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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Facebook’s Rebrand, PayPal/Pinterest Rumors, Pinterest Creator Fund

Welcome to another glorious Fall week! Hope you’re enjoying the cooler weather and are in the Halloween spirit! Here’s some marketing and breaking business news that’s caught my eye the last few days:

 

I can, and probably should write a longer post on this issue at some point. Facebook’s many problems and user complaints are well-documented. My biggest issue with Facebook has always been that it extracts massive amounts of information and data from its users, while giving the users almost nothing in return. This extends to businesses, who have seen their organic reach on the site fall for years. Now, Facebook is wanting to rebrand, not just to hopefully deflect some of the criticisms, but to also position itself as a player in evolving Web 3.0 platforms and technologies.

More than anything, I think Facebook is the poster child for both the unrealized potential of Web 2.0 companies, as well as the changes that need to be addressed that spurned the development of Web 3.0.

 

So a bit of breaking news. All last week, the rumor was that PayPal was going to acquire Pinterest. Well just this morning, the news is breaking that PayPal has DENIED the acquisition rumors. It will be interesting to see how this affects stock prices for both companies, PayPal fell sharply on the rumors, while Pinterest spiked.

 

Pinterest is the latest platform to offer incentives for content creators, starting a $20 Million fund to support its users. The Creator Rewards program will initially be available only in the US, but should rollout worldwide soon. So any Pinterest user in the US, over 18 and with at least 1,000 followers could be eligible to start making some money off their pins!

 

So that’s the latest marketing news for this Monday. We’ll see what happens with the PayPal/Pinterest news this week.  See you next Monday!

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New Research Reveals How Content Creation is Changing For Bloggers

My pal Andy Crestodina conducts blogging research annually to give us insights into what’s working for bloggers when it comes to content creation. He just published the results of this year’s survey, and I wanted to do a deeper dive into some of his findings.

Successful bloggers spend 4-6 hours on each post

According to Andy’s research, the average blog posts takes 4 hours to write in 2021. This makes sense as more bloggers are moving toward creating long-form content, and we will see that reflected in the survey results.
Additionally, bloggers were asked if they felt their posts were delivering ‘strong results’. Bloggers who spent 6 hours or more on a post reported the highest levels of ‘strong results’ by far. So if you want to write successful blog posts, be prepared to invest at least 4 hours per post. If not more.

The average blog post in 2021 is 1,416 words

And according to Andy’s blogging research, that number has grown every year. I was just discussing this very topic with a colleague. A big reason why longer-form content is more appealing is because it’s harder to write long-form content unless you are an expert on that topic. Longer posts and articles are a key indicator of expertise.
Andy also broke down the length of blog posts, and asked bloggers to rank if their blog posts were giving ‘strong results‘. For instance, for bloggers who wrote posts that were less than 500 words, 16% of them said their blog was delivering ‘strong results’. For bloggers who wrote 500-1000 words per post, that percentage increased to 17%, and for bloggers who wrote 1000-1500 words a post, those bloggers felt their posts delivered ‘strong results’.
Here’s where it gets interesting; For bloggers that wrote 1500-2000 words per post, the percentage who felt their posts delivered ‘strong results’ shot up to 30%. Bloggers who wrote 3000+ words per post felt their blog delivered ‘strong results’ 36% of the time.
Longer content gets better results.

Blogging frequency is down slightly

Not surprisingly, bloggers who are writing longer posts, aren’t blogging quite as often. The average blogger tends to write 1-2 new posts a week. That’s pretty much in line with what I try to shoot for.
Think about the type of content you will be creating. If you are publishing more thought leadership pieces, then you want to go longer, and that means fewer posts. If you are publishing more news or industry-roundup posts, those can typically be shorter, and take less time.
In general, I think you should commit to at least 1 new blog post a week. In a perfect world, I think 2 a week, perhaps Tuesday and Thursday, would work best. But every situation is different. What’s most essential is that you pick a schedule, and stick to it. Consistency is the name of the game, and how you build an audience over time.
Remember, blogging is a marathon, not a sprint.
blogging research

How are bloggers promoting their content?

So I wanted to close with the survey results on content promotion. What’s interesting to me is that social media was listed as the most popular promotion channel, used by 90% of respondents.
But only 20% of respondents said social media was an effective promotional channel, in fact it was the least successful. Isn’t that interesting? Social media is by far the most popular promotional channel and also the least effective.
Why is this? I think a great part of the reason why bloggers aren’t seeing good results from social media is that most bloggers simply tweet or share a link to their new blog post, with zero explanation or context explaining why the post is worth our time. I am the worst about doing this, I need to get better about adding context to ALL links I share, my own, and the links of other creators.
So check out Andy’s blogging research, there’s a ton more of useful information.

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: LinkedIn Exits China, Twitter Spaces Spark Program, Coinbase Gets Into NFTs

Happy Monday, y’all! Fall has finally arrived in the Deep South, and not a moment too soon! Temps are now in the 70s and sunny, this is my favorite time of the year! Here’s some stories that caught my eye the last few days…

 

And then there were none. LinkedIn will pull out of China, marking the departure from the country of every major American social media platform. They will maintain a jobs board, but this is still pretty big news.

 

Twitter is adding an accelerator program for Spaces, called Spark. This will be similar to offerings from Clubhouse whereas accepted members can get access to mentoring and cash to maintain and build their Spaces.

 

You’re about to see a lot of talk here and really everywhere about Web 3.0. You can ask 10 different people to define Web 3.0 for you, and likely get 10 different answers. Here’s how I think about the progression of the internet:

Web 1.0 : Fewer platforms and websites. Websites are mostly a luxury for businesses, limited content creation options for the individual, typically tied to major platforms like Prodigy, AOL and CompuServe.

Web 2.0 : An explosion of content creation options for the individual, but far fewer monetization options. User data is owned by major social media platforms, who are the huge benefactors of content created by users.

Web 3.0: Users will reclaim control of their data, and communities will control and support platforms. Power will shift from the social media companies and platforms, to the individual.

The potential power shift from the corporations to the individual is what has so many people excited about the possibilities of Web 3.0.

If you haven’t already begun to educate yourself on the movements and technologies that will drive Web 3.0, fear not, you still have time, as it’s still early days. But you owe it to yourself to begin to educate yourself on things like cryptocurrency, the blockchain, NFTs and the like. I will be creating more content around Web 3.0 in the coming months.

If you’re on Twitter, I have created a List of experts in Web 3.0.  Following this list will get you up to speed on what’s happening in the space.  You can subscribe to the list here.

Exciting times, to be sure! Hope you have a wonderful week, I’ll see you next Monday!

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Paid Events Coming to LinkedIn and Twitter, Young Adults Using Facebook Less, NFT 101

Happy Monday! I hope you are ready for a wonderfully productive week! Can I complain about the weather for a minute? October has always been my favorite month of the year, by far. The weather is always amazing, low humidity, temps in the low to mid 70s the entire month.

But this year has been a weird Summer and Fall, weather-wise. June-August was consistently 5-10 degrees below normal almost every day, which was VERY welcome! But starting in September, the temps inexplicably stopped falling.  The temps since have been mid to upper 80s.  So now it’s 5-10 degrees ABOVE normal. So crazy. The good news is that starting next week we are supposed to get highs in the low to mid 70s, and lows in the low 50s. Which is finally normal for this time of year. Ready for cooler temperatures and Halloween!

On with the marketing and social media stories I’ve been reading…

 

So LinkedIn is tinkering with an option to let creators charge for virtual events on the platform. This comes after Twitter has begun rolling out an option to let creators charge for Spaces. I think paid virtual events make complete sense for LinkedIn. There are a ton of monetization options being made available to creators of all shape and size right now. If you are active on any social platforms in any capacity, it’s worth your time to see what’s available to you.

 

 

Internal documents from Facebook show that will users under age 30 make up over a quarter of the userbase, they are spending less time on the platform versus their older counterparts. Let’s be honest, Facebook has had a lot of problems for years. The reason why its getting attention now is mostly because politicians are scrambling to leverage them to attack or silence the opposition. Facebook is no longer the ‘cool’ social network it was 10 years ago or so, and young users will avoid anything with even a hint of ‘uncool’ about it. So don’t be surprised if more problems are on the horizon for FB in the coming year.

 

Two topics that I am woefully ignorant on is cryptocurrencies and NFTs. Luckily, I found this guide to NFTs shared on Twitter to help get you up to speed.

 

So that’s it for this Monday, thanks for reading! I’ve added a Donate button to the sidebar on the right underneath the search box near the top. If you’ve gotten value from my content, please consider donating whatever you like. I will use the tips to help offset the cost of hosting, certificates, security and equipment to run the site. So any help is greatly appreciated! Hope you have a wonderful week, see you here next Monday for more news!

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: B2C Dominates Social, Clubhouse and Twitter Add Key New Features

Happy Monday, y’all! Hope everyone is ready to have an amazing week. Here’s a few marketing and digital stories that caught my eye over the last few days:

According to eMarketer, all of the Top 10 categories of businesses that generate social media activity are B2C businesses. The top category, Apparel and Accessories, commanded over half the social activity, more than the rest of the Top 10 combined! This isn’t that surprising when you consider that B2C businesses have far more customers that are creating content and engaging with these businesses, than B2Bs do. Still, it’s interesting to see which categories are generating the chatter.

 

Very interesting new features coming to Clubhouse, revolving around letting users and room owners share audio clips of the content created in rooms. This will greatly help discovery and promotion for room creators. Twitch streamers have been doing this for years.  The most popular ones will do a stream, then go through the hours of content they just created, and pull out the ‘highlights’ and then repost them as shorter videos for YouTube. Which they then monetize as well. Most of the bigger Twitch streamers have hired people to edit and produce their shorter ‘highlight’ videos, so I could see room creators on Clubhouse making similar moves.

 

Are we noticing that all social media is beginning to slowly blur together?  Twitter is now offering profiles for businesses. This is also aimed at ‘creators’ who want to offer newsletters and monetize their Twitter usage. This continues a sincere push by social media platforms to lock down popular and high profile users onto just their category.

 

So that’s it for this week, I hope you are enjoying the cooler Fall weather as much as I am! A quick thought: If you deal with an upset customer this week, just remember that 90% of their frustration comes from the fact that they don’t feel ‘heard’. If you communicate to them that you hear them, and have sympathy for their feelings, you are more than halfway home to handling their issue. Just remember that everyone is going through something, and we all want to be heard.

See you next Monday!

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It’s Time to Kill Your Business

business

“Data from the BLS shows that approximately 20% of new businesses fail during the first two years of being open, 45% during the first five years, and 65% during the first 10 years. Only 25% of new businesses make it to 15 years or more.”

The average business is designed to facilitate transactions with customers.

And that’s why the average business fails.

 

I want to show you a video:

Background: This is Twitch streamer Nick Mercs. He’s arguably the most popular streamer on the planet right now. Earlier this month, 10,000 people flew to Tampa Bay to meet him, and each other. They paid to get there, Nick and his team covered the event for them.

When you watch that video and hear what it was about, you will likely have one of two different reactions to it:

1 – ‘OMG, that’s amazing!’

2 – ‘Heh, that’s cute.’

Regardless of your reaction, everyone who watches that video understands that Nick and the 10,000 people at this event do not have a transactional relationship.

Let’s watch another video:

In this video, pro wrestler CM Punk returned to the industry for the first time in 7 years. The excitement from those in attendance speaks for itself, tens of thousands of people overjoyed. Grown men crying tears of joy, and it appeared that Punk himself almost did.

This is the point at which I will lose some of you in the ‘Heh, that’s cute.’ group. But when you watch the second video, regardless of what you think of it, you also understand that CM Punk and the people in that arena do not have a transactional relationship.

What is a family?

When I watch these two videos, here’s what I see: Nick loves everyone that showed up to #MFAMBBQ2021, and they love him right back.  CM Punk loves everyone who is cheering for him and they love him right back.

That’s not a transactional relationship. It’s a loving relationship. I care about you, you care about me.

I tweeted the #MFAMBBQ2021 video on Saturday during the event. Notice the reply I got:

A member of MFAM corrected me, MFAM isn’t a community it’s a family.

A family looks out for each other. They care about each other.

Families have loving relationships, they do not have transactional ones.

It’s time to kill your business

The definition of a business, as defined by the Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, is:

“the activity of making, buying, or selling goods or providing services in exchange for money”

In other words, a business has a transactional relationship with customers. Everything about the business is designed to facilitate the transaction.

Once the customer completes or rejects the transaction, for all intents and purposes, that is the end of the relationship between the customer and the business.

This approach creates several obvious obstacles for the average business. First, they need more transactions. Which means spending more on marketing to attempt to create more transactions. Second, they need more customers, since brand loyalty is not created via a transactional relationship. Which again leads to more costs.

The customer is synonymous with a transactional relationship. If a business is built on simply facilitating transactional relationships with customers, then its costs of doing business will always be higher. The only purpose of the customer is to provide cash to complete the tranaction.  The only purpose of the business is to provide the product or service that the customer wants to buy.

This is why we need to stop thinking about a business being about facilitating a transactional relationship. How we communicate, engage and interact with each other has changed dramatically in just the last 25 years. But the basic function and design of the average business is still rooted in facilitating transactions.

It’s time we changed that.

What if a business existed to invest in the people who buy its products and services?

Let’s go back to Nick Mercs for a moment. As a streamer on Twitch, one of the main ways he generates income is via subscriptions and donations from his viewers. But it isn’t the only source of income for Nick. Another source is sponsorships. One of Nick’s sponsors is Cash App.

On a recent stream, Nick talked openly about his sponsorship deal with Cash App. He noted that when he made the deal with Cash App, he structured it so that Cash App is required to regularly give cash away to his subscribers. Cash App provides money that Nick then randomly gives away to his subscribers.

This could be viewed as an example of Nick investing back into his subscribers. At the same time, Cash App’s sponsorship of Nick’s steam could be seen as Cash App investing in the success of Nick’s stream.  By investing in his subscribers, Nick gains the loyalty of his subscribers, who are known as MFAM (Mercs Family). Since MFAM is loyal to Nick, that loyalty transfers to great degree to sponsors like Cash App. Because MFAM understands that by sponsoring Nick’s stream, Cash App is investing in Nick’s stream, and helping to make it possible.

If Nick was treating his Twitch stream as a business, and a purely transactional one, he would treat it quite differently. He would attempt to maximize subscriber counts and treat subscribers as customers who are purchasing a product (his stream content).

Instead, Nick views his subscribers as a community or family, MFAM. And as he becomes more successful, he looks for ways to take money from his sponsorship deals and redistribute it back to his subscribers. In another recent stream, Nick mentioned that he had set up Instagram accounts for the family dogs, Joey and Jackson.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by ? ? ? ? & ??????? ? (@joemercs)

Nick added that once the account has enough followers to start attracting sponsorship dollars, that Nick is going to take the money raised from the IG account and use it to buy pet food for the pet owners in MFAM. Another example of how Nick is creating an investing relationship with his MFAM versus a transactional one.

It’s time for business, and the relationships it pursues, to evolve

A business that is designed and structured simply to facilitate transactions cannot endure. Many businesses across the world are starting to wake up to this reality. We are seeing more and more discussion about how we need to focus on things besides the transaction. Topics such as focusing on customer experience, or customer loyalty or customer satisfaction are signs that businesses understand that they need to evolve.

The problem is that businesses are attempting to focus on these areas, but within the framework of keeping a transactional relationship with their customers. This is addressing the symptom rather than the core sickness.  The issue isn’t that businesses need to focus on customer experience, loyalty and satisfaction, the issue is that businesses need to focus on creating a new type of relationship with the people that buy its products and services.

Businesses need to move from having a transactional relationship with its customers, to having an investment relationship with the people who buy its products and services. And the investment will flow both ways; The business invests in the people who buy its products and services, and those people invest back in the business.

We are already seeing how some businesses are experimenting with this idea of moving from being transactional to focus on investment.  Here’s some examples:

  • Red Bull and Monster Energy both invest heavily in sporting teams and events. Both brands do so to communicate to their customers that they have ‘skin in the game’ and that they want to grow the sports and events that their customers love. This connects with customers, who see that the energy drink brands want to have something more than a business/customer relationship with them.
  • Patagonia’s Worn Wear program is actually about DECREASING transactions. The Worn Wear program is about helping current Patagonia clothing owners extend the life of their clothing by fixing and repairing it. Patagonia’s stated goal for the program is to REDUCE new purchases, and reduce consumption. This communicates to customers that Patagonia is invested in protecting the planet, and it rallies Patagonia’s customers to take up the cause, and to show higher levels of loyalty toward the brand.
  • Clubhouse and its Creator Accelerator Program. This is an initiative that Clubhouse launched earlier in 2021 where Clubhouse will invest directly in room owners that meet certain requirements. In essence, Clubhouse is putting resources, whether it’s money, equipment, or mentoring into what it identifies as promising creators on its platform. Clubhouse is investing directly in those creators, with the hope being that as these creators have more resources, they will continue to grow the popularity of their rooms, which will also help grow the Clubhouse platform. Now what’s missing from this equation, to a degree, is the investment in the room listeners. They are the third leg of the stool and are kinda left out in the cold a bit in this deal. But perhaps Clubhouse and its creators will come up with ways for listeners to both monetize room owners, and for the platform and room owners to transfer gifts or other forms of investment back to the room listeners.

Monster Energy
How do we go from transacting with our customers, to investing in them?

Let’s say we want to move our business from being rooted in facilitating transactional relationships with customers, to a model where the business invests in its customers, and the customers invest back in the business.

What would that model look like?

Let’s use supermarket chain Publix as a hypothetical example. Publix sells groceries. It’s a purely transactional model.

What if Publix wanted to shift to having an investment model with its customers?  What would that look like?

Here’s one possibility: Let’s say Publix is going to invest directly in the health of its customers. Publix is no longer in business to sell groceries, it’s in business to invest in the health of its customers.

Think about the changes that could happen at Publix to reflect this change. When you first enter Publix, you will typically see a spinner rack by the door that has the current sales circular, several coupon books, maybe even a card with a recipe or two on it. If Publix wanted to invest in the health of its customers, perhaps it could replace the coupons and sales with a list of suggested foods for each age group. For instance, there could be guidelines on foods to buy if you are ages 50 and up. One side of the paper could be foods you want to buy to gain weight, the other could be foods to buy if you want to lose weight. There could be custom shopping lists for other ages or interests, such as people who are diabetic, have high blood pressure, etc.

And throughout the store, there could be cooks preparing meals and instructing customers on how to do so. There could be physical trainers on staff or available by appointment to discuss and create a health regime for customers. As customers are shopping, food could be grouped by body type, or age, or medical condition, instead of simply grouping by brand.

This would all likely lead to more expenses for Publix, which would need to be passed along to the customer in the form of higher prices. However, if Publix could show the average customer how to live a healthier lifestyle, wouldn’t that outweigh a modest increase in prices? Would you pay 25% more for groceries if it meant you would get an additional hour of REM sleep a night, have lower blood pressure, and more energy? I think most people would.

In addition, Publix could hold workshops on how to cook food at home, how to better exercise, what vitamins and supplements to take. They could partner with local fitness centers and health organizations.

There are so many other possibilities. And it all starts with a simple supermarket deciding that it no longer exists to sell groceries, but instead to invest in the health of its customers.

It’s time to rethink business, it’s time to end the transactional relationship

Business as usual is fast approaching its expiration date. Advances in technology, especially around how we connect with each other and share information, is prompting us to expect more from the brands that we give our money to. We honestly do want a deeper relationship with brands, but brands have to earn that relationship. They have to communicate to their customers that they value them as more than simply being another transaction.

Brand loyalty is not created in a transaction model. The most successful businesses have higher levels of loyalty from their customers. Your goal isn’t to facilitate more transactions, it’s to earn the loyalty of your customers.

And you do that by investing in them. I have some more thoughts on this, so click play:

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Twitter Communities is Here, Where Reddit Users Spend Their Time, NIL News

Happy Monday, y’all! Hope you are ready for a productive week and getting ready for the Fall weather that is almost here! Here’s a few marketing and digital stories that grabbed my interest:

 

So I have to say, Twitter Communities is the first thing Twitter has done in years that actually has me excited. Twitter Communities will be rolled out on Wednesday. At first it looks like there will only be a handful of Communities based around really broad topics. I hope that with time they will let us drill down into some really niche topics.

What interests me about Twitter Communities is that only members of that community can Like and Reply to each other’s tweets. So there will be conversations happening behind a ‘wall’ that are only available to members of that community.

We’ll have to see how they implement Twitter Communities, but the idea itself has a lot of promise.

 

Tying into the previous story, Reddit is going to soon let advertisers buy placements within highly-trafficked comment sections, directly in the comments. I suspect that Twitter has something in mind along these lines with the coming launch of Twitter Communities. Also, I found it very interesting to note that Reddit says that its users spend almost half their time in the app, reading the comment threads. That’s the power of UGC.

 

NIL laws being passed across the country is one of the biggest marketing and branding stories of the year. So much is happening so quickly.  My friend Kristi Dosh has been all over NIL from the drop, and has created a very valuable hub on her site to collect all the latest news and information.

 

So that’s it for this week! Hope you have an amazing and productive day, see you here tomorrow!

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Social Media Isn’t Transactional, it’s a Community

A few weeks ago I was driving and a pastor came on the radio and he discussed how most Christians pray the ‘wrong’ way.

He explained that most people who pray, pray in a transactional way. “God if you do this for me, then I will do this.” The pastor explained that we shouldn’t pray asking God to do something for us. He said we should pray that God will empower us to do more for other people. He said as we do more for others, the blessings we bestow on others, will return to us.

This has completely changed my outlook on prayer. I now focus on how I can serve others, versus what I want to get.

I was remembering these words when I saw this LinkedIn update from Mackenzie today:

This is true for all of social media, and really all of life. If you want others to help you, helping them first is a great way to make that happen.

Every time I talk to my friend Michelle, she ends every call with the same request “Now, what can I do to help support you?”

Here’s what I’d like you to do, please check out Michelle’s new podcast, Hard Won Wisdom, which debuts next week with her co-host Fawn Germer. I cannot wait to listen and I’m so excited to see what happens next for Michelle!

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Grow Your Business By Growing Your Customers

training your customersYour happy customers are the best salespeople you have.

They just are. There has been a raft of research into most trusted sources of marketing communications, and the findings are always the same: We trust our friends and family more than we trust your brand. This is why companies that embrace their customers and empower them to market for them, typically have higher sales and revenue than companies that do not.

So, if we accept that your happy customers are also your best salespeople, what do we want our salespeople to have?

The best training. Therefore, if you are training your best customers to increase their knowledge and understanding of your products and services, you are also improving their ability to sell those products and services to other customers.

Right?

So this is truly a win-win we are talking about here. By giving your happiest customers training on your products and services, you are not only improving their ability to SELL those products and services to other customers, but you are also providing value to those customers. You are improving their sales ability, but at the same time, you are creating something of value for these customers, which deepens their loyalty and affinity for your brand. A true win-win.

 

The Secret Language of Happy Customers

Before we go any further, I want to make a book recommendation. Please buy and read Badass: Making Users Awesome by the brilliant Kathy Sierra. Badass teaches us that products that enjoy sustainable sales success do so because that success is driven by its users. So if you make your customers ‘badass’, you are simply increasing their ability to drive success for your products.

And customers who are highly skilled in using your product act differently and speak differently about that product.

Think of your favorite movie. The one you have seen so many times that you can recall entire scenes, you have the dialogue memorized. Now if I had only seen that movie once, what would our conversation about the movie sound like? I mean, I would be aware of the general plot, maybe I would remember the main characters and actors, but that would be it.

Now think about how that same conversation would be different if you were talking about your favorite movie with someone who loved it as much as you do? You would have a completely different conversation with that person. You could discuss the plot in detail, you could speculate on what happened in the story after the movie ended, maybe find out that you are both members of an online community of fans of the movie.

Now think about what would happen if you and I were both discussing that same movie with a friend who hadn’t seen it. While I could barely explain what the movie was about, you could go into minute detail about what the movie is about, and why it’s awesome. You could do a much better job of promoting the movie to others than I could.

This is an example of why your happy customers are your best salespeople. Because they love your products and services, they are knowledgeable about them, and they have a passion for seeing other people use and enjoy your products and services as they do.

 

A B2B Example of the Value of Training Your Customers

A few years ago, I worked with a SaaS company to design a customer advocacy program, which was primarily designed to increase subscriptions to the software, as well as reduce the customer churn rate. With this particular company, many of its customers sold marketing services to small businesses that included training on the same software.

So we created a customer advocacy program that offered expert training on the software as one of the perks for being involved. This training created value for the company, because it gave customers an incentive to not only attract more customers, but to also stay longer as customers themselves. Thus reducing the churn rate. It also created value for the customers, because as they became more knowledgeable of the software, it improved the level of training they could in turn pass through to their own customers.

By creating training for the company’s current customers, it gave the company a way to not only scale its sales (customers selling to other customers), but also its customer support. As customers received training on the software and became more adept at using it, they would also become more adept at troubleshooting problems that they and other customers encountered while using the software. So they could actually deflect calls or requests to customer support that the company would normally field. Which would result in a cost savings to the company!

 

A B2C Example of a Missed Training Opportunity

Many years ago, I participated in an influencer program where I was in a small group of influencers who were given a very expensive camera in order to use it and, ideally, promote it to other people. The company wanted to give the camera to a select few people it had targeted as being influential in their space, and then have them create content (and pictures!) in order to promote the camera to other potential customers.

The problem that I quickly encountered upon receiving the camera was that I had absolutely no idea how to use it. It was a beast, and it was a professional quality camera meant to be in the hands of a professional photographer. Which is the last thing I am! In the hands of a pro, this camera could have created magic, but in my clumsy hands it created out-of-focus and blurry disasters.

Ideally, I would have received some training on how to use the camera before I received it, or soon after. Just remember if you are crafting an influencer program, make sure the influencers who will be receiving and promoting your products have enough familiarity and understanding of the products to promote them successfully. To be fair to this company, this influencer program was done over 10 years ago, and was one of the first efforts of its kind. So they learned a lot, and went on to improve their efforts I am sure!

 

How to Incorporate Product Training in Order to Create Value For Your Customers

So let’s think about how we could add product training to our marketing and communications efforts in order to create value for our customers, and how this would also create value for our company.  To help simplify how training could be incorporated, let’s view the training as having three levels:

101 Level Training – This is basic product/service training. It’s designed primarily to handle basis issues and problems that might arise from a new customer, as well as to address questions they might have. The level of instruction will be very basic, and this will help eliminate requests to customer support by letting the customer solve their own problems, via this training. The idea behind this level of training is to help the current or potential customer become familiar with the basic functions of the product, as well as helping them solve common problems that other new customers have faced.

This level of training should be free and available to all current and potential customers. Think of this type of training as being an extension of you FAQ, or Frequently Asked Questions. It could include white papers or articles with detailed instructions, or videos that show how to use your product in a particular way, or how to solve a basic issue with using the product. This level of training will serve to not only save costs by deflecting requests to customer service, but it will also lead to more purchases as the most basic questions that potential customers would have are answered prior to purchase.

If we were selling a high end digital camera, the training at this level would focus on getting the customer familiar with the core features of the camera. Basically, here’s what you need to know to turn the camera on and start taking pictures.

201 Level Training – This is more advanced training that’s designed to teach customers how to use your product to its full potential. This level of training is typically not available to all your customers, as not every customer will want or need more advanced training. It can often be offered as a reward for engaging in some pre-determined activity. For instance, if you sign up for a loyalty program, this level of training could be a perk for doing so.

If we go back to the example of selling cameras, this level of training could focus on helping the customer improve his ability to use the camera in certain ways. Such as taking pictures of wildlife, or taking night time pictures in urban areas, etc.

301 Level Training – This is your most advanced level of training. Only a select few customers will want or be offered this level of training. This can also be offered as a reward or perk, for instance if your company has a brand ambassador program, members could have access to this level of training.

Customers who receive this highest level of training are typically the ones you also want to empower to sell your product for you, to other customers. So you could reward referrals or additional sales with more training, if warranted. Remember that the more proficient your customer is at understanding how to use your product, the better, in theory, they will be at understanding how to sell and promote it to other customers.

 

How Does Your Company Benefit From Training Your Customers?

Let’s close by looking at the benefits that training your customers creates for your company:

1 – Reduced customer service costs. One of the earliest adopters of corporate social media use was Pitney Bowes. The company justified using social media in part because it found that every social interaction it had with a customer about a support issue deflected a call to customer service. And at the time, Pitney Bowes placed an internal cost of around $9 per call, so each call that was averted, was a cost-savings of $9 for the company. So if you train your customers on how to better use your products, they can in turn provide support directly to other customers. Which further lowers costs for your company.

2 – Reduced Customer Acquisition Cost. As your trained customers are engaging with other customers, they become better at selling and promoting your products to other customers. So they are literally creating new sales for you, all the time. Think of it as passive income for corporations. By training your customers on how to better use your products, you turn those customers into an additional sales staff, one which generates new sales for you, while you sleep!

3 – Improved Customer Satisfaction and Increased Brand Perception. If your customers are trained on how to properly use your products, they will have less complaints about them. A good portion of most customer complaints are simply due to user error. The customer thinks there’s a problem with the product, when in fact the product is fine, they just aren’t aware of how to use it properly. Training your customers reduces complaints about your products, while at the same time increasing positive mentions. This can have a massive impact on overall brand perception.

 

Training your customers is completely worthwhile. It reduces costs, while increasing sales. As a result, the training more than pays for itself.

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Brands With Happy Customers Have One Thing in Common

They value their customers and communicate this through their actions.

When I talk to companies and clients and how to create passionate customers that love your brand, I typically talk about how rock stars have fans or how sports teams have fans. I talk to companies about how much of an impact it would make to their business to have customers that loved them and who were actual fans of their brand.

Almost always, the company will push back. “We aren’t Taylor Swift! We aren’t the Alabama Crimson Tide! We sell boring widgets, we aren’t rock stars and never will be!”

Rock stars don’t have fans because they are rock stars. They have fans because they put in the work to cultivate fans. Rock stars understand that they can create fans by engaging with their customers and communicating to their customers that they appreciate them, and love them.

Your company can and SHOULD be doing the very same thing. Here’s a couple of examples I have come across recently to give you inspiration:

Lego’s wonderful letters to customers

Lego has a long history of sending compassionate, humorous and thoughtful letters to customers who contact them with questions, praises and complaints. Often, these personal responses are to children who have perhaps lost a lego toy or have a question about one.

Here’s a recent example:

In this example, a customer named John bought a $350 Lego Star Wars set from Target. The set is apparently fairly hard to find. He took the set home and began assembling it. Toward the end of the process, he discovered that a bag of pieces he needed to finish the set was missing! He didn’t really have the option of returning it to Target, since he had already started assembling it, and since the store likely wouldn’t have a replacement in stock anyway.

So he contacted Lego directly.  Here was Lego’s response:

Dear John,
Thanks for getting in touch with us and providing that information! I am so sorry that you are missing bag 14 from your Mos Eisley Cantina! This must be the work of Lord Vader.

Fear not, for I have hired Han to get that bag right out to you.

Have a bricktastic day and may the force be with you.

 

The response is compassionate, humorous, and above all communicates to the customer that they heard them. It then tells them what will happen next to resolve the issue.  Perfect!

Not only will this delight John and give him a reason to buy more Lego sets, but it’s also a big source of positive PR for Lego. If you do a simple search on Google or Twitter you can easily find many mentions of Lego sending similar delightful letters to customers. All of these stories enhance the Lego brand and give more people a reason to buy from Lego.

 

The massive BBQ one streamer is holding for his Twitch subscribers

I’ve talked before about the amazing job streamer/content creator NickMercs does in creating and cultivating his community of Twitch subscribers, called MFAM. Nick is very loyal to his followers and goes out of his way to communicate this to them. Often, when he adds new brand sponsors, part of the deal will be that the brand has to give money or prizes to his subscribers. On a recent stream, he claimed that during the Holiday season of 2020, he gave close to $250k in prizes and cash to his MFAM community.

Nick goes out of his way to show his followers that he loves them, and they love him right back. To close out Summer, next weekend he is throwing a special BBQ for MFAM, all for free:

I follow a lot of streamers on Twitch and YouTube. Very few of them make the effort that Nick does to connect with his subscribers, and to communicate to them how much he appreciates them. As a result, they appreciate him even more, and the snowball just keeps rolling downhill.

 

Build a culture of customer appreciation

Most companies are dead set on acquiring new customers, but then when they make the first purchase, then they become a ‘current’ customer and it’s as if they enter this dark void and the company no longer cares. Smart companies, the ones that excel at creating happy and loyal customer, focus on customer retention as much if not more than customer acquisition.

You retain customers when customers feel happy and satisfied with your brand. By constantly listening to your customers, communicating with them and showing your appreciation, you keep them as customers. What’s more, those customers you keep go out and recruit new customers for you. Which greatly reduces your customer acquisition costs.

Having passionate fans doesn’t happen by accident. Taylor Swift doesn’t have fans because she is a rock star anymore than Nick Mercs has fans because he’s a Twitch streamer. There are plenty of rock stars and plenty of Twitch streamers who have almost no fans.

Happy customers don’t happen by accident, they are earned. Put in the work, show your customers that you love them, and mean it. That’s how you create happy and loyal customers.