, every comment that is published will make the interview article even more interesting and persuasive. But the effectiveness of this approach does not hinge on how many comments are posted. WHY PUBLISH ARTICLE ON SLIDESHARE? WHY NOT JUST EMAIL THE ARTICLE TO THE INVESTOR YOU WANT TO LEARN ABOUT YOU AND YOUR COMPANY? LinkedIn and it’s SlideShare service is the premier social medium for business professionals. It has 467 million users in 200 countries. It is also the most secure social medium. Funny business is not possible for very long in SlideShare.

So, when SlideShare says that a particular article has 2.5 million readers, their statement it a credible one. And people are much more prone to credit the content of such an article than they are to credit the content of a little-read, unpopular article. I have over 18 million business readers every month, and my readers are always eager to read my articles. As a result, the interview articles we publish will receive at least 2.5 million readers, which is the readership that my English-language articles typically enjoy.

THIS READERSHIP MEANS ADDITIONAL CREDIBILITY FOR THE CONTENT, AS DOES MY ENDORSEMENT.

On the other hand, emailing the content does not make it popular or credible, for there is no trusted thirty party serving to demonstrate its creditability.

IT IS JUST AN EMAIL. WHY ARE THE ARTICLES IN AN INTERVIEW FORMAT? Because readers love to read casual interviews. That format is one of the reasons that I have 18 million monthly business readers. Unless the investors read the article through to the call for action, there is no hope that they will take the desired action. HOW MANY INVESTORS WILL BE INVITED TO READ THE INTERVIEW? WHO SELECTS WHICH ONES ARE INVITED? Up to a thousand may be invited. You pick the investors and send me the list of them. OKAY, SO...YOU ARE VERY CREDIBLE GROWTH HACKER AND PUBLISHER, AND YOU WILL INVITE UP TO A THOUSAND INVESTORS TO READ A CREDIBLE ARTICLE THAT INTRODUCES MY VENTURE AS AN INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY? Exactly. And that will get funding for your startup or company if it is possible to get funding for it. DO YOU DO THIS KIND OF INFLUENCER MARKETING FOR ANY STARTUP OR COMPANY? Of course not. My own reputation and credibility are on the line, assets that I have developed over decades. But I am eager to speak with any startup and company who gets in touch to find out whether I can endorse them. ARE YOU DOING THE INVESTOR/VC INFLUENCER MARKETING FOR FREE? No. I have learned that people do not appreciate the value of something that is simply given away, and I really do not want to waste my time.

HOW DO I FIND OUT WHETHER YOU WILL ENGAGE IN INVESTOR/VC INFLUENCER MARKETING FOR ME OR FOR MY CLIENT? Easy enough. Just click here to book a free teleconference with me.

BACKGROUND

Christian Dillstrom is a global growth hacker who has growth-hacked more than 10 percent of Fortune 500 companies over the last seven years. Mr. Dillstrom is responsible for over 100 marketing and sales innovations. Over 350 million of his marketing solutions are currently active on the Internet.

Every month, 18 million business people read his Growth Hacking articles at SlideShare. Click here to read them.

Mr. Dillstrom has founded and managed three global startups and has evaluated and consulted with over 300 startups around the globe since 1999.

To get in touch with Christian Dillstrom, book a free teleconference with him, please click here.