MackCollier.com

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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.

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What’s the Difference Between an Audience and a Community?

In my book Think Like a Rock Star, I make the point that the rock concert is probably the greatest marketing tactic ever created. The beauty of the rock concert is that it gives fans a way to see and connect with their favorite rock star in a way that they can’t get from buying their albums or merchandise.

But more than that, it gives fans of that rock star a way to connect with each other. The importance of being able to connect with like-minded people that love the same rock star cannot be overstated. When you put a group of people together that share a common interest, it gives them a chance to connect with each other, and to become a community.

You hear so many content marketers talking about the importance of building an audience for your content. They talk about how to tailor your content so that it finds and grows an audience.

But what about building a community around your content? And what’s the difference between an audience and a community in regards to your content or your brand or your idea?

 

Meet Tim and Jason 

Tim and Jason are both fans of Alabama football. In terms of our discussion here, Tim will be your audience, Jason will be your community. Let’s look at how they differ:

Tim – Tim has been a fan of Alabama football since 2010, right after Alabama won its first National Championship under current coach Nick Saban. He has an Alabama cap and a couple of shirts, which he likes to wear on gameday. He tries to watch as many Alabama football games on TV as he can, although he does miss a few due to work and other activities. If Coach Saban retired and Alabama football had a losing season, he would probably start cheering for another team.

Tim is what you would call the ‘audience’ for your content. He will stick around as long as you are giving him useful content, and he’s just here for the content.

Jason – Jason is what you would call a ‘die hard’ Alabama fan. So are his parents and all his friends. Jason attended his first Alabama football game when he was 12 years old. He grew up watching Alabama football lose under Mike Dubose and later Mike Shula, which makes him appreciate even more how successful Alabama football is now. Jason is a season ticket-holder, and prior to last year, he attended every home game. He loves being on campus and each trip to Tuscaloosa was a day-long event. He would arrive on campus around 6 am, and tailgate for several hours prior to the start of the game. He enjoys meeting other Alabama football fans, and knows all the fans that tailgate around him for each game. As he’s gotten older, he spends more and more time on campus, he loves seeing all the sights and meeting other Alabama football fans and sharing stories about past seasons.

Jason is what you would call the ‘community’ around your content. He loves your content, but he also loves communicating and engaging with other people that also love your content.

As you read these personas for Tim and Jason, note the main difference: Jason is far more invested in your content, because he’s part of a community that loves your content, and he loves connecting with other members of that community.

Here’s another way to think of the difference:

Members of your community are actively engaged and invested in the community that they are a part of. They will devote more resources, whether its time or money (or both) to you and your community and seeing both grow.

So consider this when deciding if you want an audience for your content, or a community. And some people only want an audience, and there’s nothing wrong with that. They just want to create great content, and have people appreciate it, and that’s it.

But some people want to have a true community around their content. They want to create content that is found to be valuable with an audience, but they then want that audience to be connected with each other and become a community. They are willing to put in the extra time and energy to get to know the people that enjoy their content, and help those people connect with each other.

A community is more invested in seeing that community, and the things, ideas and people they support, succeed.

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Facebook vs Australia, Why Millennials Buy, Spend Emails on Friday

Happy Monday, and welcome to ‘The Week When Things Started to Get Back to Semi-Normal!’  I can finally see the ground again, almost all the snow is gone. I hope my friends in Texas are staying to dig out as well, I’m hearing good reports. Let’s hope last week was winter’s last gasp, and the warmer Spring temps will start this week!  Let’s dive into the news!

 

This will be a fascinating case study. Australia recently passed a series of laws governing the sharing of news content saying that Facebook and Google would have to share its revenue generated from sharing and distributing links to news content via its platforms. Australia is said to be making this move to help local publishers, especially print media. Google is apparently willing to go along with this, but Facebook will not. As a result, Facebook has BLOCKED the sharing of all news content in Australia. It will be fascinating to see who caves on this first; If it’s Facebook, that will simply encourage other countries to make similar moves. If it’s Australia, that means Facebook will have even more advertising leverage. I suspect Facebook has drawn a digital line in the sand here and will hold out as long as they can.

 

Insights from eMarketer into what prompts millennials to make a purchase. It’s interesting that the top factor is free shipping, but the second one is coupons and discounts. The reality for eCommerce sites is that customers now expect free shipping. I think even to the point that it’s worth adding free shipping even if you have to raise prices slightly to cover the cost. Since the expectation is there for free shipping, when many customers get to the checkout and see there is even a $7.95 shipping charge added, it can kill the purchase right there. When it comes to ecommerce, focus on adding convenience (free shipping, easy returns) and it will increase purchases and revenue.

 

So it turns out I was accidentally ahead of the curve in launching Backstage Pass on Friday! It seems emails sent on Friday have the best engagement! Those sent on Tuesday have the worst, which surprises me a bit.

 

Speaking of my newsletter, I’d love for you to subscribe! It hits your inbox every Friday with a deep dive into the marketing, digital and content strategy advice and inspiration you need. And it’s pretty indepth, which is why it’s delivered on Friday, so you have all weekend to ruminate over the (hopeful) pearls of wisdom! You can check out last week’s issue here, or subscribe by clicking the image below!

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Your Complete Guide to Responding to Angry Customers Online

angry customers

Previously we covered the three types of people that you will encounter leaving negative comments about your brand: Angry customers, passionate fans and trolls.  Check out that post for help on how to identify each and advice on how to respond to each.

Today, I wanted to do a deeper dive into how your brand should respond to a complaint you encounter from an angry customer.  An angry customer typically is complaining about one specific event.  They have usually tried to resolve the issue on their own by searching Google or trying to contact your customer service department online, etc.  They are reaching out to you now cause they feel they have no other options left.  So here’s what you need to know when responding to angry customers online:

Things to Remember When Responding to Angry Customers Online

1 – Have empathy for the angry customer.  They are frustrated and angry.  So understand their mindset when you encounter them.  Yes, they will likely be upset and might even act pissy toward you.  But that’s because they feel that your brand has let them down.  They’ve probably already tried to solve the problem themselves, and cannot.  We have all been there from time to time.  We buy a new product and we are trying to set up or install it and we are trying to follow the instructions and it’s not working.  We probably feel dumb and we definitely are mad at the brand that made us feel dumb!  So when you encounter an angry customer, you need to understand why they are angry and sympathize with their feelings.  Take them seriously and do what you can to help them as quickly as possible.

2 – Respond as quickly as possible. This is paramount.  The faster you address and resolve a customer complaint online, the chances of you converting that angry customer into a passionate fan goes up exponentially.  On the flipside, the longer you let the complaint sit there, the greater of the chance it will attract more complaints and then suddenly instead of dealing with one customer complaint, you are tasked with handling 5 of 10.  A small problem can quickly escalate into a social media firestorm if you wait too long to act. HubSpot reports that 39% of social media users expect a response to an issue raised within an hour. That only happens if your company is proactively monitoring online for customer complaints.

3 – Listen and emphasize with the person leaving the comment.  Go back and read what the customer has posted and do research to figure out what happened that led them to complaining directly to or about your brand.  For example, if you see a customer tweet about a negative experience with your brand, check their blog and see if they have also written about the incident there as well.  You want to try to figure out everything you can about the situation because you don’t want to jump to conclusions about what prompted the person to respond. Think of this as ‘social media triage’, you are trying to figure out what happened, and why it happened, so that you can better treat the problem moving forward.

4 –Thank the person for leaving the comment.  Even if the comment is negative, the customer has done you a favor by bringing the problem to your brand’s attention because now it can be addressed.  Many customers would just stop doing business with your brand and move to a competitor.  Plus this helps you reframe the exchange as being an opportunity for your brand, instead of being a burden.

5 –Show respect to the customer and do not lose your cool!  Even if you think the customer is completely wrong, keep in mind that you might the one who’s wrong!  So keep an open mind and don’t lose your temper when dealing with them.  Keep in mind that other people will be watching your exchange with this person.  If you lose your temper and smart off to them, it not only invites more complaints, it makes your brand look terrible.  But if you are helpful and courteous, that reflects well on both you personally and your brand!  Doing so can even encourage your fans to come to your brand’s defense!

6 – You are within your rights to politely correct any misinformation that the customer has left about you or your brand.   This can often happen and the chance that it will is magnified if you don’t respond and let additional comments come in.  Here’s an example of how this can get away from a brand (and how they saved the day by replying smartly).

7 – Make sure the customer(s) understand that you are going to address their complaints, and inform them of what the next steps are.  You want to communicate to everyone that you take this issue seriously, and that you have a plan to address it.  This also helps to extinguish the chances of further negative comments, which often come as a result of inactivity by the brand. Simply communicating to the customer that you’ve heard them, and now you are going to do something, will put the angry customer at ease. Of course, you still have to follow through with action that addresses the customer’s concerns.

8 – Give everyone a way to stay in touch with you, and invite further feedback.  You want to make sure the issue is handled to the satisfaction of everyone, and again, by asking for additional feedback you are communicating to everyone that you take this issue seriously.

By following these steps you are doing everything you can to address the customer’s concern and turn a potential negative situation into a positive for your brand.

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Is Social Audio the Future or Just a Fad?

Social audio is suddenly the hot topic when it comes to social media. I think it’s great, because for the first time in at least 5 years, it feels like there’s some new to talk about in social media!

Social audio itself isn’t that new. Gamers have been using group chat functionality in apps such as Discord and Line for a few years now. But the idea of loading an app and having an audio chat with others is gaining momentum due to the explosive growth of Clubhouse.

Clubhouse really came along at the right time. So much of business success is due to simply being in the right place at the right time, and Clubhouse has become the app that a quarantined populace didn’t realize it needed, till we got it. What Clubhouse does is let you join chat rooms, where people can actually talk to one another! You join the chat room, and you can HEAR people talking, one at a time (ideally). You can even talk yourself, or create your own room, public or private.

Clubhouse launched in April of 2020. I didn’t start hearing anyone in my network really talking about Clubhouse till around October or so, and by the end of January, it seemed like everyone was on the app.

Clubhouse’s growth is going to have a ripple effect throughout social media. First, it will pull people off other social media apps. I’m noticing a lot of people that are active on Clubhouse saying that they are spending less time as a result on Twitter. Now I do think Instagram is actually benefiting a bit from Clubhouse taking off. Clubhouse doesn’t have a native functionality that lets you send a private message to another user. You can create a private audio room to chat, but you can’t yet private message them. To get around this, Clubhouse users are adding their Instagram and Twitter accounts to their Clubhouse profiles, and encouraging people to DM them on Instagram or Twitter if they want to talk privately. I am seeing more people on Clubhouse pushing DMs via Instagram than Twitter.

Second, the rising popularity of Clubhouse is going to lead to another company potentially buying Clubhouse, or at least trying to create their own version, adding social audio functionality to an existing site. Facebook is reportedly already working on a Clubhouse clone.

There’s been a lot of speculation about whether or not Clubhouse will last. I think what a lot of these pundits are missing is what Clubhouse will look like when everyone has access to it. Right now, the vast majority of Clubhouse’s members are early digital adopters, who have an iOS device. For those of you who are long-time social media users, do you remember what Twitter was like circa 2008 or 2009?  Then do you remember what happened a couple of years later when the media and celebrities all discovered Twitter and took over?  The experience on Twitter completely changed because the user base completely changed. The same thing will happen with Clubhouse. Maybe the change won’t be as drastic, but the experience we have on Clubhouse right now will NOT be the one we will always experience. For better or worse. We need to see what the environment on Clubhouse looks like after this growth spurt ends and when it gets rolled out to everyone to get a better sense of its long-term viability.

 

Now the obligatory ‘Should my business be on Clubhouse?’ portion of the post

This is one of the most common questions that all business owners or marketers want to know, if they should be on Clubhouse and will it help their business. I think the answer is ‘it depends’. First, you have to remember that Clubhouse is currently in a closed beta. That means the only way you can get on Clubhouse, is for a current user to send you an invite. Also, Clubhouse is currently only available if you have an iPhone or iPad. They are working on adding Android access, but that could be months away.

There’s a dirty little secret when it comes to social media hype: Pay more attention to what actual users of the social media platform say, and less to what marketers say. Marketers love to overhype any new social media site or app, and Clubhouse is no different. They go there, build a following, then proclaim it is the next big deal, so they look like a big deal for being a part of the next big deal. What’s different about Clubhouse is, a lot of users have been there for months, and some have already built massive followings.

So you’re seeing a lot of people with big followings on Twitter go to Clubhouse and host rooms with 30 people in them. While the guy that has 500 followers on Twitter has gone to Clubhouse and built a following of 100k, and they are hosting rooms with a thousand people. It’s actually one of the things I like about Clubhouse, that different voices and perspectives are being highlighted. You’re not just seeing the same guys with big Twitter or Facebook followings going to Clubhouse and getting the same traction. The influence on other platforms isn’t easily translating to Clubhouse, you have to work on it to build a following.

Having said all that, I do think there is an opportunity for certain business owners to make hay on Clubhouse. I’m seeing a lot of business coaches, PR agencies and a lot of influencers making moves on Clubhouse. On the other hand, if you are the CMO for a fast-moving consumer goods company, I don’t think you have a lot of opportunities to sell directly on Clubhouse. I think the way to approach Clubhouse is as a channel to meet new people and learn from industry experts. I’m having a lot of fun doing both, if you are on Clubhouse, please follow me, my name is @mackcollier, same name and avatar as on Twitter.

What is the future of social audio?

So we know that the popularity of Clubhouse is going to drive bigger social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook to attempt to copy its social audio format, or buy Clubhouse outright. One of the key issues with Clubhouse is that the conversations in the rooms aren’t recorded. So if you aren’t in the room, you don’t know what’s being said and have no way to review what was said. Perhaps this will lead to Clubhouse offering recordings as a premium service down the road.

The reality is that both Twitter and Facebook are seeing a userbase that’s increasingly frustrated with the platforms, and looking for something new. It’s part of the reason why sites like Clubhouse, Parler and Gab saw such growth in late 2020, because Twitter and Facebook users were looking for other places to spend their time. Both Twitter and Facebook will be focusing on getting users back in 2021, you’re already seeing Twitter buy newsletter site Revue as a play to keep users on the platform. Incorporating social audio functionality will be part of their plan for winning back users and bringing in new ones.

I don’t think your company should be diving headfirst into social audio and apps like Clubhouse, at least not yet. Having said that, you should absolutely check out Clubhouse if you have an iOS device and you should be keeping up with the monetization moves that the bigger social media platforms make this year. 2021 will be a very volatile year for social media, and that will create some opportunities for your business.

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Twitter Needs Revenue, Top Social Apps Surprising, Staying On-Brand Means $$$

Happy Monday! Hope everyone is safe, warm and happy as we start the week. The warm part is gonna be tougher as a good portion of the southwest and southeast woke up to ice and snow this morning. It feels like I’ve been cold for weeks, let’s hope winter breaks way to Spring soon!

BTW, thanks to everyone for the great response to the first issue of the newly launched Backstage Pass newsletter! If you missed the first issue, you can view it here, and subscribe here. Next issue hits inboxes this Friday at 8am!

 

If Twitter’s recent moves are any indication, the social media site is anticipating a decline in revenue. Twitter is making moves to unlock additional revenue streams, such as recently buying newsletter service Revue, and now exploring adding charges to some features, as well as maybe adding subscription options for users. This could be setting up a very interesting Q1 earnings report for Twitter. I’m almost wondering if Twitter could be setting up such moves as a hedge against disappointing revenue performance or forecasts for later in the year.

 

For the first time in maybe a decade, there seems to be a real sense of competition developing among social media platforms. Just look at the top social media app downloads and note how Facebook and Instagram were shut out of the Top 3 on all lists, and Twitter didn’t crack the Top 10 on any of them. And breaking just as I’m writing this, it seems Twitter-competitor Parler is coming back online (still not loading for me, although I am seeing many people on Twitter saying it’s back up). And I would suspect Clubhouse will rank pretty highly in the next App Store downloads update.

 

And finally, I love this example of the power of branding that resonates with customers, and that’s on point.

 

Hope y’all have an amazing week! See you back here tomorrow with a new post on the social audio phenomenon, Tuesday night at 7pm on Twitter discussing overcoming our content creation obstacles on #ContentCircus. and Friday morning at 8am the next issue of Backstage Pass drops, helping CEOs and Managers deal with a workforce that’s suddenly remote.

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Case Study: The Morning Brew’s Newsletter Referral System

Recently, I came across a very detailed write-up of how popular newsletter The Morning Brew’s referral system works.  You can read all the nuts and bolts here.

There were two key points that struck me as I was reading the post that I wanted to highlight here. First, this quote from Tyler Denk, who created the system, discussing the prizes that current subscribers get based on their number of referrals, and the CPA (Cost Per Acquistion) for each:

5 referrals: we mail readers Morning Brew stickers. Bulk ordering 10,000 die cut stickers from StickerMule breaks down to a unit cost of $0.20/sticker and our pre-stamped envelopes cost roughly $0.65/envelope. That totals roughly $1.25 in cost, or a $0.25 CPA (cost per acquisition) for 5 new subscribers to the Brew.

For reference, the CPA for us on Facebook/Instagram, our largest paid acquisition channels, is typically between $3 and $5.

10 referrals: readers gain access to our exclusive “Insider” community. The private Facebook group, which is quickly approaching 10,000 members, is the place to discuss the latest stories, trends, and events in business, pursue career opportunities, and network with other like-minded Brew readers. Again, this reward comes at no real cost to Morning Brew.

To this point: In exchange for 10 referrals, we have provided value in the form of premium content, an exclusive community, and swag…all at the cost of $1.25.

15 referrals: we mail readers a custom Morning Brew silicone phone wallet. The cost of the phone wallet is $1.50, and the cost of the pre-stamped envelopes is $0.65/envelope.

When someone refers 15 people, the CPA on those referred is $0.23 ((cost of phone wallet + stickers)/15). We’ve actually managed to spend less per subscriber as someone continues to refer additional people.

For those who are bad at math, like me, it means that The Morning Brew’s cost to acquire a new subscriber is typically $3-5 each if they go the Instagram or Facebook ads route. If they use their referral system, the CPA plummets to 23-25 cents EACH.

One of the key points I make in my book Think Like a Rock Star is to challenge companies to rethink their customer acquisition strategy. The reason the Cost Per Acquisition for each new customer is so high for so many companies is because of the channels used. Most companies rely on traditional marketing in print, television and increasingly digital, to acquire new customers. Those channels are not cheap, and the acquisition rate for these channels is typically very low, which drives the acquisition cost even higher.

Yet when your customer acquisition efforts flow through your current customers (or in the case of The Morning Brew, its current subscribers), then the acquisition cost plummets. Research has shown this for years, but the simple reality is that we trust our friends and family more than we trust brands. That’s just reality. If the brand runs a commercial and tells us to buy it’s product, we will likely ignore it.  But if our brother or best friend tells us to buy that same product, we will listen.

Here’s the second quote from Tyler that I also thought was very powerful:

I also think that the referral program actually boosts engagement for the person who refers others. If someone goes out of their way to share a product or service with their friends, classmates, co-workers, etc., I think the likelihood they continue to engage with that product increases. No one wants to look foolish by abandoning a product they’ve so vehemently recommended so soon after making that recommendation

Bingo, these same subscribers that referred the new subscribers, will then become sources of ongoing encouragement, education, and even customer service for The Morning Brew. They current subscribers will likely check in on their buddy that they just referred in as a new subscriber, and ask them how they are liking The Morning Brew. Or if the referral has a question about The Morning Brew, they will probably reach out to the friend that referred them, rather than The Morning Brew itself. Which could also be a cost-savings for The Morning Brew in the form of a deflected inquiry to customer service.

This is why I am such a proponent of customer/brand advocacy programs and loyalty programs. If structured correctly, they can always become a pipeline for more engaged customers who have a higher lifetime value, with a much lower acquisition cost.

Have you subscribed to Backstage Pass? Every Friday, I give you an indepth, strategic deep-dive into the world of content, digital and marketing. Giving you all the tools and knowledge you need to take your marketing, digital and content strategies to the next level. Click the banner below to learn more and signup now!

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Pinterest on Fire, Employees Love Remote Work, Hubspot Acquires The Hustle

Happy Monday, y’all! Ok guys I have an announcement to make, and I could NOT be more excited! This Friday, I am relaunching the Think Like a Rock Star newsletter as the Backstage Pass newsletter. If you are already subbed to TLAR, you’re in!

So why the relaunch?

For years, since at least 2015, I have had peers who are smarter than I, all industry names that you know, telling me the same thing. “Mack, you gotta get on email. Newsletters are where it’s at!’

So I launched the Think Like a Rock Star newsletter. But I couldn’t figure out the format, the audience I wanted to appeal to, or the content that should be included. And the schedule was non-existent. I honestly did everything wrong with the newsletter, and yet it still had over 3,000 subscribers. That told me that the subscribers enjoyed the content I was creating, I just needed to get the strategy dialed in.

At the same time, I am watching how my dear friend Ann Handley is killing it with her newsletter Total Annarchy. The branding is on-point, the schedule is consistent, and the content is spectacular. And recently, I’ve discovered The Hustle (more on them later) and Morning Brew newsletters. Both are insanely popular right now, and I love the format.  Then last week I was in a Clubhouse room where I heard Ann say that in 3 years of writing her newsletter, she had grown it to 45,000 subscribers.

That was the final push I needed to go all-in on newsletters. And that’s what I am doing with Backstage Pass.

What will it feature? Click here to get more information, and to subscribe. In short, I want every issue to replicate the content and material I would cover if I could spend a full day with your company, training and working with your marketing, digital and content teams. Each issue will be massive, it will require hours to consume, which is why I am delivering it on Friday so you have all weekend to enjoy it and can implement the ideas it contains starting on the following Monday. I spend approximately 20 hours on every issue, and it will hit inboxes every Friday at around 8am Central.

Please do subscribe to Backstage Pass. My best content will be here, and in Backstage Pass. Thank you!

 

Now…on to today’s Marketing Minute:

 

Not surprisingly, workers are loving the freedom of working remotely from home, as we see from this eMarketer chart. However, remote work is creating a lot of problems for companies that were forced into the move due to covid. Such companies are struggling to effectively manage suddenly remote workers, and the workers themselves are being affected by a loss of office life and in-person interactions with their teams and co-workers. Managing remote workers is actually one of the biggest concerns CEOs have right now, and I’ll be doing a deep dive into this topic and how to manage remote work in next week’s issue of Backstage Pass.

 

Pinterest is closing in on half a billion active users. What’s interesting is that Pinterest’s growth is mostly fueled by international users, growth in the US has pretty much stalled. Pinterest’s monthly usage grew 11% in the US, and a whopping 46% internationally. Additionally, most of Pinterest’s revenue comes from US users. So if the platform can figure out how to more effectively monetize it’s non-US users, it could be see massive growth in overall revenue in the coming years.

 

Finally, Hubspot acquired The Hustle last week. I’ll have more on this in Friday’s issue of Backstage Pass, but I did have to chuckle at how another popular newsletter Morning Brew, reported this news. The majority of their blurb on the news focused on how this signals that there is an acquisition market for select newsletters that have built a massive following. In sum: Morning Brew is thinking this news means they could be acquired as well, and they are probably right.

 

That’s all for now, please do subscribe to Backstage Pass, as the first issue will go out this Friday morning. And tomorrow night at #ContentCircus on Twitter, we will be discussing Winning Strategies For Creating Content on Twitter. And we’ll be discussing it on Twitter! How amazing is that???

And see you here in 24 hours for a case study on customer acquisition that I think you’ll find fascinating. See you then!