MackCollier.com

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Marketers Now Prioritizing Customer Retention over Customer Acquisition

I started to include this story in yesterday’s Marketing Minute post, but it’s so important that I wanted to expand on it a bit. Research is showing that marketers are shifting from focusing on customer acquisition to focusing on customer retention. Some of this is attributed as a reaction to the pandemic, as marketers believe customer acquisition will be easier as buyers are seeking out sellers, especially online. But also, most of us are wanting a return to normalcy and are more likely to stick with brands we know and trust. This just stands to reason.

But the debate over customer acquisition vs customer retention is one of my favorite topics, because so many companies completely mismanage the acquisition of new customers. One of the key teachings in my book Think Like a Rock Star was the difference between how rock stars acquire new customers, and how most companies do.

In short, most companies attempt to acquire new customers via advertising, while most rock stars acquire new customers via their current customers.

Now would be a good time to review The Loyalty Graph:

For The Loyalty Graph, the x-axis is Brand Loyalty. At the left there is 0 Brand Loyalty, as you move all the way to the right, Brand Loyalty is at its highest levels. These would be your ‘Fans’.  The y-axis is Size of Market. At the bottom there is no market, at the top there is a massive market. Let’s look at each customer segment:

New Customers – These are customers that have bought from your company for the first time, or potential customers.  Their Size of Market is massive, but they also have little or no Loyalty toward your brand.

Existing Customers – These are customers that are currently buying from your company. Note that the size of this group is much smaller, but levels of Brand Loyalty have gone up slightly.

Some Brand Affinity – These are regular customers, who have some affinity for your brand. They buy regularly, they probably like your products enough to endorse them to other customers, even if infrequently. The size of this market again shrinks dramatically, but loyalty levels also rise.

Brand Advocates – These are your ‘fans’. The customers that love your brand, that buy your products constantly, that promote those products endlessly to other customers. The size of this market is very tiny, but their loyalty levels are at maximum.

 

What’s fascinating about this graph is to note that companies and rock stars focus on opposite ends of the Brand Loyalty axis.  Companies focus almost all their attention on marketing to New Customers, while rock stars focus almost all of their attention on Brand Advocates.

Why is this important? When you see that New Customers are by far the largest market, it’s easy to see why most companies focus on this group. But while the size of this group is massive, notice that New Customers have almost no loyalty toward your company. So most companies are literally marketing to a group that has no interest in hearing their message. This is why advertising is so expensive, because you are paying for the fact that your message is interrupting people that don’t want to hear that message. Also note that most companies spend little or no attention to their current customers and fans, who actually have an interest in hearing their marketing messages.

Now notice that rock stars focus almost exclusively on their Brand Advocates. Brand Advocates are by far the smallest market, but notice they have the highest levels of loyalty toward the brands they buy from. Also, think about what brand advocates do: They advocate for your brand. Brand Advocates acquire other customers for you! They promote your brand to other customers and encourage them to buy from your brand. And unlike New Customers, Brand Advocates WANT you to market to them! They are desperate to hear from your brand and have more contact with that brand.

So think of the contrast: Companies spend billions to market to a group (New Customers) who does not want to be marketed to. On the other hand, rock stars only attempt to connect with the group (Brand Advocates) that wants to hear from them!

Companies spend billions on advertising to acquire New Customers, rock stars market to their fans and let their fans acquire customers for them.

Which method is less expensive?  Which method is more effective?  Obviously, letting your current customers acquire new customers for you the better and smarter play.

So why don’t more companies do this? Because by acquiring new customers via advertising, companies have far more control over its marketing messages. This need for control over marketing messages shows that most companies don’t trust their customers to market to other customers. Rock stars completely trust their fans, and empower them to market for their favorite rock stars.

Interaction leads to understand, leads to trust, which leads to advocacy. Rock stars constantly interact with their fans, so they understand them, and trust them. Most companies have little to no interaction with their customers, so they don’t understand them, and don’t trust them.

Your current customers are your best available tool to acquire new customers.

 

PS: I want to thank everyone who is reading and subscribing and I appreciate all the kind emails as well! Yesterday’s traffic was up 32% versus last Monday, so thank you for your support!

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Driving Customer Loyalty, Consumers Trust Ads Alongside Content

Happy Monday, y’all! Ready for another great week, if you missed it check out my blogging recap for September, traffic up 21%!

 

Interesting data from XM Institute on how customer loyalty is impacted by CX. In short, they found that a very good customer experience greatly impacts how likely that customer is to purchase from and recommend a company. “The vast majority of consumers surveyed who rated their experiences with 319 companies tracked as very good indicated that they would purchase more from the company (94%) or would recommend the company (94%). Some 9 in 10 (89%) would trust the company after very good CX performance, while more than three-quarters (77%) would forgive a bad experience after such an experience. On the other hand, just 13% of those studied who reported a very bad experience with a company would recommend it.”

 

 

More than a third of consumers say their trust in brands grows after seeing its content alongside news. Additionally, the study from IAB found that 84% of consumer said their trust in brands grew or was unaffected when viewing this content. The larger question I would have is how is trust in the regular news content affected by seeing ads inserted alongside the news content? Personally, I tend to view sites as less credible if they are constantly mixing in ads alongside news.

 

Great recap of shopping trends for the Holiday season from Adobe and Avantis. I agree that shoppers are desperate for a return to normalcy, but also will be looking for deals and want an order online/pickup in stores option. Covid is absolutely changing shopper and consumer behavior, and smart companies are tracking these changes and adapting their service, support and offerings.

There’s your Monday Marketing Minute, hope your week is off to a fantabulous start, see you tomorrow!

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Here’s What Every Perfect Product Review Has

Think about what would be the perfect review for your product. Think about the elements it would include, what the customer would highlight.  I bet you have in mind a list of features you want the customer to mention in their review, right? Maybe you want the customer to point out that your product is reliable, right? Also add some general statements about how awesome and trustworthy your brand is, perhaps? Put all this together and you would have the perfect review for your product, right? The perfect mixture of highlighting all the right features, while also pointing to the reliability of your brand.

I can assure you that none of that comes close to defining the perfect product review.

When many companies think about what defines a great product review, they focus on what they want the customer to say about the PRODUCT. They have a list of all the features and attributes they want the customer to mention, maybe a couple of gushing compliments about the brand in general.

Instead, the perfect product review is one where the customer talks about THEMSELVES. But…they talk about themselves in the context of how your product made them BETTER at something.

Here’s a snippet from one of my favorite reviews for my book, Think Like a Rock Star:

“Second, more than any other I’ve read, the book inspired me to take action. These are practical ideas that you can implement right away, not well-meaning tips to put in your idea file, never to be seen again. I hadn’t even finished reading chapter one, and I already implemented one of his ideas.”

See the difference? This review isn’t talking about me or the book, it’s talking about how reading the book prompted a positive change in behavior FOR THE READER. This is what I want to see as a customer reading reviews, I want to know how the product IMPROVED the life of the customer that wrote the review. Because if it helped the customer who wrote the review, that makes me believe it can help me as well.

The perfect product review is one where the customer talks about themselves positively. The customer talks about how your product made a positive change in their lives.

 

Which review for an SUV do you think is better?

“This is the best car I’ve ever owned.” – Positive about the car.

“Driving this car made me feel safer.” – Positive about how the customer felt driving the car.

 

Which review for dog food do you think is better?

“It was a great deal, easy to serve portions, and the price was right.” – Positive about the dog food.

“I noticed that my dog was more active and seemed happier as soon as he started eating this.” – Positive about the change in behavior of the owner’s dog.

 

Which review for a camera do you think is better?

“This camera comes with all the bells and whistles you need to take great pictures.” – Positive about the camera

“This camera made me a better photographer.” – Positive about how the camera changed the behavior of the customer

 

If you think about it, we don’t buy products, we buy the change in our lives that happens when we own those products. When we buy a car, we aren’t buying the object, we are buying what the car allows us to do.  We aren’t buying the laptop, we are buying what the laptop allows us to do. We aren’t buying the mattress, we are buying a good night’s sleep.

Think about how your marketing helps influence the reviews your products receive. The features you highlight in your marketing are often the ones customers highlight in their reviews. What if your marketing helped customers understand how their lives would change as a result of owning your product? Customers would buy your product based on the promise of the change or changes it would make in their lives. Then if your product met the customer’s expectations, that would be shared in their product reviews.

Sell the benefit of your product, more than the product itself.

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Marketing and Movies: Ford vs Ferrari

A few days ago I noticed a marketer instructed her followers on Twitter to treat their customers as potential ‘mouthpieces’ for their brand. While I cringed at the idea of companies viewing their customers as simply being a ‘mouthpiece’ for the brand, the reality is that such a notion will resonate with a lot of companies. Many companies do view its customers as nothing more than promotional channels. This is an incredibly short-sighted view, and it fails to acknowledge the true value of your customers. And it doesn’t create the relationship that lets their talents and abilities shine the brightest.

This lesson was at the front of my mind as I recently watched the movie Ford vs Ferrari. In the late 1950s, Ford decided that it needed to do a better job of appealing to younger car owners. The marketing department (headed by future Chrysler CEO Lee IIacoca), decided that the way to reach young car buyers was via racing, more specifically, by having Ford win the 24 Hours of Le Mans, one of the most prestigious auto races in the world. At the time, Ferrari was dominating Le Mans, and Ford approached Ferrari with an offer to buy the automaker, which greatly insulted Ferrari. In the process of refusing the offer, Enzo Ferrari greatly insulted Ford CEO Henry Ford II, which compelled Ford to go all-in on winning the race at Le Mans.

Ferrari had dominated Le Mans because racing was the heartbeat of the brand.  Motorsports and producing impeccable racing cars was at the heart of Ferrari’s culture. This wasn’t the case at Ford. So Ford, not having the love of motorsports and racing that Ferrari did, approached its entry into Le Mans as a business move, moreso than as a move motivated by a love of racing. Ford hired former Le Mans winner Carroll Shelby to create a car and team that could win Le Mans. But Ford tried to impose its culture on the effort, telling Shelby that he cannot have Ken Miles drive for the team, since Ford wanted a brand spokesperson moreso than the best driver to be behind the wheel at Le Mans. The result was a disasterous finish for Ford at its first attempt at Le Mans, which almost resulted in Ford firing Shelby.

Shelby kept his job, and continued working with Ken Miles to build a car that could win Le Mans for Ford. When Le Mans approached the following year, Ford continued to insist that Miles not drive the car, contending he would not be the proper spokesman for the Ford brand. The ongoing negotiations between Shelby and Ford led to this emotional scene from the movie:

Ford was making a mistake with its entry into Le Mans that many companies make today when they approach better connecting with their customers. Many companies approach this as a business proposition, but they fail to realize that it’s a people proposition. Your company cannot inspire its customers to take action on behalf of your brand if your brand is attempting to view your customers simply as potential sales. Forging better and stronger connections with your customers has to be ingrained in your brand. You have to have a culture that seeks out and pushes to forge deeper connections with your customers. Not simply because you want more sales, but also because you honestly care about the people that buy your brand’s product and services.

Ford went on to let Miles race at Daytona, which he won. He then went on to race at Le Mans, and led the Ford racing team to a 1-2-3 finish at Le Mans. Ford would go on to win 4 straight Le Mans, all driven by cars build by Shelby and Miles. Ford won at Le Mans by learning to trust the drivers who understood the sport of racing on a level which the brand did not. Likewise, if your brand wants to build better relationships with its customers, you will also have to trust those customers and listen to what they have to say.

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How Bear Bryant Cultivated Lifelong Alabama Football Fans in the 1960s

One of my hobbies is collecting autographed footballs from former Alabama teams. Often, former teams will have a 25th anniversary or even 50th anniversary reunion, and I like to attend these when I can and get members from that team to sign a football for me.

I attended one of these reunions for a team from the 1960s one time, and as the players were signing my football, I noticed how neat the signatures were, and how they stacked on top of each other as you see in this picture:

As one former player signed my football, I mentioned how neat and organized the signatures were. The player then told me why that was the case. He said that every summer, Coach Bryant would take the entire team to the cafeteria, and have everyone sit down, and they would spend all day signing footballs. So these players that signed my football so neatly, were simply going back to what they had done years ago when they were in college! Those footballs were then sent to fans who had written to the University requesting autographs!

If you think about it, this was exceptional marketing for the Alabama football program. The media landscape in 1960 was obviously far different than it is today. Many people in the Deep South at that time still didn’t have a television, radio and newspapers were how most people got their news.

Also, think about who would most likely write to the University of Alabama asking for autographs. It seems likely that most of the requests would come from children. The parents probably helped their son or daughter write the letter, and they probably expected a signed photo of Coach Bryant at best, as their reward. Then to receive a football signed by the entire team? It must have been a huge thrill for both the young fan and their parents!

This would have cultivated lifelong fans of the University of Alabama. These footballs and likely the letters accompanying would become display pieces that would spark admiration and the owners would recall how they acquired the football for years to come. Even today, brands do things like give children a small gift on their birthday. The idea is to create a devote to the brand early on, so that these people grow up to become adult customers.

Whenever I talk to companies about how they could better connect with their customers and grow advocacy efforts, I always stress that the WANT to connect with your customers has to be there. The tools and the tactics and programs are great, but you have to want to create and cultivate better relationships with your customers. It needs to be in your brand’s DNA to value your customers and to want to better understand and connect with them.

In the early 1960’s, Coach Bryant was still building the Alabama football program. He’d already had some success, but at the same time, in-state rival Auburn University was enjoying its own level of on-field success. So if we go back to the limited media landscape of the early 1960s, think about how important it was to create fans of your program at an early age. In the state of Alabama, most college football fans pick either Alabama or Auburn at a very early age, and rarely do they switch allegiance later in life. Most people are truly lifelong fans of one school or the other.

Coach Bryant was smart enough to know this, and that’s why he made sure that he surprised and delighted young fans with team-autographed footballs.

Knowing how to better connect with your customers is the easy part. But you have to WANT to do so, as well.

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Baltimore Orioles Write Handwritten ‘Thank You’ Notes to Season Ticket Holders

Coming off an atrocious 108-loss season, the Baltimore Orioles decided to double-down on thanking the season ticket holders that stood by the team.

The players recently wrote handwritten thank you letters to season ticket holders. Orioles Director of PR Kirsten Hudak talks about pitching the idea to the players:

“I wasn’t sure what the reaction would be. The guys that I spoke to about it were immediately supportive. I saw many of them sit down and start writing right away. It felt like they had something on their minds or something they wanted to say and that was an opportunity for them to do it in a heartfelt way.”

Rewarding season ticket holders for their support is something many sports teams do at all levels. I’ve written before about how the Alabama Crimson Tide’s softball team (one of the top programs in the country), has its players and coaches hand-deliver season tickets to its fans.

As you can see, these two examples cover both ends of the spectrum from a fan support angle. The Orioles are no doubt scrambling for ideas to revitalize interest in a struggling team, and smartly thought of a way to reward their biggest fans with handwritten notes. On the other end, Alabama has been winning big for a while, and no doubt view the personal delivery of season tickets as a way to keep the momentum going with its fan support.

I think the word ‘fan’ has an interesting stigma around it. It seems like a special person who loves a sports team or rock star.

The reality is, a ‘fan’ is simply a customer. A passionate, loyal customer, but a customer nonetheless.

If you look at your customers in this context and overlap the above examples, you can easily see how ‘fans’ would be present in many businesses:

  • Frequent customers to your store that you recognize as soon as they walk in.
  • Loyalty club members
  • Subscribers to your company newsletter

All of these customers have signaled to you that they enjoy interacting with your company.  If you think of fans as being ‘people that love their favorite sports team or rock star’, why can’t you think of the above customers as being ‘fans’ or customers that love you?

In the previous post I talked about how rock stars have fans and companies have customers. Rock stars don’t have fans because they are rock stars, they have fans because they love their fans. They understand that having fans is a mindset, if you love and appreciate your fans, you deepen their love for you, and you act in ways that will encourage other people to become fans as well.

I shop a lot at WalMart and Publix. So much so that many of the employees at both stores will recognize me as soon as I walk in. Yet when I shop at Publix, the employees will always greet me with “It’s good to see you AGAIN’. They are communicating to me that they notice and appreciate my frequent visits. That’s one reason why I prefer to shop at Publix, because WalMart’s employees don’t bother to notice me, except for one cashier who always says “It’s good to see you AGAIN”. Guess whose line I prefer to go through at WalMart?

Creating and cultivating fans is about creating and cultivating a mindset that recognizes your fans and that communicates your appreciation to those fans.

Every business has loyal customers who are ‘fans’. The smart companies are the ones that reach out to their fans and let them know that they love them right back.

 

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Why Do Rock Stars Have Fans, While Companies Have Customers?

Gene Autry was a rock star decades before there was such a term. From the 1930s to the 1950s, “The Singing Cowboy” was one of the nation’s brightest film, radio and television stars. He died in 1998 as one of the richest 400 Americans, and the only entertainer in that group.

I was recently watching Ken Burns’ documentary series Country Music when they told a fascinating Gene Autry anecdote. Gene Autry often toured the country and at the same time he was receiving hundreds, sometimes thousands of fan letters every week. His wife would take the fan letters and cross-reference them against his touring schedule, and give him a list of every fan that had written him who lived in the next town that Autry was to perform in.  Autry would then take the list upon arriving in that city, and find the nearest phone book and look up the name of each fan who had written him, and he would call that fan and thank them for writing him.

Another story shared involved Garth Brooks. Every year Nashville has a country music Fan Fest, where artists sign autographs for their fans. One year, during the height of his popularity, Garth Brooks showed up, unannounced, at Fan Fest.  He picked an unmarked tent, and started signing. He pledged to sign for everyone there.  Organizers repeatedly attempted to stop the line so Garth could leave, but he was determined to stay until everyone had an autograph.

He signed for over 20 hours.

When I started writing Think Like a Rock Star and I began to research how rock stars create and cultivate fans, the key question I wanted to answer was “Why do rock stars have fans, while companies have customers?” I wanted to figure out what the secret formula was that rock stars used to cultivate fans, and find out if it was possible for companies to replicate that success.

The answer was surprisingly simple: Rock stars have fans because they WANT fans. Gene Autry didn’t have to go to the time and trouble of calling up every fan who wrote him a letter, he wanted to. Garth Brooks didn’t have to show up unscheduled at Fan Fest and sign for over 20 hours, he wanted to.

The reality is, you have earned the relationship you have with the people that buy your products and services. If you have fans, then you have earned them. If you just have customers, well you’ve earned them as well. If you want to have passionate customers who consider themselves to be ‘fans’ of your company, then you have to put forward the effort to make that happen.

“But Mack, you’re talking about actual rock stars, we’re just a boring company making boring products!”

Why can’t your company have the CEO personally reply to a positive comment from a customer left on Twitter? Why can’t you send a small ‘thank you’ gift box to a customer who emails you and thanks you for great customer service? When you have a culture that appreciates and values your customers, you create and cultivate fans.

A few years ago I was working with Dell on a customer advocacy event. We had a group of about 20 customers that had been flown in to Austin and we were meeting with them all day, having roundtable discussions, product demos, etc. We had just finished lunch and we were about to go onto another event when one of Dell’s PR team pulled me aside and told me to have everyone go into the conference room, that Dell had a surprise for them. The group filed in and quietly chatted, after a few minutes they began to wonder what was happening next.

In walked CEO Michael Dell. For this group of passionate Dell customers, it was as if a rock star had entered the room. Cameras immediately started flashing and everyone suddenly sat at attention, smiling and on the edges of their seats. Dell already had a full day planned for the group, this was obviously a ‘bonus’ they had wanted to add in at the last minute, since I had been involved in the prior planning and didn’t know about it until 5 mins before he arrived. Dell wanted to communicate to these passionate customers that they appreciated them so much that one of the busiest CEOs in the world was going to make time to come talk with them.

Introducing CEO Michael Dell to the DellCAP group

Former Maker’s Mark CEO Bill Samuels Jr often said that the brand viewed its customers as ‘friends’, and as such, that shaped all its communications with the people that buy its bourbon. You don’t pitch your friends, you don’t market to your friends, so Maker’s Mark changed how it communicated with its customers, to shape the type of relationships it wanted to cultivate.

Every company has passionate customers who consider themselves to be fans. The most successful companies are the ones that go out of their way to create, appreciate and reward their fans.

 

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Selling Your Passion vs Selling Your Product

The vast majority of companies I work with are using social and digital media to build awareness for their brands. Typically, they contact me because their efforts aren’t getting the results they need. One of the first mistakes I often find is that these companies are selling before the buyer is ready to make a purchase. You can’t sell to someone that isn’t ready to buy, and if you are trying to build awareness with customers, obviously these customers are unaware of who you are and why they should buy from you.

So instead of selling your product or service directly to these customers, you talk about the customers. Think about it, if you see or hear a marketing message, but it’s about something that you can relate to, that interests you, then you pay attention! If you want to grab the attention of unaware customers, then you talk about the customers.

In this post, Tom Martin talks about how he networks at events. He makes a point to talk to the person he’s just met and hone in on any common interests. Why does Tom do this? Because by talking about something that BOTH Tom and the person are passionate about, it helps the person more easily connect with Tom. The other person will let their guard down and be more willing to listen to Tom. On the flipside, if Tom had introduced himself and immediately started talking about him, about his business, the person would have likely lost interest very quickly. So Tom smartly puts the focus on the other person, let’s talk about you, let’s find a common ground, and let’s talk about that something that we are both passionate about. Also note that Tom adds that one of the people at the event later remarked that someone had told her that they appreciated that Tom didn’t sell them immediately, but now that they’ve talked to him for a bit, they want to hear ‘the pitch’.

Your marketing should follow the same path that Tom does when trying to connect with new customers. First, focus completely on the customer. Then, once you have their attention, focus on that common passion point that relates to both the customer, as well as your brand. After doing this, the customer will be more open to ‘the sell’, so then you start to promote and market your products and services directly.

A key element, perhaps the most important element, of connecting with a customer is establishing trust. Once the customer trusts you, they will lower their guard and give you their full attention. Think about how you interact with your friends. How much of your conversations revolve around common interests? We can relate to our friends, and we trust our friends.

So shouldn’t you talk to your customers as if they were your friends? Remember in the previous post we talked about how Bill Samuels Jr at Maker’s Mark said the brand strove to view his customers as friends, and he called this ‘marketing without fingerprints’.

What’s the common interest or passion point that runs through your brand and your customer? If you’re looking to build awareness with your customers, start there.

 

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How to Segment Your Engagement Strategy Based on Customer Type

Most companies have a customer engagement strategy, but that strategy views customers as one type and structures the strategy accordingly.

Yet your customers are very different people, they might be a part of a larger group, but there are many smaller subsets of the larger group that your company should be aware of.

Let’s review the Buyer’s Journey:

Buyer's Journey, Creating Better Content

In looking at this process, you can see that some customers would be at each of these four stages leading up to a purchase. Let’s quickly review the type of content you should deliver to these customers at each stage, and then talk about how to engage each group:

Unaware: These are customers that don’t know who you are or what you do. The content you create for these customers should be focused heavily on the customer, and light on the brand. When you create content that talks about the customer, it gets their attention, and you will need their attention to move the customer closer to a sale. When you hear companies talk about wanting to ‘build awareness’ via social media and content marketing, these are the customers they are wanting to reach.

Engaging With Unaware Customers: When engaging with these customers, remember that they aren’t ready to buy, so attempting to sell to them will be a waste of time. This stage is about gaining attention, and developing trust. It’s why you want to invest so much time talking to and about the customer. Doing so will get their attention, and it helps them lower their guard and begin to trust you.

Years ago, I worked as a vendor for a company that sells consumer pesticides. Part of the job required that on the weekends, I had to sell the products. My trainer taught me how to sell the products, and he told me to never sell the product until you had talked to the customer, and then always suggest the best product to help them, even if it wasn’t the vendor’s product. I stocked the shelves during the week and on weekends I would be in the store primarily to sell the products, as were the competitor’s vendors.  One weekday I was stocking the shelves and an older gentleman came up and I asked him if he needed help and he started explaining an insect problem he was having in his lawn. After hearing his story, I saw that my company didn’t make a product to treat his particular issue, so I recommended a competitor’s product, which he bought.

That Saturday, myself and another vendor were selling on that same isle. I looked up and noticed the older gentleman I had sold the competitor’s product to walking up. The other vendor stopped him immediately and asked if he could help him. “Nope!”, he replied. “I came to talk to him!”, and he pointed at me. He then told me how the product I had suggested worked for him then asked me to tell him about the products MY company sold! Remember when you craft an engagement and content strategy for Unaware customers, that you want to focus on the customer because you want to get their attention, and you want to build trust with them. A hard sell at this point will turn them off immediately.

 

Slightly Aware: These are customers who are beginning to understand who your brand is, and what it does. Content aimed at these customers should help them understand how your brand’s products and services fit into their lives. So at this stage, you want to shift your content a bit to begin to discuss your product and services, but in the context of ‘Here’s how our stuff can help you”. In that way you are communicating that you know and understand who the customer is, and also that you know how your products and services can help them.

Engaging With Slightly Aware Customers: Here, you want to remind the customers how your products and services fit into their lives and IMPROVE their lives.

A good example of this is using a Twitter chat to talk about the larger topic that’s relevant to both your brand, and your customers.  Marriott has a #ParadiseChat, which is focused on travel, but in the context of the chat, Marriott can help establish the link between traveling, and staying at a Marriott hotel or resort. The Twitter chat also gives Marriott’s social media team a way to engage directly with potential customer before, during and after the chat, giving them more information about the brand’s offerings and how they could fit into the customer’s future travel plans.

 

Interested: Customers at this stage are now considering making a purchase. So your content should shift more toward the product itself. NOW is when you can FINALLY start to sell your brand’s products and services. Customers at this stage are doing research in your products and services and those of your competitors, before making a purchase decision.

How to Engage With Interested Customers: Customers at this stage will be doing research, so you want to engage with them in a way that helps them get the information they need. These customers will be consulting online reviews on sites such as Amazon, so if you have a current brand ambassador or loyalty program, you want to encourage its members to write reviews on sites such as Amazon for any of your products and services that they use.

Another example of how you can engage these customers is by giving them better access to product information. Taylor Guitars began to notice in its retail stores that customers would inspect a guitar in the store, but when they saw the price, they would often put the guitar back and decide to go home to do more research. Taylor Guitars took this customer behavior into account, and incorporated research tools into its smartphone app. This gives customers access to better product information in store, and can help them justify the purchase. Too many companies attempt to change customer behavior, when the smart play is to accept customer behavior and work with it, not against it.

 

Ready to Buy! Customers at this stage are…ready to buy! Your content should do one thing, help them complete the sale.

How to Engage With Customers Who Are Ready to Buy: Sell to them. Don’t ask them to sign up for your newsletter or follow your brand on social media, just help them complete the purchase because that’s all the customer is interested in doing.

 

As you can see, your engagement strategy can’t be ‘one size fits all’, because you don’t have just one type of customer. You have to take into account what type of customer you are attempting to engage with at any touchpoint, and adjust your engagement strategy accordingly.

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The Secret Language of Happy Customers

Let’s say you are a die hard fan of the movie Memento, like I am. Think about the conversation you would have with someone who just saw the movie for the first time last night. Most of their input would likely be along the lines of “WTF did I just watch???”

Now how would that conversation change if you met another fellow die hard fan of Memento?  You would have a COMPLETELY different conversation. You would get into dissecting individual scenes, the plot as a whole, you would question if it was really Teddy who slipped the note under Leonard’s door at the hotel, or was it someone else?

In her wonderful book Badass: Making Users Awesome, Kathy Sierra talks about how your most passionate users/customers have a different conversation than your regular customers. They are the ‘experts’ who hear music differently, the photographers who notice details in a landscape and how to frame a picture perfectly that the rest of us completely miss. They have a more advanced understanding of the things they are passionate about, and as a result, their conversations are more advanced as well.

I was remembering Kathy’s teachings when I recently heard the wonderful episode of the Punch Out podcast with David Meerman Scott as guest. First, David is absolutely brilliant and has some incredibly fascinating hobbies, so the episode is a must-listen purely for the entertainment value.

But David said something fascinating that ties into Kathy’s point about passionate users/customers having a different conversation around the things they love.  David said “It’s a way to form really strong bonds with people, around a shared fandom, a shared emotional connection. At one time I was like ‘this is a frivolous hobby’, but it’s not. It’s something that’s really important for us humans, to be around like minded people.”

Whenever I talk to companies about building a brand ambassador program, one of the key elements I always address is the need to have a way for the members of the program to connect with each other. It’s incredibly important to have people that share a passion around an idea, a belief, or even a brand, connect directly with each other.  I’ve often said that a rock concert is one of the greatest marketing inventions created. Think about what a rock concert is; you take hundreds if not thousands of fans of a rock artist or band, and stick them in the same arena and let them interact with each other. Being that close to so many people that share a similar passion or interest as you makes the entire experience that much better and more rewarding. It also increases your attachment and passion for the rock star.

So it makes sense to find a way to connect these customers to each other. Such customers are often great candidates for Customer Advisory Panels, or any group you create where you regularly solicit and act on feedback from customers. If you have a formal brand ambassador program, one of the important aspects is creating channels or tools that allow ambassadors to connect with each and become more comfortable together. This can easily be done with something as simple as a Facebook group or Slack channel.

Now, how could these special customers fit into your current marketing efforts?

Let’s remember we are talking about customers who are highly knowledgeable about your products and services. So much so that they likely will know more about your products and services than some of your newer employees. In other words, these special customers have the ability to be some of your best salespeople, if you tap into their abilities.

At this point, let’s revisit the buyer’s journey:

Buyer's Journey, Creating Better Content

The best place to utilize these customers would be in helping move potential customers from the Interested to Ready to Buy stage. Potential customers who are already interested are likely doing research on your products and services as the final step before committing to a purchase. Think of these customers as your ‘closers’, the customers that come in and seal the deal/sale for the person who is almost ready to make a purchase.

Let’s remember that customers who are in the Interested stage of the buyer’s journey are doing independent research. They are perusing your company website for specific product information and details. They are also searching for feedback from other customers. Customer reviews on websites such as Amazon are a common choice as its important to hear what people thought about your product or service AFTER buying it. Savvy customers will also search for complaints about your products and services, looking for common issues or problems that customers encountered.

Which is why it pays to engage with your more advanced customers and give them the incentive and structure to engage with customers who are in the ‘Interested’ stage of the buyer’s journey.  Encourage these customers to write reviews, publish blog posts, interact on message boards and forums.

The reality is that your most passionate customers are also your best salespeople.  Research has shown time and time again that we don’t trust brands, but we do trust other customers.