Secret No. 2: Spheres of Influence

Introduction 
The good news 
Secret No. 1: Social Networking   
Secret No. 2: Spheres of Influence   
Secret No 3: Greed 
Finding the easy way or the hard way 

It's our natural instinct to market directly to our target customers. But sometimes, it's actually faster and easier to market to them indirectly. That's where their sphere of influence comes in. And the best part? Your primary customer will tell you exactly who's in that sphere of influence, if you ask the right way.

Let's say you sell sports memorabilia and want to target football fans. 

Sure, there are plenty of ways to target those fans directly, but what about their spouses? Their families? Their fellow sports enthusiasts? Why not try to sell things to those who will be buying gifts for your primary user?

Better yet, why not give your primary audience the tools to tell their sphere of influence where to buy them things?

Let's take a real-life example from a small but very successful shop in the Seattle area.

This small shop sells specialty bath soaps, lotions and other bath-care products, mostly to women. The shop does a great job with an email newsletter and other retention drivers to keep its loyal female customers coming back for more.

But the hidden opportunity is with the primary customers' sphere of influence. I'm talking not just about husbands and boyfriends. I'm talking about brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, even extended family members and immediate social networks.

The opportunities are huge, but let's focus on the husbands and boyfriends for a quick deep dive.

Men want to buy meaningful gifts for their significant others but often don't know exactly where to shop or exactly what to buy. Even those who make their way into this particular bath-care store often freeze like deer in headlights once they get inside.

But what if the shop had a way to target its marketing at these men? What if we could tell them exactly where their significant others shopped, and what to buy them?

Some specific opportunities include:

• Start a newsletter from the bath-care shop specifically targeted at men who will be shopping for the women in their lives
• Give your primary female shoppers the chance to set up a "registry," and notify their spheres of influence when it's been updated (perhaps with a more overt, email notification when it's their significant other)
• Ask your primary customers to send you names and email addresses of people who might shop for them (for which you'd be happy to send a separate email informing the gift shoppers of their preferences)
• Once you gather a community of significant others, conduct online (or offline) seminars and webinars educating these secondary purchasers about different types of bath soaps, lotions and more. Help them make purchase decisions for their significant others!

The opportunities go on and on.

It's surprising to me how many businesses miss the mark on this opportunity or fail to interpret the opportunity incorrectly. For example, some businesses and brands that clearly are built for women have tried unsuccessfully to create line extensions for men. Bath & Body Works did this about six years ago with disastrous results.

Instead of targeting men as primary users, greater revenue opportunities are unlocked by treating these customers as secondary buyers. They're not buying for themselves, they're buying for those they care about, and studies show consistently that this often means the pocketbooks open even wider.

Next: Secret No. 3