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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Telegram Surging, LinkedIn Joins Social Audio Bandwagon, Micro Influencers Get Engagement

Happy Monday, y’all! I hope you had a glorious Easter weekend and are ready for a productive week.  Here’s some marketing and social stories that caught my eye:

 

The focus of this story is how Tik Tok continues to do well, but I think Telegram’s surge is more timely. Notice how high Telegram is on both the Downloads and Active Monthly Users lists. I mean, Telegram now has more Monthly Active Users than Twitter does. Which is ironic, since a decent amount of the new users going to Telegram are coming from Twitter. It’s also an interesting commentary on how social media is mirroring mainstream media when it comes to how people get their news and information. Up until the 1980s or so, most people got their news from the Big Three; NBC, ABC and CBS. Then cable television came along, with more shows and more options for news. And that trend has only intensified in the time since. I think we are seeing the same thing with social media. It used to be that most people when to Facebook and Twitter for breaking news. But since Facebook and Twitter have begun censoring accounts that share some information, people are following those banned users to other sites like Telegram. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.  Do I think Telegram will be here 5 years from now? I’d say probably not, but then again there’s no guarantee that Twitter and Facebook will be either.

 

From the ‘We all saw this coming” department, LinkedIn is planning to incorporate social audio functionality into its platform. I think this may work better for LinkedIn than other platforms, as LinkedIn’s users are more geared toward professionals, which in this case simply means they are more likely to come from a similar background with similar interests. Contrast that to Twitter and Facebook, which is sort of a catch-all for users. I think social audio rooms work better for more tightly defined topics that attracts perhaps fewer people, but people who are more invested in the topic being discussed.

 

Micro influencers or T-Shaped Inflencers drive more engagement. This works because one to one engagement doesn’t scale and neither does your attention. As a person’s following increases, it becomes increasingly difficult to engage with everyone in that group. Having said that, Twitch streamers seem to have cracked the code on how to drive engagement at scale.

 

So that’s all I have for this week! I hope you have a wonderful week, and please subscribe to my Backstage Pass newsletter if you haven’t yet, by clicking the image below.

PS: I have a massive post coming tomorrow. Check back here then!

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Does Your Company Need a Word of Mouth Accelerator Program?

Accelerator programs have become quite popular in recent years as a way to accelerate the growth of new companies. Typically, when a company is accepted into an accelerator program, the company is provided with mentorship, training, and often additional financing. The idea is to take a company that shows promise and growth, and accelerate that growth.

Clubhouse has taken an interesting spin on accelerator programs and the social audio app has created one for its users. In this week’s edition of Monday’s Marketing Minute, I briefly mentioned a new Creator Accelerator Program that Clubhouse is launching. In short, the program is designed to take promising creators (room as well as club hosts), and give them the tools they need to accelerate the growth of their rooms and clubs. This help and support can come in several forms:

  • Audio equipment to improve the quality of the shows
  • Creative and strategic instruction from Clubhouse’s team
  • Helping creators find guests for their shows
  • Helping creators design and create promotional materials
  • Helping creators promote their shows both on and off Clubhouse
  • Providing a monthly stipend to creators and helping to match them with brands on potential sponsorships, etc.

Overall, I think this is a fabulous idea, and it will go a long way toward further strengthening the loyalty that Clubhouse users already have for the social audio app.

 

What About A Word of Mouth Accelerator Program?

So this got me to thinking: If Clubhouse can create an accelerator program for its users, why can’t your company create one for its customers? What if your company created a Word of Mouth Accelerator Program? A Word of Mouth Accelerator Program would take customers who are already creating word of mouth around and about your brand, and it would accelerate their efforts.

Here’s an example: Let’s say Tim is a tech blogger, and a fan of Hewlett Packard products, and owns an HP laptop, which he loves. Tim’s blog is called Technically Speaking, where he writes about the tech industry and covers emerging products and technologies. While Tim loves his blog, it’s pretty much a weekend project for him, as he has a full-time job that takes most of his time during the week. When he has time on the weekends, he will write a new post or do a product review. He typically writes 2-3 posts a month.

Although Tim doesn’t have the time to create content regularly, his posts and YouTube videos where he reviews new products have developed a small following of fans who enjoy his style and delivery. And who identify him as an ‘HP fanboy’.

Tim would be an ideal candidate for a Word of Mouth Accelerator Program. He is already creating content that promotes the HP brand, and his content has proven to be popular with his audience. His audience also understands that he loves the HP brand, and as a result his audience has a more favorable impression of HP.

If HP launched a Word of Mouth Accelerator Program, here’s some of the ways they could help Tim:

  • Give Tim access to a design team that will help Tim brand his content across all his content channels, including his blog, YouTube channel, and all social media platforms he uses
  • Work with Tim to give him access to new products so he can review them on his blog. HP likely has a program now for press and publications to give them access to new products for reviews, so they could easily add Tim to this program
  • Give Tim a new HP laptop and all the audio and visual equipment he needs to create better content
  • Give Tim access to a Virtual Assistant who will work with Tim to schedule social media posts, maintain his content channels, and help with the content creation process
  • Work with Tim to connect him to HP’s SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) to secure interviews for both his blog and YouTube channels, or to simply provide advice on the tech content he creates
  • Work with Tim and HP’s partners to help secure sponsors for Tim’s content across all channels

All of these steps together would work to accelerate Tim’s growth and his ability to create content. It would also deepen his loyalty to the HP brand, so as his audience grows, that audience will be further exposed to the HP brand. In fact, as Tim’s audience grows, it’s easy to see a point at which Tim decides to quit his day-job and become a full-time content creator.  Sponsored by HP.

In short, a Word of Mouth Accelerator Program would take Tim’s limited ability to create positive word of mouth around and about the HP brand, and accelerate it. If you imagine taking such a program and having say 10 content creators, it’s easy to see how your brand could quickly amplify the positive word of mouth that these customers create about your brand. As the Word of Mouth Accelerator Program grows, you will have more content creators applying, and more promising candidates to choose from. Which further guarantees the success of the program.

 

Wait, isn’t this just a Brand Ambassador Program?

A Word of Mouth Accelerator Program would be similar to a traditional Brand Ambassador Program in such regards, but not the same. Remember that a brand ambassador program benefits your company in four main ways:

  1. By increasing brand promotion
  2. As a reputation management tool
  3. By helping with customer service and support
  4. By increasing customer feedback

A Word of Mouth Accelerator Program would help generate more promotion for your brand. So it could be a standalone initiative, or it could live within a larger brand ambassador program.

If you think about it, a traditional brand ambassador program has always been a way to accelerate certain behaviors that your customers are already engaging in.

For instance, happy customers are already promoting your brand. They are already defending your brand to other customers. They are already proactively helping other customers with support, and they are already soliciting and giving feedback to your company. A brand ambassador program is simply a way to give them better tools and support from the brand in order to accelerate their efforts.

A Word of Mouth Accelerator Program works on the same strategy. It takes a form of behavior (creating promotion for the brand via Word of Mouth) that’s beneficial to the brand, and accelerates it.

I love the idea of a Word of Mouth Accelerator Program as a way to support customers who are already creating positive Word of Mouth for your brand, and to give them the tools and support to accelerate their efforts.

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Clubhouse to Launch Creator Accelerator Program, Facebook to Enter Social Audio Space

Happy Monday! Welcome to the first full week of Spring! I hope you have a busy and prosperous week ahead, here’s some digital and marketing stories I noticed the last few days:

 

So two of the biggest questions everyone is asking about Clubhouse are “Is it going to last?’ and ‘Will it be acquired?” We may have gotten a hint at the answers to both when Clubhouse recently announced it’s Creator Accelerator Program. I absolutely love this idea. What Clubhouse is going to do, is take a select number of its room hosts, and give them the tools and support they need to accelerate the growth of their rooms and clubs. Everything from audio equipment to working with brands to secure sponsorships and speakers, to compensation. Moves like this will absolutely drive loyalty for Clubhouse, and it’s not lost on me that other social media sites could have made similar moves to support its content creators in those early years, and didn’t. This will resonate with users and could signal that Clubhouse is building something that will last, and that the founders want to keep as a standalone platform.

PS: I talked in-depth about the current ‘creator economy’ that we are entering in last Friday’s issue of my Backstage Pass newsletter. If you want to subscribe, click here!

https://twitter.com/joinClubhouse/status/1373680825049391105

 

After some speculation that Facebook might want to acquire Clubhouse, it now seems that ‘The Social Network’ is planning on building its own social audio functionality into its platform. Now, going back to what we just discussed with Clubhouse’s Creator Accelerator Program, consider that Facebook wants to give you the ability to create a similar Clubhouse-style room, on Facebook. If you are a Clubhouse user who has a room and/or club on Clubhouse, and you are in Clubhouse’s Creator Accelerator Program, will you now be interested in also building a new social audio community on Facebook?  Probably not. You would probably devote your time to building your platform on Clubhouse, especially since Clubhouse would be using its Creator Accelerator Program to support your growth. This is an important point: Facebook and Twitter can copy the social audio functionality. but if Clubhouse is doing a better job of SUPPORTING its creators, guess who will likely win?

 

This really seems like a bad idea waiting to happen.  Facebook is considering a version of Instagram just for kids under 13. Instagram blocks kids under 13 from using its site, but the site also notes that some kids are able to get on the site anyway. So the rationale is, let’s make it easier for them to get on, but only have them interact with other kids their ages, and not adults. Parents and privacy groups will be watching this story very closely, as they should.

 

So that’s this Monday’s Marketing Minute. I hope you have a wonderful week, be sure to check out #ContentCircus tomorrow night on Twitter starting at 7pm Central, and look for Backstage Pass to hit your email this Friday morning (if you are subscribed!). And I’m thinking there will be another post up here either tomorrow or Weds, so keep an eye out for that as well!

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Biz Accounts Are Coming to Twitter, US Retail Sales Grow, Google’s Easter Scavenger Hunt

Happy Monday, y’all! Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend! We are now dealing with Daylight Savings Time, which I hate.  We will have darkness at 9pm soon, then go back to darkness at 5pm in the Fall.  Ugh. Let’s get back to something more interesting, marketing and business news:

 

Twitter is working to finalize roll out of new profiles for businesses. Some of the features that these business profiles will have are still up in the air, and Twitter is working with users on feedback. We know that the new business profiles will be verified by default, will include a designation of the type of business it represents, and additional information on the business such as hours of operation, etc. Twitter hasn’t said when these new business profiles will start becoming available, but I would guess it would be sometime within then next 2-3 months.  This article from Social Media 2Day has a good rundown of what’s coming, and some of the possible features which are being discussed.

 

US retail sales are set to make a solid recovery in 2021 as we continue to work past covid. According to the National Retail Federation’s forecast, retail sales as a whole should be up around 7%. And online sales are set to surge around 20%. As I’ve been talking about for the last year, customer purchase patterns have been disrupted as a result of the lockdown, and most of us are looking for more online purchasing options. Take this into account when you are building your sales and product strategy for this year and beyond.

 

I am SUCH a sucker for scavenger hunts by companies. I think they can be SO much fun for customers if executed properly. Love this example of Cadbury letting people ‘hide’ virtual Easter eggs in Google Maps, then sending clues to others on where to locate the eggs. A great way for friends and families to continue the tradition of having an Easter egg hunt, even if its a virtual edition this year.

 

So that’s it for this week’s edition of Monday’s Marketing Minute. Now if you want more news, Friday’s edition of the Backstage Pass will have a special rundown of all the news happening in the growing creator economy. All the moves that Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other platforms are making to pay content creators, and why your business needs to be paying attention.

If you aren’t already subscribed to my Backstage Pass newsletter, click the image below and get in! Backstage Pass comes out every Friday, and each issue gives a massive, deep-dive into a different topic to help your business create amazing content, marketing and digital strategies. Last week’s issue on training your customers to be better salespeople was the biggest yet, topping 2,200 words.

Would love to see you join our community! Click this image to get started:

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The Secret to Creating and Retaining Happy and Productive Employees

Note from Mack: Today’s post is actually the issue of Backstage Pass that I sent to subscribers last Friday. I wanted to give everyone a taste of what they are missing by not subscribing to the Backstage Pass newsletter. If you want to subscribe, click the image at the bottom of this post. Each new issue goes out Friday morning. 

 

Today I wanted to talk about a topic that I am extremely passionate about; Giving employees the skills they need to succeed. Next week we will talk a bit about how you can do this with your customers, but this week I wanted to focus on improving the workplace skills of your employees.

Think about the last time you received an employee evaluation. You probably receive an evaluation from your boss once a year, maybe twice. And if your company is like most, your boss will tell you the areas where you are doing well, and the areas where you need some improvement. There will likely be some talk about how you have the potential to reach this level, if your skills improve.

Notice there’s one crucial aspect missing: The company doesn’t have a plan to teach you those skills that you will need to take your career to the next level. Maybe if you’re lucky, your company will give you a small ‘self-improvement’ allowance, where you are budgeted some money that you can spend on attending a conference, or purchasing training materials like a webinar. But the reality is, you’re on your own if you want to improve your skills and grow as an employee in your field.

I think we can do a lot better. I want to talk about how today.

Follow the Nick Saban Model

Nick Saban is viewed by most as the best college football coach of modern times. His Alabama teams have won 6 National Championships in the last 11 years, and are the current title-holders. What’s remarkable about this accomplishment is that Saban has won all these titles despite frequent turnover among his coaching staff, and often losing players early to the NFL draft.

Consider running back Najee Harris. When the 5-star recruit came to Tuscaloosa in 2017, he was at the bottom of the depth chart. In his 4 seasons at Alabama, he had 3 different running backs coaches. Normally, that’s a recipe for disaster when it comes to player development. Yet when his career at Alabama concluded in January, Najee was the starting running back, he had won the Doak Walker Award given to the best running back in the nation, and he finished 5th in the Heisman Trophy voting, the award that goes to college football’s best overall player. Oh, and he won 2 SEC titles and 2 National Championships, in 4 seasons at Alabama.

How is Alabama football able to flourish in an environment of constant player and coaching turnover? Could your business sustain and grow if your employees and managers were leaving every few months?

 

What makes Alabama football different?

The secret to Alabama’s success is player and coaching development. Alabama only signs recruits that it has evaluated as being potential starters. These recruits will typically start at the bottom of the depth chart, as Najee Harris did. But Alabama’s coaches sign recruits that it believes can be taught the skills they will need to become starters. Then Alabama’s coaching and support staff gives those players every opportunity to succeed. They are given state of the art medical support, nutritional support, weight training and coaching. The facilities are world-class, and on par with anything you will find in the National Football League.

As for the coaches, Saban hires position coaches with the idea being that they can be molded and promoted one day to being coordinators. For instance, if Saban hires a defensive backs coach, he hires that coach with the thinking being that eventually, this guy will be my defensive coordinator. So after a season or two as defensive backs coach, the current defensive coordinator will leave Alabama for likely a head coaching position at another college. Saban then promotes the defensive backs coach to defensive coordinator. The advantage to this approach is that his new defensive coordinator is already familiar with Alabama’s defensive players, so the transition will be much smoother.

Both the Alabama players and coaches are given all the tools they need to improve their craft. Access to this skill development prolongs their time spent playing and coaching at Alabama. Players who might leave Alabama as juniors to enter the NFL draft, are more likely to stay for their senior season. During their senior season, their skills will continue to improve, and as that happens, their NFL stock will improve, which means a higher draft position and a larger salary. Coaches that join Alabama as a position coach can gain the skills necessary to be promoted to coordinator positions, which eventually opens up even better employment opportunities for them at both the collegiate and professional levels.

But it all starts with having the foundation in place to develop the skills of the players and coaches. This results in increased productivity from both the players and coaches, and it results in both the players and coaches staying in Tuscaloosa longer. The investment made into facilities and resources for the players and coaches more than pays for itself.

How could your business better develop its employees and managers?

One of the frequent ‘perks’ offered to new employees is the ability to pursue work-related education. Maybe you can attend an industry conference once a year, or maybe your employer will give you a ‘book fund’ to buy 5 books during the year which will improve your skills. While this can be helpful, it’s truly not the same as having a system in place that educates employees and gives them the skills to not only increase their performance in their current position, but to also put them in a position to be promoted one day into higher positions within the company.

Let’s go back to your annual employee evaluation for a minute. What if you were being evaluated by your boss, Sarah, who is the current Director of Content. Your current position is Content Marketing Manager. Sarah asks you if you would one day be interested in being the Director of Content. You are thrilled at the prospect, and Sarah tells you that if you want to make that move, you need to work on this list of skills. If you had a training system in place for your employees, Sarah could then focus that training program on the list of skills you need to develop in order to one day be promoted to Director of Content. Sarah, as the current Director of Content, is working on training for her own set of skills, as she one day wants to be your company’s new Chief Content Officer.

Let’s now look at an example of a company that’s used such a training program to increase the skills of its employees:

Dell creates the SMaC U to turn its employees into Social Media Superheroes

In 2010, Dell created the SMaC U or Social Media and Community University program to give its employees the social media training it needed to connect with customers online. Amy Heiss has a wonderful writeup of where the program was in 2015.  Here she is talking about why SMaC U was created and some of the impressive results Dell saw:

Finally, a brainstorm hit. Every person already has access to superpowers – we just had to help them unlock those hidden strengths. We could show them how to amplify their voices, how to communicate instantly with millions of customers, and how to build relationships faster than a speeding broadband connection. We could teach them to use social media.

So, the Social Media and Community University (SMaC U) program was born. Now, our business is filled with superheroes. Their powers are strong.

Our sales superheroes have buffed up with a 69 percent year-over-year increase via social media. Our customer service heroes are battling the forces of customer dissatisfaction with a 98 percent first-time resolution rate on over 4,000 cases a week in social media. Our talent acquisition heroes are shining the Dell-signal into the sky, with 36 percent (up from 19 percent) of all external hires coming from employee referrals since adopting social media best practices.

This is such a smart endeavor because it’s accomplishing two key goals at the same time:

1 – It’s giving Dell’s employees vital social media skills that will help them do their current jobs as well as grow in their positions

2 – It’s helping Dell’s employees better connect with customers online. By giving Dell’s employees a better understanding of how to use social media tools, Dell can more effectively connect with its customers via social. This leads to more positive Word of Mouth, faster problem resolution (so that lowers customer service costs), and it improves brand perception.

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How can your business launch a training program for your employees?

So if your business wanted to create a training program for your employees, what would that look like?

First, let’s think about what you want a training program to accomplish. Here’s some possible goals:

1 – Reduce employee turnover

2 – Increase promotion among current employees versus hiring new employees to fill open positions

3 – Reduce the amount of time it takes to fill an open position

 

As you can see, the most important aspect of a potential training program is first identifying the skills that your employees will need training for. You can start by auditing your workforce to see which positions experience the highest turnover rates. Then you can analyze what’s keeping your business from promoting current employees to fill those positions. Once you have your training program in place, the amount of time it takes to fill an open position should decrease as a function of the program existing.

What’s the best way to deliver training for your employees?

There’s two main sources of training for your employees:

1 – Outside subject matter experts

2 – Internal subject matter experts

If you go with outside subject matter experts, you could have these experts come to your company and deliver training in person, or via live or recorded video (And, I do offer training for companies, you can learn more here). I think when you are just launching a training program for your company, it makes more sense to lean on training from outside subject matter experts to create your training material for you. Plus, bringing in outside experts to train your team can be a perk for employees and give them an incentive to want to participate in the training.

As your training program matures, you can shift more of the training from outside subject matter experts, to your internal subject matter experts. This will be a cost-savings that you can realize.

So in general, identify the skills that your employees need, the best way to deliver training on those skills, and in what format. You can continually reassess the progress of your training program and adjust as needed, which will make it even more effective and efficient.

 

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An Open Letter to Anyone Who Hates Self Promotion

To many of us, the idea of self-promotion makes us nervous. The reason is simply because we don’t like talking about ourselves.

So don’t.

In 2008 I made my professional ‘speaking’ debut. At South By Southwest. On the main stage. In the same room where 24 hours earlier a certain Mark Zuckerberg made his SXSW debut during the infamous ‘why is everyone coughing?’ interview by Sarah Lacy.

Did I mention I am introvert? That I was terrified? That this was the first time since college that I had spoken in public?

Did I mention that I absolutely love public speaking?

What changed? I mean, you don’t find many introverts who are into public speaking, and even fewer that love it.

What changed for me is I learned to stop putting myself in the spotlight. This is why so many people hate public speaking, because they feel like everyone is looking at them. And of course they are! I got past the nervousness of public speaking by putting the spotlight not on myself, but instead on my IDEAS. There’s nothing more satisfying than having an amazing idea to share, and then seeing the lightbulb go off over someone’s head. They GET why your idea is so valuable! For me as a speaker, there’s no better feeling!

So if you are uncomfortable promoting yourself or the platforms that you own like your blog or newsletter or podcast; there’s a few things to think about.

1 – If you are worried about being ‘that guy’ when it comes to self-promotion, there’s roughly a 99.9% chance that you are NOT ‘that guy’. The reality is that the shameless self-promoters don’t see themselves as such, and don’t CARE if you do. So if you are asking if you might be ‘that guy’, it pretty much guarantees that you are NOT.

2 – If self-promotion makes you nervous, keep in mind that growing your platform means you will have a bigger platform to promote the IDEAS that you are passionate about. Remember, don’t focus on yourself, focus on the ideas.

3 – If self-promotion makes you nervous, keep in mind that growing your platform means you will have a bigger platform to promote the PEOPLE you are passionate about. I love leveraging this blog and my newsletter Backstage Pass to put the spotlight on smart friends and peers who I think deserve your attention. Or put another way, the brilliant Carrie Wilkerson once told me you make more money so you will have more money to support the people and ideas you believe in.

 

If it makes you nervous to self-promote, don’t think of it as self-promotion, think of it as promoting the ideas that you are passionate about. And as your platforms grow, you can use them to promote the people that you are passionate about.

In 2006, on my first blog, The Viral Garden, I started a weekly ranking of the ‘top’ marketing blogs. I called it ‘The Viral Garden’s Top 25 Marketing Blogs’, and updated the list weekly. I ranked the Top 25 marketing blogs each week according to some criteria, at first it was number of Technorati ranks, later it was Alexa score. As you might guess, the list became very popular, as the blogs on the list were quite happy to promote their inclusion, which brought more attention to the list.

But over time, something irritated me a bit. I loved that the Top 25 list gave more exposure to the blogs on it, but I felt there were a lot of blogs that were left off the list that deserved our attention.  So I started something called ‘The Z-List’. I started with a list of a few blogs that I thought were awesome, that I wanted to draw attention to. I invited others to take the Z-List that I started with, and add a couple of their favorite blogs, and link to all. This would be a way for the list to grow, and for all these deserving blogs to get some additional links and attention. The Z-List became very popular, very quickly. So much so that a certain international thought leader approached me about moving The Z-List to his own platform.

The point in all this is, don’t fret over putting the spotlight on yourself. Put the spotlight on the ideas and the people that you want to lift up.

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Twitter Moves Into Ecommerce (Again), UGC Drives Sales, What We Will Pay For Digital Content

Happy Monday, y’all! We are already into the second week of March! Over the last week, we began to see several states announcing that they are partially or completely reopening from covid restrictions in the coming days or weeks. As we move into warmer weather and out of cold season, hopefully we are setting up for a much better Spring and Summer. We all certainly need it! Let’s jump into the news…

 

Twitter is making another run at incorporating shopping features into its platform. Twitter tried this a few years ago, I think in 2014, and it really didn’t go anywhere. I’m unsure this effort will be much different. The reality for Twitter is, after the last couple of years, many users don’t trust Twitter as much as they once did. Twitter is rolling out a lot of new initiatives aimed at increasing revenue from users, but if the users don’t trust Twitter enough to engage in the activities that are required for the site to generate revenue…well you see where this is headed. These moves seem like good ideas that arrived about 3-4 years too late.

 

Your happy customers are your best salespeople. A lot of companies aren’t willing or ready to accept that, but it’s completely correct. Who do you trust more; Your favorite brand, or your best friend?  If your best friend says to drive out a new product, will you listen? Well there ya go. I started noticing about 10 years ago some restaurants encouraging diners to take pictures of their meals and post to social media. Such a smart move, and the companies that accept and embrace their current customers’ ability to sell to new customers, are the ones that reap the rewards.

 

One of the hot topics in 2021 will be content creators monetizing their content. Substack has made waves by giving content creators a way to make money off their newsletters. Twitter recently purchased Revue to compete against Substack. eMarketer posted this chart from the What If Media Group that claims that the majority of US adults were willing to pay up to $10 a month for digital content. I would assume that amount would be more for an individual content creator that the adult is a fan of.

 

So that’s what caught my eye over the last week! Another post here tomorrow, and then on Thursday I will be sharing last week’s Backstage Pass newsletter issue with you to give you a taste of what you are missing if you aren’t a subscriber. Want to subscribe now? Click the image below:

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A Key Marketing Lesson That Most Businesses Completely Miss

When I wrote Think Like a Rock Star, I spent a lot of time researching how rock stars connected with their fans, and the marketing strategies they employed. One of the biggest lessons I learned is that most rock stars are excellent at understanding this key lesson to building a successful business:

Reward the behavior you want to encourage. 

Rock stars love their fans, but they also view every fans as a potential driver of business. They know that every fan they have will promote them to their friends and family. As such, every fan will help drive ticket sales, merch sales, and album sales. Rock stars trust their fans and empower them to market for them.

Rock stars want fans to engage in particular behaviors: Such as promoting them online, and offline. So rock stars go out of their way to connect with their fans directly, because they know this connection will build trust and admiration for the rock stars, and will encourage them to promote the rock star to their friends and family. And it also serves as the reward for fans that have already done so.

Every year as part of the CMA Music Awards, country music stars will participate in a Fan Fair. It’s a chance for fans to meet their favorite artists and get a picture taken with them or an autograph signed. Typically, an artist will stay for a couple of hours, maybe a bit longer. In 2010, Taylor Swift stayed for an incredible 13+ hours to sign autographs for her fans, occasionally stopping to perform music for them.

But that pales in comparison to what Garth Brooks did in 1996 at Fan Fair. In 1996, Garth Brooks was the face of country music, and one of the biggest music stars on the entire planet. He was not scheduled to attend Fan Fair in 1996 and wasn’t promoted as being there. During the middle of Fan Fair, he showed up, unannounced, and went to an unmarked tent to start signing. He stayed for a staggering 23 hours straight signing autographs for every single fan that showed up. He never left the tent, not even to use the bathroom. Security at Fan Fair tried multiple times to end the session so Garth could leave, and each time he told them no.

Rock stars view their fans as promotional partners and they trust them enough to empower them to market for them. As a result, they act differently toward their customers, and they treat them differently after they engage in the behavior that they are trying to encourage.

 

Now, how does this apply to your business?

Think about the types of behaviors that you would like to see your customers engage in.  Such a list for most businesses would probably look something like this:

  • I want customers to buy from my business
  • I want customers to continue to buy from my business and become repeat customers
  • I want customers to increase the amount of every order
  • I want customers to generate positive Word of Mouth about my business

 

Now think about your marketing strategy in terms of:

1 – What can I do to get my customers to engage in these behaviors?

2 – What can I do to reward my customers for engaging in those behaviors?

 

Many businesses focus only on getting customers to buy. But if you look at the above list of desired customer behaviors, there’s a natural progression, isn’t there?

You want customers to buy from your business. Customers that buy more than once become repeat customers. Customers that buy repeated from a business tend to purchase more from that business, because they trust them. Customers that trust your business, will promote you to others, generating positive Word of Mouth.

So if your business had a mechanism in place to reward customers for engaging in the behaviors that you desire, that would not only encourage them to CONTINUE to engage in those desirable behaviors, but it would also encourage them to move to the next stage of desired behavior.

Let’s look at a couple of examples:  One of the desired behaviors above is “I want customers to continue to buy from my business and become repeat customers”.  Then create a Loyalty Program. A loyalty program would not only encourage customers to become repeat customers, it would reward customers for engaging in the behavior of making repeat purchases.

Another example: One of the desired behaviors above is “I want customers to generate positive Word of Mouth about my business.” Then create a Customer Advisory Panel. Dell did this in 2010, they identified customers online who were creating content around the Dell brand, and invited them to come to their world headquarters in Austin, TX. This happened again in 2011, and I was lucky enough to work with Dell to facilitate and moderate both events. During the 2011 event, the customers that attended were surprised when CEO Michael Dell joined briefly to say hi to the group and answer questions.

Introducing CEO Michael Dell to the DellCAP group

By holding this event, and having Dell’s CEO and CMO speak to the group, it communicated to the customers that Dell valued their time and feedback. This improved the customers’ perception of Dell the brand, and rewarded them for engaging in the behavior that Dell desired, and at the same time encouraged the customers to CONTINUE to create positive word of mouth about the brand.

So much of marketing for many businesses is simply focused on getting a sale. Just get someone to buy once, that’s it. Few businesses think about what happens AFTER the purchase. How do they ensure that the customer is satisfied, maybe even thrilled with the purchase? What reward is given to them for engaging in that behavior? How do you encourage the happy customer to continue to engage in the behavior that you want them to?

:What happens after they buy?” is a question every business should be asking. What do you WANT to see happen? Do you have the process in place to make sure your desired outcomes are met?

Shouldn’t you?

 

Are you subscribed to my newsletter, Backstage Pass? If not, now is the perfect time to get on board. Backstage Pass is delivered straight to your inbox every Friday morning. I’m working on this week’s issue right now and I gotta say, it’s gonna be a gem! I will be covering how your company can create an educational system for your employees to boost their skills, productivity, and keep them longer at your company. Such a vital process that very few companies make the investment in. I’ll give you the roadmap to do so, along with examples of companies and organizations that have done so successfully. Want in?  Just click the image below!

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Stop Listening to People That Always Tell You That You Are Wrong

Yesterday I saw someone share this tweet:

 

This is horrible advice. In other words, seek out people who will:

  • Tell you that you are wrong
  • Tell you that what you are doing is wrong
  • Tell you that you are acting inappropriately
  • Tell you that you haven’t thought through what you are saying or doing
  • Ask you to rethink if what you are claiming is really as you think it is

 

No. Hell no. If I have learned one thing over the last year, it is to surround myself with people who believe in me, and support me. None of us have to look for people who will tell us we are wrong. None of us have to look for people that will tell us that we aren’t thinking about what we are saying, or that our behavior is inappropriate. None of us have to look for people who will ‘challenge’ our ideas. And 99% of the time, the people that will do these things are NOT acting out of ‘love’ for us.

In 2011 I attended and spoke at the first Content Marketing World in Cleveland. The keynote was actor/filmmaker/content creator Kevin Smith. His central message was to believe in yourself and surround yourself with people who believe in you and will support you. At one point he said (I’m paraphrasing here), no one needs another person who asks ‘Why?’ when you tell them about your idea. We all can find people who will challenge us and give us reasons why our idea won’t work. What we all need are people who say ‘Why the f*ck not?’ when they hear your idea. The people who believe in you and who push you to pursue your dreams. Those are the people we all need in our lives.

He’s exactly right.

Remember that famous adage that you are the combination of the 5 people you spend the most time with? I think there’s a lot of truth in that. Think about how your life might be different if the 5 people you spend the most time with always challenged your ideas. Told you that you were wrong. That you aren’t thinking through your ideas, and that your actions may be inappropriate. And when you asked those 5 closest people if they liked your idea, they said no, they didn’t.

How would that make you feel? How would that change the way you lived your life?

Now think about how your life would be different if the 5 closest people to you always encouraged you to dream. Told you that your ideas had promise. That your actions were helpful and making a positive impact on the lives of others. What if 5 closest people said ‘yes’ when you asked if they liked your idea?

How would that make you feel? How would that change the way you lived your life?

Now, this isn’t to say that your ‘inner circle’ should only consist of people who will always agree with you. But it damn sure shouldn’t consist of people who only tell you that you are wrong. Seriously, who wants or thinks they need that in their lives?

We all need that friend that will ‘keep us in check’ and tell us what they really think. But more than that, we need friends who will support us and who will believe in us.

That’s what it means to come from ‘a place of love’ in regards to our friends and support group. Very few of us need to add people in our circle who will say ‘why’. But I think we all could use more confidants who will say ‘why the f*ck not?’ when they hear our idea.

Don’t seek out people that will always question you. Those people will find YOU. Seek out the people who will support you, who will encourage you to follow your passions, and to dream big.

Those are the people that will push you to reach your true potential. Those are the people that will help you lead a happy life. Treasure them like the gold they are, and do everything you can to support them as well.

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Twitter Making Moves, Clubhouse’s Privacy Concerns, CEOs Bullish on CX, Not on CMOs

Happy Monday, y’all! I hope you had a wonderful weekend and are ready to have a spectacular week. Here’s some news items I spotted to quickly get you up to date on what you need to know in the world of digital and marketing!

 

So Twitter has announced that it is making several moves in an effort to boost revenue. These include letting users monetize their content via newsletters or ‘super follows’ (I saw someone tweet “I don’t know what a ‘Super Follow’ is, but I know I don’t like it’). Now, is this a glass half-empty or glass half-full scenario for Twitter? On the one hand, critics of Twitter have noted that the company has been slow to roll out new revenue streams, so these moves will meet those complaints head-on. On the other hand, Twitter’s recent moves to moderate and even censor content on the platform has led to users leaving the site, either by their own choice or by Twitter’s. Additionally, emerging sites like Clubhouse, Gab and Parler are pulling users away from Twitter. Twitter will likely feel a pinch from users spending less time on the site, and will need to make up for that in some form. These monetization moves can been seen as being proactive moves to increase growth, or as hedges against coming losses. I suspect we will have a much better idea of which it is when Twitter reports revenue for Q2 and Q3.

 

Clubhouse continues to be white-hot among digital early-adopters and would-be influencers. But we are starting to see some cracks in the armor. I’ve seen some complaints about room moderation and letting hateful speech be shared (I honestly haven’t experienced any issues in any rooms I have been in), and now there are complaint arising over privacy concerns. One of the disappointing aspects of Clubhouse rooms is that the conversations happening in the room aren’t recorded or available to the users. Or so we thought. It turns out that the conversations in every Clubhouse room ARE being recorded. They are recorded in real-time as they happen. If a complaint is made about the content of the room while the room is still open, then the audio will be saved and can be used in any later investigations. If no complaints are made while the room is open, then the recorded audio is deleted when the room is closed. This is why I always advise clients to take a wait and see approach with any new ‘hot’ social media platform. Clubhouse could easily be 10X bigger by the end of the year, and it could just as easily have folded by then. As I said in my Backtage Pass newsletter earlier this month, I think you should be aware of Clubhouse, play around with it and become familiar with it, but for most businesses it doesn’t make sense to jump on the platform with both feet. If your customers are already there, and you can use the tool to connect with them in a way that creates value for you both, fine. That’s standard for any emerging social media platform. Always be wary of the hype from early-adopters. And when it comes to privacy concerns over social sites and apps, just remember that if you aren’t paying for the product then YOU are the product.

 

Finally, I thought these findings from IBM were interesting. They found that for CEOs feel that improving CX (customer experience) and building better relationships with customers to be the top priorities over the next 2-3 years. What’s interesting is these same CEOs said that they didn’t feel that CMOs would play a vital role in reaching their goals for improving CX and customer relationships. Instead, they felt that CFOs and COOs would be the main positions driving these efforts. What I suspect this suggests, at least in part, is that many CEOs don’t feel that their CMOs have a solid grasp of the digital marketing tactics and strategies that will be necessary to deliver better digital experiences to customers in the coming years. Let’s remember that even most corporate early-adopters to using digital marketing to reach customers barely have 10 years of experience creating and implementing digital marketing strategies. Many have far less than that, and even in 2021, there are many top companies that are still hesitant to make digital marketing the priority in connecting with customers. This will continue to change, and obviously the shift to digital will be accelerated by moving both employees and customers to home due to covid restrictions.

 

 

So that’s it for this Monday’s Marketing Minute. If you haven’t already, please do click the image below and signup for my Backstage Pass Newsletter. It’s delivered every Friday morning, so it’s perfect to read and digest over the weekend, then begin to implement what you learn on the following Monday. I’m super pumped about this Friday’s issue, as I’m going to do a deep dive into how your company can develop a training system for your digital marketing team. I think it’s vital that all employers have a plan in place to constantly work with all employees to upgrade their skills. It leads to higher productivity, and less churn among workers. Plus, it makes for a happier workforce! So on Friday I’ll talk about how you can create a system to improve the skills of your employees AND I’ll include a special offer on how I can work with your team to create a skills improvement program for your company. But you have to be subscribed to the Backstage Pass Newsletter to get the information, and the offer.