← Business Models: Core (all topics)
Influencer marketing (trade & channel influencers)
What it is
Categories where the person who specifies the brand is not the person who pays - the mason for cement and rebar, the electrician for wire, the carpenter for adhesives, the plumber for pipes, the mechanic for lubricants, the doctor for medicines, the architect for glass and tiles, and increasingly the online creator for consumer goods
Brands reach them through loyalty programmes, training, technical support and trade schemes rather than through consumer advertising
Impact on industries
- Reaches the actual decision-maker in purchases the end consumer cannot evaluate, which is why brand premiums survive in otherwise commoditised products
- Relationships are built person by person over years, so a competitor must replicate the network rather than outspend it - among the most durable moats in building materials
- Loyalty programmes are a permanent cost scaling with volume, and become a discount in disguise if incentives escalate
- Influence weakens where procurement centralises - organised developers and hospital formularies move the decision away from the individual