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How One Fan Made Marketo’s Bad Day a Little Less So

So Marketo had a bad day yesterday. They forgot to renew their domain, causing the site to be down, and plenty of frustration and panic for their customers. Believe it or not, this happens.  A few years ago here I briefly lost the mackcollier.com domain for the same reason, I thought it was set to auto-renew, and it wasn’t.

As you can imagine, twitter had a field day with the news….

But the news could have been a lot worse for Marketo, if it wasn’t for one of its customers stepping in to help out:

Yep, Travis stepped in and helped out Marketo when he saw they were facing problems. Remember that your fans see your brand as being THEIR brand too. Fans have a sense of ownership over their favorite brands, and act in the brand’s best interests. Travis no doubt understood what a mess this would cause for both Marketo and its customers, and wanted to help a brand that he loved.

And to Marketo’s credit, they gave Travis his just recognition as their Superman…

There are many lessons here and plenty of ‘how the hell did they let this happen?’ questions to answer. But one positive that may come from this episode is if Marketo explores ways to better engage its passionate fans like Travis.

Every company has passionate fans like Travis, and unfortunately, any day could see your company facing a crisis like the one Marketo faced yesterday.  When that happens, you’ll want to have as many fans like Travis helping you out as possible.  The time to start creating, cultivating and engaging with those fans is today.

When did Noah build the Ark? Before the rains came. Over the coming days and weeks, Marketo will be doing a lot of self-auditing and examining how they handled this crisis and how to avoid similar ones in the future. If the brand is smart, they will devote some of their reflection to how they can embrace and empower all the fans they have like Travis in the future.

About Mack Collier

My name is Mack Collier and I am a digital marketing and content strategist located in Alabama. Since 2006 I've helped companies of all sizes from startups to global brands such as Adobe, Dell and Ingersoll-Rand, create customer-centric programs, content and experiences. A long-time internet geek, I've been online since 1988 and began using social networking sites in 1991 when I joined Prodigy. Today, I help companies understand how new technologies like web3, crypto and artificial intelligence can integrate with existing marketing strategies to lead to exceptional customer experiences.