Lots of people have ideas about the best way to reach influencers but Rick Bruner, Director of Research and Industry Relations for Doubleclick, gives three quick tips for how to reach the people who affect the thoughts of others.


I just interviewed him for Marketing Voices and here is the interview, below. His advice on how marketers can effectively reach word-of-mouth influencers validates the use of blogs.
Rick discussed three ways that he thought were most effective: 1) set up a company blog 2) use next-generation PR tactics to reach out to bloggers and 3) advertise on blogs.
That last point is only still just catching on among marketers, but may be the most effective of all three strategies, both in terms of reach and influence. Rick cites Doubleclick's research paper "Influencing the Influencers: How Online Advertising and Media Impact Word of Mouth," which concluded that influencers pay considerably more attention to web ads than non-influencers when in the purchase decision process.