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The Fan-Damn-Tastic Marketing Show is LIVE!

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I’ve been waiting 7 years to say this, but I have a new podcast to tell you about!  The Fan-Damn-Tastic Marketing Show will be focused on marketing topics and how companies can better connect with their customers and covert them into passionate fans.  If you’ve read this blog or Think Like a Rock Star you know what you’ll be hearing.

Show Notes:

Hope you enjoy it!  The Fan-Damn-Tastic Marketing Show will be short by design, because as I explain in the episode I dislike hour-long podcasts.  Most episodes will be 15 minutes or less, and the first one clocks in at just under 8 minutes.

Hope you enjoy it, and let me know what you think!

If the above player doesn’t work for you, here’s a direct link to the episode.

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How Figures Toy Company is Masterfully Using Social Media to Build Product Demand, and Giving Me Back My Childhood At the Same Time

If you grew up in the 1970s as I did, the odds are you owned a toy created by the Mego Corporation.  The company made its hay with dolls (today called Action Figures) and its most popular line was The World’s Greatest Super-Heroes, giving children everywhere their first exposure to characters like Batman, Spiderman and Superman.  The figures were incredibly well made and detailed for the time, including cloth costumes that could be removed (and then lost).  One of my earliest childhood memories is as a 6 year-old taking my $6 and going to TG&Y and happily spending six week’s worth of allowance on a Robin doll.  Those were the days.

And a company called Figures Toy Company is now helping me relive those days.  Last year the company announced that it had acquired the DC Comics license and would be recreating these magical Mego figures of my childhood in near perfect replicas of the originals.

I’m not sure exactly how you ‘squee’, but I think I did it back in January when I first discovered this news.  I immediately started checking out FTC’s website and social media presences  for more information on the figures, and that’s when I realized that FTC is doing a wonderful job of leveraging social media to build demand for these figures.

First, let’s consider the market for these figures.  At $25 and up, these figures aren’t for priced to sell to children, they are primarily for adult collectors, and more specifically adult collectors that are fans of Mego figures.

One of the points I make in Think Like a Rock Star is that fans want special access.  They want to go behind the scenes and get a backstage pass.  FTC has been releasing these figures in ‘Waves’ of 4 characters at a time.  In most cases, they announce the upcoming wave 6-8 months before the product officially goes on sale.

So how do you keep fans excited for 6-8 months?  By giving them special access and a look behind the scenes.  Here’s what FTC has been doing:

1 – After the initial figure wave announcement, they then show pictures of the sculpt of the figure’s head.  This gets fans excited and gives them a better idea of what the final figure could look like.

2 – Next, they’ll reveal the prototype for the completed figure, giving fans a much better idea of what to expect.

3 – The first two steps take place over several weeks, so by now it’s about a month or two prior to the expected on-sale date of the figures.  Next, FTC will post pictures on its Facebook page that show the figures being assembled in its factory:

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4 – Finally, the figures go on sale!  Then when they arrive, delighted customers take pictures of them and send them to FTC, who then turns around and posts the pictures from its fans on its Facebook page:

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And along the way FTC is using its Facebook page to answer any and all questions from customers, often giving them nuggets about future releases.

From a marketing standpoint, this level of transparency is exactly what fans of these figures are clamoring for.  There’s been no shortage of geeking out on blogs and forums about these figures, and fans across the board are thrilled with FTC for being so open about the process.  Giving fans better information about how the figures are made and detailing the process helps build demand for the figures.

And it’s leading to big sales for FTC.  The first wave of 4 figures were released in November of last year, and barely six months later the entire wave has sold out and the products have been retired.  The lesson here is if you have passionate fans for the products you make, give them MORE information and behind the scenes information about the products they love.  It could have a BIG impact on your business’ bottom line, as it is for FTC.

PS: Yes FTC is getting my money as well!

FTCBAts

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How to Make Sure Your Online Messages Live in All Customer Conversations

Business NetworkingNote from Mack: This is a sponsored post from Jim Karrh, as part of his #Blogchat sponsorship for April.  You can learn more about Jim at his site and also check out his blog, Managing the Message.

 

“There’s no consistency in what our people are saying to customers. It seems like everyone is just rolling their own.”

The tech-company executive who told me this was bemoaning a common problem: their blog posts, white papers, case studies, and other thought-leadership efforts weren’t landing in the most common customer interactions. He was weary from the disconnects (and griping) among the marketing, product development, sales, delivery, and service teams.

But it was the sheer volume of missed opportunities that was most frustrating. How many face-to-face meetings, virtual meetings, phone calls, call-center exchanges, networking opportunities, and emails occur across your organization every week? If they were more crisp, consistent, and relevant to buyers (or members, or donors, or whomever) what would be the impact on revenue, margins, customer satisfaction, or morale?

I do not believe that this common silo’ed reality is due to bad intentions, inept people, or boneheaded strategies. Rather, there are powerful forces that drive a wedge between customer-facing teams and effective conversations:

  • Comfort—over time we often settle into saying the same things to the same people
  • Consistency—different team members want to say and show things “their way”
  • Complexity—people, especially experts, drown their messages in lingo and acronyms (when they should be able to convey complex ideas via a simple picture)
  • Culture—many organizations lack the structure, resources, or habits for sharing wins and best practices
  • Coaching—managers often lack the time or knowledge necessary to build conversational fluency within their teams

No one is immune and perfection is impossible. In a prior professional life as a chief marketing officer, our company was recognized as having a “best in the world” integrated marketing and PR program—yet it was still frustrating to carry those messages consistently, succinctly, and accurately through our sales teams and distributors.

These days I serve clients by helping them transform their real-time customer conversations, via Karrh and Associates as well as messaging engagements through DSG. Most client organizations, regardless of size or industry, have found it difficult to produce consistently good customer conversations on their own. So, how can you change things?

We engage an executive sponsor in the client company, establish a cross-functional team of A-players for whom customer conversations are important, and together develop a “playbook” with simple talking points, questions to ask, audience profiles, and other field-ready tools (including visuals) for leading a conversation. It’s important to focus on what real people will actually use. The result isn’t a tagline or logo that an ad agency produces to be distributed “out there,” but rather a guide to how everyone should prepare for and act during customer conversations.

That reality makes any effort to bring consistency to customer conversations both political and personal. It requires intense collaboration. But it pays dividends, often in less than a year–without a company having to change strategy, product features, pricing, or distribution.

Even better…because almost everyone in your organization is well equipped to carry the conversation a transformed customer conversation can be a unifying and rallying effort.

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Your Brand’s Legal (and Practical) Options for Addressing Negative Comments

7468312536_638cf71b6d_zSooner or later, your brand will receive a negative comment or bad review. Some posts will come from actual customers, others from competitors hoping to poach your customers.

Still others will come from trolls: people who have never bought from you, will never buy from you, and seemingly have nothing better to do than make your brand manager’s life difficult.

Regardless of who made the post, your reaction is likely to be the same: a deep longing for the post to disappear. But it won’t.

Here are your options for addressing damaging comments online, from least feasible (a lawsuit) to least palatable (taking the high road).

When can you sue?
People and brands alike must suffer a certain number of “slings and arrows.” Just because someone thinks your service is slow or your fries are soggy doesn’t give rise to a legal cause of action.

Once the comments move from obnoxious to defamatory, however, suing might become an option. Laws vary from state to state, but in most jurisdictions, defamation requires a false statement of fact (as opposed to an opinion), publication (communication of the false statement to at least one other person), negligence (if the defamatory matter is of public concern), and damage to the brand’s reputation.

Think “this finance company steals money from client accounts” as opposed to “this finance company sucks.”

You could issue a cease and desist letter to the person who posted the comments, but be aware that many such letters wind up featured on the person’s blog, or on third-party sites like Techdirt.

Ultimately, if the false statements really are damaging to your brand, you might have to bring suit, but you’ll want to carefully consider the implications before you do.

In the United States, the plaintiff must prove that the statements were false (as opposed to the burden being on the defendant to prove that they were true). In some jurisdictions, companies must meet the same standards as a public figure or celebrity in order to recover damages, and show that the person making the statement did so with “actual malice,” knowing it was false or exhibiting a “reckless disregard” for the truth.

In addition to the costs inherent in litigation, you could easily find your company cast as the bully in a David vs. Goliath type conflict, as we saw in the case of a Missouri bar owner who received a cease and desist letter from Starbucks.

Instead of suing, what should you do?
Respond. More than 1/3 of people who mention a brand on a social network expect a reply in 30 minutes or less (like a pizza delivery)!

As quickly as possible, post a reply to the comment on the same site where it was made. If the comments are in a Facebook post, reply on Facebook. If it was a Yelp review, reply on Yelp.

If the comments are on someone’s blog, contact the publisher directly, or post a comment on that site, but keep a screen shot in case they delete it.

Bear in mind that some people who post negative comments about your brand have a legitimate grievance. You will provide a better response if you write your reply with his in mind.

Brands do have some options when it comes to addressing defamatory statements. If the comments are posted to a third-party site like Yelp, you can contact the site to request that they be removed.

Be prepared to explain precisely how the comments posted violate the site’s terms of service. To report a defamatory review on Yelp, for instance, you’d select “Questionable Content” or “Legal Inquiries” from the drop-down menu provided and report the objectionable post as violating Yelp’s terms of service, section 6(a)(I) on content guidelines.

Be sure to give specifics about what the commenter said, and emphasize that it is both false and damaging.

Google has a form users can complete to request that information be removed. Facebook and Twitter provide options for reporting abusive posts, pages, accounts, etc. If the damaging review is posted on a blog, you can request the hosting company to remove a defamatory post.

In most instances, the costs of bringing a lawsuit will outweigh the benefit, and might even bring more attention to the negative comments about your brand. When defending your brand against online comments, consult with an attorney in your jurisdiction.

Ultimately, the best protection against negative comments is a healthy dose of goodwill. Invest time now—before a crisis hits—cultivating a closer relationship with fans of your brand, so they can be your first line of defense if the trolls attack.

Connect with your fans now, before you need them to rally to your brand’s defense: you’ll be glad you did!

Pic via Flickr user DonkeyHotey

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In the Future Your Customers Will Completely Control Your Marketing

I recently saw a study into the content consumption habits of millenials that claimed that individuals ages 18 to 36 spend an average of 17.8 hours a day with different types of media.

Some forms of media are more important to millennials than others. Social media is a top priority, as 71 percent say that they engage in social media daily. User-generated content — which encompasses social-media posts, photos, blogs, email, texting and talking to others about media — occupies about 5.4 hours of the average millennial’s day. That’s 30 percent of their total daily media consumption.

The only rival to user-generated media is the old standby of traditional media — print, radio and television – which accounts for 33 percent of millennials’ media consumption.

Think about that for a minute.  Better yet, those of you that are over the age of 36, recall when you were children, in a pre-internet age.  How much time did you spend each day consuming media and what percentage of it was from traditional sources?  Contrast that with the 18 hours a day total and 6 hours of traditional media that millenials consume today and it’s clear to see how media consumption habits are changing.  More media is being consumed every day and increasingly it is coming from a source that is not paid for by brands.

This trend will only accelerate.  A couple of weeks ago when I went to get my haircut, the women that cuts my hair brought her 2 year-old nephew with her to the office.  How did she keep him entertained?  By giving him an iPad.  Here’s a child that cannot form coherent sentences yet, but he can use a computer.  By the time he’s 18, almost all of the media he consumes will come from people just like him, and little if any of it will come from your brand.

In the future your marketing messages will be spread via your customers.  They already are to a great degree, but your ability as a brand to create messages and send them directly to customers is increasingly being diminished.  Last week I keynoted at Strategy 2014 in Huntsville, and at the end of the day I participated on an ‘Ask the Experts’ panel (I call these ‘Stump the Chump’) with a few other speakers.  An attendee asked us which social media tool would be the next ‘hot’ thing.  What would be the next Twitter or Facebook.

It’s a question many brands want to know the answer to, and it’s completely the wrong question to ask.  Your focus shouldn’t be on understanding how to use social media tools, your focus should be on understanding why your customers are using social media tools.

That understanding only comes from increased interactions.  You need to focus today on increasing the number of direct interactions you have with your customers.  This will lead to you better understanding your customers, and they better understanding your brand.  Here’s why this is important:

Interactions

If you start interacting with your customers today, that will lead to understanding. So when we reach a not-so distant future where your customers completely control your marketing message, they will understand your brand, they will trust your brand and they will be able and willing to spread your marketing messages for you.

Your focus shouldn’t be on understanding social media tools, your focus should be on better understanding your customers so that you can create a more valuable experience for them today, so that you can earn their trust tomorrow.

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Study: Popularity is Determined More By Peer Pressure Than Quality

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This morning I came across a fascinating study (via NPR) done by Princeton professor Matthew Salganik who attempted to learn why works of art become popular.  In essence, Salganik wanted to know if popularity was based more so on the actual quality of the art, or does social influence play a role?

To find the answer, Salganik surveyed 30,000 teenagers and let them listen to 48 unknown songs by unknown bands.  What Salganik did was divide these teenagers into one of two groups.  The first group would listen to the music and then rate the songs from one to five stars.  Then after listening to the songs and rating them, the person would then have the opportunity to download the song for free.  This was the ‘independent’ group.

The second group was called the ‘social’ group, and it was divided into eight smaller groups.  Each person in each of these eight groups follows the same process as the independent group.  They listen to the songs, then rate them and finally are presented with the option to download the song for free, or not.  The big difference is that with the social group, every member can see how many times every song has been downloaded by members of their group.  In short, they can see which songs are popular within their group and which ones are not, and they have this information available to them before they rate each song.  But they are only able to see the popularity of the songs within their group (of eight groups within the larger social group).  They can’t see the popularity levels for the songs in the other 7 groups of the larger social group.  Also, in some cases the songs are ordered based on popularity (most popular listed first) and in other groups the popularity of each song is shown, but the list isn’t sorted by popularity.

What Salganik found was that when participants were made aware of the popularity of the songs (but the songs were not sorted based on popularity) that the more popular songs were rated more highly.  When the songs were actually sorted according to popularity, this affect was magnified.  So the popular songs became much more popular and the songs that were lower ranked became even less popular.

Salganik appeared at the Thought Leader Forum in 2011 and explained in more detail some of his findings from this study:

There’s this idea that the more people can see what other people are doing, the more they’re going to find the best thing. But in fact, what we see is that when people can see what other people are doing, they start following people, who are actually following other people who are following other people. And this process of following can become decoupled from the underlying reality.

To give a concrete example from these experiments, there is one song, “Lockdown” by 52 Metro, again a song no one has heard of by a band no one has heard of. In one world, this song came in first. It was the most downloaded
song. In another world, this exact same song came in 40th out of 48. This exact same song competing against the exact same other songs.

But you can see to the extent that when we have these kinds of feedback processes, when people are following what other people are doing, slight initial fluctuations at the beginning can become locked in, and then that leads to
very different outcomes, even for the exact same song.

Isn’t that fascinating?  All of this points to a fundamental truth: We as human beings gravitate to that which other human beings have identified as being ‘popular’.  We trust each other and seek out input when we are choosing, especially when given a wide variety to choose from, as the participants in Salganik’s study were given.

The takeaway for your business?  That much of the purchase decision the average customer makes is simply based on feedback from other customers.  Which is exactly why your business should be embracing and engaging with its most passionate customers so that they can help connect with other customers before they make a purchase.

Remember, rock stars don’t have fans because they are rock stars, they are rock stars because they have fans.  If you want to be a rock star brand, you need to learn to connect with your most passionate customers in much the same way that rock stars do.

AFTERTHOUGHT: Since this study was rooted in music (where ‘quality’ is more subjective), does that mean peer pressure has less impact on the popularity of products such as say, travel luggage, where the criteria for what defines a quality product is less subjective?

Pic via Flickr user Gonzalo Baeza  

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How to Better Track the Ability of Your Marketing Efforts to Drive Sales

Hundred Dollar Bills Folded in a Money Clip

Yesterday’s post from Kerry on a Ford Blogger Outreach program she’s involved with led to a fascinating discussion in the comments on tracking the effectiveness of marketing channels in driving sales.  Thanks to Jerome, Hugh and Kevin for chiming in with their thoughts.  The point was made that it would be difficult to track actual sales that resulted from the blogger outreach, then again it would likely be even moreso with offline marketing channels such as television or billboard advertising.

So then the question becomes how does a brand do two things:

1 – Better track actual sales generated from marketing efforts.  In other words, how can brands better understand which marketing touch point ultimately converted into a sale.

2 – Give its customers the tools they need to help convert those sales.  And which customers should have these tools?

First, let’s talk tracking.  If your marketing efforts have an online element, there’s really no excuse not to at least attempt to track online conversations generated, if not actual sales.  Typically this is done with coding, like a coupon or sales code for tracking purchases or now hashtags are being used more frequently to track online conversations.  The great thing about hashtags is they can be used in print and television advertising as well.  It’s a bit more difficult on radio, other than ‘Like us on Facebook!’ or ‘Tell ’em Jim sent you!’.

It’s imperative to think backwards and ask yourself ‘If this marketing campaign generates sales, how would we be able to track that?’  Other than measuring metrics and looking for clues, think about how you can give customers ways to signal to you that they are either driving sales via word of mouth, or that they interacted with your marketing and decided to purchase.  This approach still isn’t perfect or foolproof (for example if a customer had 4 different encounters with you marketing via different channels, it’s difficult to determine which channel by itself truly generated the purchase, if any).  But it gives you a headstart.

Now as for giving customers the tools they need to help convert sales.  This is important because it’s critical to distinguish between giving referral tools to everyone (such as ‘Refer 5 friends and win a $50 gift card!) versus giving tools to only certain customers.

For example, yesterday Kerry talked about the blogger outreach she’s doing with Ford.  And let’s say when she picked up the C-Max, Ford gave her some advice/training on how she could tell others about the car, if she wanted to.  Maybe use this particular hashtag on Twitter, maybe give them this code for an extended test drive, etc.

But what if Kerry got the C-Max and then hated it?  And here’s Ford, that had given her the tools and ability to tell other customers about her experience with the C-Max, without considering that Kerry might hate it!  

On the other hand, what if Ford gives Kerry the C-Max, then a few days later they follow up with her to see how her experience is going.  Kerry communicates to Ford that she’s in love with the car and has already been telling others about it.  At that point, Ford gives Kerry the tools they want her to have to attempt to refer sales to them, etc.  Ford waits until Kerry has identified to the brand that she is pleased with the C-Max.  It’s a bit more work, but from Ford’s end it pays to sort of qualify Kerry as being excited about the C-Max, then giving her the tools and ability to share her excitement with other customers!  For example in Kerry’s example she’s already proactively created her own hashtag to help Ford track conversations she is generating about her experience, she’s also reached out to Ford to see if they could transfer the car to other friends locally and let them drive it for a period.

So with the tracking it pays to first think about what actions you want your marketing efforts to result in.  It could be sales, or perhaps another action that your brand has tracked in the past as being an indicator of a future sale.  For example Ford might want to track test drives that bloggers in its outreach program generate because it has found that in X% of the test drives, a purchase is made.  So Ford may want to track test drives (it also gives them a way to track the conversion rate from test drive referrals from bloggers vs the larger customer base to see if there’s a noticeable difference).

Figuring out what action to track also needs to consider the audience for your message.  For example, if the marketing effort is aimed at a wide audience, like a television spot, something like a hashtag makes more sense because it can help you track activities toward the bottom of the sales funnel, where you’re in the awareness stage versus action.  But with a more precise effort like a blogger outreach, it makes sense to track actions closer to an end sale since the people involved would be able to have more individual contact with potential customers, plus they would likely have a closer relationship with them.

As always, the more planning you invest, the better results you’ll see.

The question I’d like to pose is, should your strategy for what to track vary according to the marketing channel used?  For example, if you run a television spot should you focus on trying to track increased conversation (hashtags) or should a sale be the goal (call now!).  Do certain channels lend themselves to different outcomes and different tracking strategies?  What do you think?

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Brands, Stop Chasing New Customers and Ignoring Your Existing Ones

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Now is a good time to be in the market for a new satellite television provider.  The two main competitors, Dish and DirecTv, are throwing all kinds of incentives at you.  iPad minis, free DVR upgrades, free Visa cards.  Free, free, free.

The catch is, you typically have to be a new customer to take advantage of these offers.

It’s backwards, and it’s bullshit. When you reward new customers instead of existing ones you are training your customers that it pays to leave you.  Valuing new customers and ignoring loyal ones basically mocks your repeat customers.

Many industries do this, especially when the space is dominated by 2-3 competitors with very similar offerings.  Companies have to constantly offer new and additional incentives for new customers because they aren’t giving loyal customers any incentive to remain loyal.

Rock stars typically do the exact opposite.  Fans are rewarded.  Fans get special access, they get VIP treatment.  They typically get the best seats at concerts, they are the ones that get secret shows, they are the ones that get first access to new products and breaking news.  With rock stars, new customers are ignored in much the same way that many markets ignore existing customers.

I’ve talked about this before, but you build loyalty and create fans with rewards, not incentives.  Offering me products if I will switch to your company doesn’t win my loyalty to your brand, it simply gives me an incentive to take advantage of the offer.  I may have to sign a 2-year contract to get all the goodies, but if you have ignored me and my business, guess what happens in 2 years?  I will switch to your competitor, because they just offered me prizes and incentives for switching.

You are training your customers to leave you.

It’s not about offering incentives for new customers, it’s about offering rewards for existing customers.  Because referrals from happy customers is a far better marketing tool for you.

If the goal is to acquire new customers then you need to follow the rock star marketing model: Focus on delighting your existing customers, with the understanding that this will encourage your existing customers to become fans who will bring you new customers.   

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That Esurance Super Bowl Stunt and Finding the Real Value of Social Media

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So here’s the deal: Instead of buying a Super Bowl ad, Esurance bought the first ad AFTER the Super Bowl.  And they saved $1.5 Million in the process, then gave away that money.  If you wanted to win the cash, all you had to do was tweet the hashtag #ESuranceSave30 within 36 hours of the ad being aired.

AdWeek lauded the stunt as a huge success, and cited these results in making that claim:

• 5.4 million uses of the #EsuranceSave30 hashtag
• More than 200,000 entries within the first minute of the Esurance commercial airing
• 1.4 million hashtag uses in the first hour and 4.5 million in the first 24 hours
• 2.6 billion social impressions on Twitter
• 332,000 views of the Esurance commercial on YouTube
• 261,000 new followers on the official Esurance Twitter account—an increase of nearly 3,000 percent
• A 12x spike in visits to the Esurance website in the first hours of the sweepstakes

Does that look like a successful social media sweepstakes to you?

Augie Ray has an exhaustive analysis of the social sharing results Esurance saw from this stunt, and is critical of the rush to laud these results as being a sign of a win:

I am deeply disappointed to see Esurance’s Super Bowl sweepstakes results widely celebrated. Six years into the social era, I thought we had reached a certain point of social media maturity where we realize that fans and followers are not leads and that relationships are built through shared values and meaningful interactions. I naively thought that we had turned a corner, with widespread understanding that winning in social media occurs by providing great experiences that build long-term relationships and not with campaigns that yield short-term spikes of activity. I was wrong.

It’s easy to look at the results and be wowed.  But as Augie pointed out in his post, let’s not lose sight of the fact that these engagement figures are based on Esurance giving away $1.5 Million dollars.  I’m betting any of us could do the same thing on Twitter and get a shit-ton of new followers.

Augie also points out in his post that ESurance has already lost 15% of the followers they gained from this stunt.

And to me, this is the key point.  How well does Esurance convert these new followers and visitors into customers?  A 12X spike in website traffic is significant, as long as those visitors didn’t simply go to the site for 15 seconds because of this sweepstakes, and then never return.

On the other hand, if Esurance found a way to stay engaged with those new website visitors, then that does have value for the brand.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of the people that engaged with the brand immediately after the ad likely had no loyalty toward the brand, they just wanted to win the cash.  So while the ‘eye-popping’ social engagement numbers look good, they are the social media equivalent of farting in an elevator.  It gets everyone’s attention…till the doors open up and then everyone moves on with their lives.

The ultimate success of this stunt will be dictated by how many new customer relationships are created as a result.  If Esurance built into this ways to leverage the new exposure into an ongoing relationship, then the chances of this stunt being a success increase dramatically.

My guess is they (and their agency) are thrilled with the extra ‘pr value’ they got from this.

What do you think, do the above results make this a successful initiative in your mind?

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Why Context Makes Word of Mouth Marketing So Powerful

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Tomorrow I’ll be speaking in Birmingham to the Alabama Banker’s Association, presenting Think Like a Rock Star.  One of the points I’ll be making is the power of your fans utilizing context in their word of mouth.  We all understand the power of word of mouth, and there is a raft of research that proves that a product recommendation from another customer is considered more valuable than a marketing message from a brand.  We know this.

But what we often don’t appreciate is the power of context as it applies to word of mouth marketing.  When customers market to each other, they tailor their message to make it more appealing to others, based on their knowledge of the person they are talking to.  This is incredibly powerful, because your friend likely understands your wants and needs better than the brand that’s trying to win your business.

For example, a bank might be rolling out a new mortgage offering it wants to promote, but you know your friend is looking to buy her daughter her first car, so lower rates for auto loans is more important.  A fan of the bank would promote it to the friend with the daughter based on that context, understanding that the friend isn’t interested in a mortgage or re-financing their home right now.

Here’s another example that I’ve witnessed multiple times on Twitter.  I’ll be chatting with someone and we’ll start talking about my book and I’ll mention they should read it.  They will respond with something like ‘Thanks, I’ll check it out!’  Then a few minutes later, a friend of their’s will tweet them and say something like ‘I’ve read Think Like a Rock Star and it was great!  It would be perfect for your company, you should buy it!’  Then the person will say they are going to buy it.  My recommendation (as the author of the book) wasn’t enough to convince them to buy it.  But when their friend steps in and endorses the book, and adds context to why it would benefit them, that clinches the sale!

The end goal for your brand is to communicate a relevant marketing message to your customers because the more relevant the message is, the greater its chance of converting into a sale.  But sending relevant and customized messages to every customer would have exorbitant costs, which is why brands send a few select marketing messages out designed to reach the mass market.

But your satisfied customers are the link that gives other customers those relevant marketing messages that convert into sales.  This is exactly why word of mouth works.  And when you connect with your satisfied customers, you empower them to better communicate relevant selling points for your brand, to other customers they come in contact with.

Real business benefits from connecting with your biggest fans.  Look back at your own experiences and think about what has worked for you, are you more likely to purchase an item based on seeing a cool commercial, or hearing a recommendation from a friend you trust?