MackCollier.com

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The Key to Creating Content That Resonates Online

social media, companies, marketing, ceo

Create content that’s written from the point of view of the person it is intended for.

That’s the simple answer.  Figuring out exactly what that means is a bit more involved, but it’s still not as difficult of a process as we make it out to be.

First, it’s great to focus on making your content more ‘shareable’ via social media.  Or to optimize for search engines.  Such tactics are very smart and they help your content become more accessible and findable.

But, those efforts shouldn’t fundamentally change the content you create.  Your underlying goal should always be to create content that’s written from the point of view of the person it is intended for.

The problem is, too often we write content from our own point of view, without even realizing it.  Here’s an example:  Let’s say we are blogging for a company that creates digital camcorders.  If I am in the market for a digital camcorder to record myself speaking, which post is more valuable to me?

Post A – “Ten Reasons Why the Zoomia 3000 Is the Perfect Digital Camcorder For Your Every Need”

Post B – “Ten Steps To Shooting the Perfect Indoor Video, in Any Type of Lighting”

The second post addresses my needs.  The problem with most content that comes from brands is it focuses moreso on the product versus the actual thing we want to do with the product!  My problem isn’t that I need to know why I should buy a Zoomia 3000, my problem is that I need to find an affordable solution to shooting a high-quality video of myself speaking.

If your brand wants to instantly make it’s content more valuable to its customers, then create content that focuses on how your customers are using your product, versus the product itself.

Graco doesn’t blog about its products, it blogs about parenthood.

Patagonia doesn’t blog about its products, it blogs about the environment and outdoor activites.

Red Bull doesn’t create videos about energy drinks, it creates videos about athletes engaging in extreme sports.

Find the Bigger Idea behind your content, and blog about that.  You can still blog about your products, but instead you’ll be creating content that focuses on the ‘bigger, cooler thing’, as Kathy Sierra puts it, that your product is a part of.

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How Rock Stars Will Forever Change the World of Marketing

Last year Nielsen surveyed 28,000 internet users to discover what sources they trusted.  It should come as no surprise to anyone that the winner was Earned Media (media created about a source by someone other than the source) at 92%.  The second result at 70% was customer reviews online.  Paid Media, media that a source pays for to promote itself, fell in trust down to 47%, falling by 24%, 20% and 25% yearly since 2009.  Earned Media, especially Word of Mouth, is up 18% since 2007.

In other words, if someone else is talking about a brand, we trust them, but if the brand is talking about itself, we don’t.  This should come as a surprise to no one.

The disconnect is that brands know this as well, yet they continue to spend billions every year on advertising and marketing in an effort to get the attention of a group of people that have little to no interest in paying attention to them.  Brands seek to grow by acquiring new customers, and they create marketing strategies built around this goal.  But getting the attention of people that have little to no loyalty to your brand (as well as little to no interest in what you have to say) is a very expensive game.  For decades, the marketing idea has been to accept that most people won’t see your message the first time, so you just repeat it constantly until they do, and then pray that it resonates.

Rock stars play a different marketing game.

Rock stars actually have the exact same marketing goal as brands, they also want to acquire new customers.  But rock stars don’t focus on acquiring new customers via advertising and promotion, ie Paid Media, they focus on acquiring new customers via the efforts of their existing customers.  And specifically, a small subset of their existing customers, they focus on connecting with their biggest fans. Rock stars find the people that are the most fanatically passionate about them, and then connect with them and empower them to market the rock star to other fans.

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The benefits are obvious:  Rock stars are connecting with the group that has the most incentive to positively promote the rock star to other potential customers.  How many rock stars paid CBS $4M for a 30-second spot in this year’s Super Bowl?  Exactly, rock stars don’t have to throw money at crappy advertising that’s designed to gain the attention of people that are purposely trying to avoid the brand’s marketing messages.  They shift control of their marketing messages to the very people that customers trust the most: Their fans.

This is how rock stars are going to change marketing forever.  Rock stars have always built their careers around remaining connected to their biggest fans.  Brands have built themselves and their marketing strategies around gaining market share by acquiring new customers and effectively building the largest promotional megaphone.  That model worked well in the 50s when there were three media sources, the newspaper, television and radio.  Then, if you could afford to get your message distributed via those three sources, you won.

Today, the game has changed.  Instead of 3 media sources, here are 300,000,000, and 99.99999% of them are customer-driven.  Anyone that has a smartphone in their pocket has a promotional megaphone that’s more trustworthy than anything the average brand can create.

This is exactly why I wrote Think Like a Rock Star, to help brands learn to navigate a marketing world that rock stars conquered decades ago.  How much differently would the world of marketing look if brands didn’t focus on acquiring new customers via advertising, but instead connected directly with and delighted their biggest and most passionate fans?

It’s a question that your brand had better figure out the answer to quickly, because that’s where we are headed, like it or not.  Because there is big money to be made by embracing your biggest fans.  That’s another lesson that rock stars learned decades ago.

When will your brand wake up?

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Sorry Brands, Like It Or Not You’re Going to Have to Start Talking To Your Customers

In Think Like a Rock Star I devote an entire chapter to giving brands a step-by-step process for responding to customers online.  It’s honestly the most instructional chapter of the entire book, but I wanted to do this because in general companies have no idea how to respond to customers.  Not only do they not understand how to respond to customers, they don’t understand how other customers view customer feedback.

For example, emarketer ran a study that was recently done that found that 26% of US internet users distrusted a fellow customer’s online review if it was too negative.  As customers, we have pretty sophisticated BS meters.  I can tell if a company is trying to BS me, but I can also typically tell if a customer is going overboard in attacking a brand.  At some point, a customer’s criticism stops reflecting poorly on the brand, and starts reflecting poorly on the customer.

You can’t understand a conversation that you aren’t a part of.  

This is exactly why the smart companies are the ones that are connecting with their customers online.  Because by doing so, they are getting a better understanding of their customers as well as the online conversation around their brand.

One of the main recurring themes in Think Like a Rock Star is the importance of why companies need to better understand who their customers are.  In most cases, there’s an alarming disconnect between who the brand thinks its customers are, and vice-versa.  That disconnect in understanding exists in great part because the brand and customer have no real interaction with each other.

Perhaps the one thing I love about social media more than any other from a marketing standpoint is that now customers have the tools available to them to quickly and easily create content about a brand, and respond to a brand.  So brands are being forced, for the first time, to answer those customers.  They are being dragged (some of them kicking and screaming) into an era where they have to interact directly with their customers.

Which is scary as hell for many brands today, but it will lead to big benefits tomorrow.  Because interaction leads to understanding, which leads to trust, which leads to advocacy.

SteveKnoxQuote

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Subscribe to the Think Like a Rock Star Newsletter and Get the Introduction For Free

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Over the next few weeks I’ll be rolling out a few things to help make the launch of Think Like a Rock Star as successful as possible.  But a successful launch is really a small piece of the puzzle.  The goal in writing Think Like a Rock Star was to create a reference that not only helps brands understand their fans and who they are, but how to connect with them as well.  So much of the ‘marketing’ for the book is actually going to be about ways to support the readers of the book and their efforts to cultivate fans.

That starts tomorrow, when I launch the Think Like a Rock Star Newsletter.  This weekly newsletter will be a tool to support both current and potential readers of the book, and to help companies better connect with their fans.  I’ve designed it to compliment the teachings of the book, but you won’t have to buy the book to benefit from the newsletter.

And the best part? If you subscribe to the newsletter, I’ll send you the Introduction of Think Like a Rock Star for free!  This will give you a taste of what you’ll get in the book, and will be a good ‘Introduction’ to what we’ll cover.  If you want to subscribe, just submit your email below.  You’ll get one email from MailChimp confirming your email, then I will email you personally with your copy of he Introduction.  If you subscribe and don’t see the confirmation email from MailChimp then please check your spam folder.


I hope you’ll be a part of the movement to help more brands embrace and empower their biggest fans.  And if you haven’t pre-ordered your copy of Think Like a Rock Star yet, please do, it comes out in just two months!

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Patrick Murphy Excels At Winning Games and Winning Fans

Alabama softball fans that ordered season tickets had a bit of a surprise when their tickets arrived yesterday.  They were expecting the tickets, but probably weren’t expecting to see the person that hand-delivered them.

Head Coach Patrick Murphy.

Every year, Coach Murphy and the Alabama softball players make a point to go out and hand-deliver tickets to the fans that order season packages.  Recall that last month we talked about how you create loyalty in your customers by rewarding them after the purchase.  Alabama softball fans were expecting their season tickets this week, but having the head coach and team deliver them is the reward.

It’s also an example of how Coach Murphy and the team created something amazing for the people that love them.  To the fan, this moment of surprise and delight also validates why they support the program.  The fan feels better about supporting the program but also in a way feels better about themselves for supporting a head coach that would do this.

And to clarify, Patrick Murphy is only the 2nd softball coach that Alabama has ever had.  Murphy was named the coach in 1998 and was named assistant head coach when the program launched two years earlier in 1996.  So he had to literally build not only the program from the ground up, but its fanbase as well.  He knows the value of connecting with the program’s fans, and how important they are.  The first year of the program’s existence, the average attendance at softball games was 50 people.  Today, Alabama’s softball team is among the national leaders in attendance, and in 2011, the program set an NCAA record for single-day attendance at a softball event.

Oh, and winning helps.  Last year Coach Murphy led Alabama to its first softball National Championship in school history.  Showing your biggest supporters and fans that you appreciate them doesn’t hurt either.

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Think Like a Rock Star Book Tour Update Plus Pre-Order Offers For You

It’s been literally nine months since I first announced that I would be writing Think Like a Rock Star.  Yes, I probably announced it too early, but I was too excited to keep the news to myself!  Today I wanted to share with you how you can have me present Think Like a Rock Star as part of the book tour but I also wanted to share a few pre-order offers I’ve created for you.

First, let me explain why pre-orders are valuable to me, the author.  More pre-orders do three important things:

1 – They signal to booksellers that they need to order more copies of the book to meet demand.

2 – They signal to my publisher that they need to give more marketing support to this book due to increased demand.

3 – It helps the book reach those magical Bestseller lists because all pre-orders count toward sales for the 1st week the book is available.

Now so far, my publisher is thrilled with the the pre-order numbers for the book, but as part of the learning process for me (and as a way to reward you for pre-ordering the book), I’ve created a few pre-order offers for you.

First, you can pre-order the book now, and both Amazon and Barnes and Noble are carrying it currently for $12.27.  I’m not sure about B&N, but Amazon will give you the lower price if the book drops in price after you pre-order it but before it comes out.  For example, some people pre-ordered Think Like a Rock Star when Amazon first listed it in October for $22.  Those people will pay no more than $12.27 for the book since the price has dropped.

So here’s my pre-order offers for you(All of these offers expire on March 1st, or when they are filled, whichever comes first):

1 – Pre-order two(2) copies of Think Like a Rock Star and I will write a free guest post for your blog on how companies or bloggers can connect with their fans (minimum of 500 words).  The post will tie into the themes of Think Like a Rock Star, and along with the guest post you can do a giveaway for the 2nd copy of the book that you pre-ordered!  It will be a nice way to get your blog some extra exposure, your readers will appreciate the giveaway, plus it will help me raise awareness for the book.  The guest post must run on your blog between April 1st and April 15th, 2013.  I will also promote it on Twitter for you.  This offer is limited to the first three(3) people that email me a copy of their receipt from either Amazon or B&N that shows they have pre-ordered two(2) copies of the book.  You can pre-order Think Like a Rock Star here from Amazon and here from Barnes and Noble.

2 – Pre-order five(5) copies of Think Like a Rock Star and I’ll do an interview on your blog about how companies and bloggers can cultivate fans (3-5 questions, emailed to me beforehand).  In addition, I will give you a free 30-minute phone consultation (A $150.00 value).  This can be about whatever you want, how your company can better connect with its fans, how you (or your company) can improve its blogging efforts, whatever.  The interview post must run on your blog between April 1st and April 15th, 2013.  I will also promote it on Twitter for you.  This offer is limited to the first three(3) people that email me a copy of their receipt from either Amazon or B&N that shows they have pre-ordered five(5) copies of the book, and residents of the United States.  You can pre-order Think Like a Rock Star here from Amazon and here from Barnes and Noble.

3 – Pre-order ten(10) copies of Think Like a Rock Star and I will give you two one-hour phone consultations, the first hour will be in May 2013, the second hour will be in June 2013.  This is a $500 value, just for pre-ordering ten (10) copies of the book.  This offer is limited to the first three(3) people that email me a copy of their receipt from either Amazon or B&N that shows they have pre-ordered ten (10) copies of the book, and residents of the United States.  You can pre-order Think Like a Rock Star here from Amazon and here from Barnes and Noble. (UPDATE: This offer is no longer available!)

4 – Pre-order fifty(50) copies of Think Like a Rock Star and I will give you six one-hour phone consultations, one a month for every month from July 2013 through December 2013.  This is a value of $1,500.00!  This is for companies that are serious about connecting with their fans and building a fan-centric brand.  This offer is limited to the first two(2) people that email me a copy of their receipt from either Amazon or B&N that shows they have pre-ordered fifty(50) copies of the book, and residents of the United States.     You can pre-order Think Like a Rock Star here from Amazon and here from Barnes and Noble.

Now, if you want to have me present Think Like a Rock Star at your company or event, here’s the details.  I will give you a 45-60 minute presentation on Think Like a Rock Star.  The presentation can be tweaked to your particular industry or event’s focus, etc.  The total time of the presentation itself will be 45-60 minutes, including Q&A.  I will waive my speaking fee if you agree to pre-order 100 copies of Think Like a Rock Star from either Amazon or Barnes and Noble.  There are some stipulations to this offer.  First, it’s only available for speaking engagements within the continental United States from May through October, 2013.  Second, you must cover all travel costs for me, including round-trip flight, 2-night hotel stay, and any associated taxi fares to and from the airport/hotel/event site.  All dates are subject to availability.   I will be happy to do a book-signing of up to 30-minutes immediately after my presentation, or if that isn’t possible I will be happy to sign the books prior to presenting so the attendees can have their copy signed.  If you would like to book me to present Think Like a Rock Star at your company or event, please email me to discuss details.

Finally, for the first time I wanted to share the Table of Content from Think Like a Rock Star, to give you a better sense of exactly what’s covered in the book.  This is subject to change, but we’ve been tinkering with the flow for weeks and I think we now have it set as it will appear in the book:

Foreword by Kathy Sierra

Preface

Introduction

Part 1: The Four Reasons Why Rock Stars Have Fans (and Your Company Has Customers)

Chapter 1: Rock Stars Are Fans Themselves

Chapter 2: Rock Stars Look for Ways to Shift Control to Their Fans

Chapter 3: Rock Stars Find the Bigger Idea Behind the Music They Create

Chapter 4: Rock Stars Embrace and Empower Their Fans

Part 2: Understanding and Connecting With Your Fans

Chapter 5: Who Your Fans Are and How Can You Connect with Them

Chapter 6: How to Handle Negative Comments and Convert Angry Customers Into Passionate Fans

Part 3: Building a Fan-Centric Company

Chapter 7: Organizing Your Employees So They Can Better Connect with Your Customers

Chapter 8: How to Organize and Mobilize Your Customer and Brand Advocates

Chapter 9: Empower Your Fans and Employees

Chapter 10: Helping Your Brand Ambassadors Connect With Your Customers

Chapter 11: What Comes Next

 

In leading up to the production of the book, one of the things I’ve been doing is showing a select few brand and social media marketers the book so they can review it for us.  Here’s what Katie Morse, the Social Marketing Manager for Billboard had to say about Think Like a Rock Star:

“There’s a theory in music that if a musician has “1,000 true fans” (credit: Kevin Kelly), they’ve created a sustainable and full-time music career due to the passion, buying power, and advocacy of those 1,000 fans. Think Like A Rock Star takes that principle, and shows companies the exact steps they need to take to connect with their fans, and the business value from doing so. I highly suggest this book to anyone who wants to figure out how their business (or the one they work for) can stop treating their customers as customers, and start connecting with them as fans.”

If you want to pre-order Think Like a Rock Star, you can do so here at Amazon, and here at Barnes and Noble.  Thank you and if you have any questions please email me!

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Why Red Bull and Patagonia Are Winning the Content Race

Digiday had a nice article today profiling Patagonia’s content strategy.  I found this quote from Patagonia’s Creative Director Bill Boland to be very interesting:

 “Our content stays away from the hard sell,” said Bill Boland, Patagonia’s creative director. “But we are finding that our customers are interested in talking about our products. Even with the climbers out at Patagonia, customers want to know what gear they are wearing, what works for them and what does not, so that is something we are looking into for the future.”

By focusing on the activities and themes that are relevant to Patagonia’s customers, the brand earns their trust and a role reversal takes place.  Instead of Patagonia trying to sell to its customers, the customers are coming to them and asking for more information about the products they sell!

This is the new model of digital content creation.  Don’t focus on your products, focus on the ideas and themes that relate to your products.  Red Bull also does a masterful job of this in its commercials:

That commercial now has over 4 million views.  But note that you never see the energy drink itself until the last few seconds, and barely see the brand’s logo.  The spotlight is on the athletes and the activities they love to engage in, not the product itself.

Patagonia and Red Bull have discovered what your brand needs to:  That you can create relevant and compelling content for your customers by focusing on what their interests are and how your product relates to those themes and ideas.  It’s exactly why both brands are used as case studies in Think Like a Rock Star, because they understand how to create content that’s so popular with its fans that they seek out not only the brand’s content, but its products as well.

If your content strategy isn’t working, maybe it’s time to ask yourself if you’re focused on your products and services, or how those products and services relate to the ideas and themes that are most important to your customers.

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Is a Fan the Same Thing as a Brand Advocate?

Most people use the terms interchangeable, but I think they are two separate types of people.  In my mind, fans have a higher level of passion and sense of ownership over a brand.  Both brand advocates and fans want to see their favorite brands succeed, but  I think the difference is that fans will work with the brand to make that happen.

And to be clear, in this context fans are much rarer than brand advocates.  Their level of devotion and passion for the brand also makes them far more special.  In Think Like a Rock Star, the underlying focus of the entire book is to help your brand create a process and framework for connecting with your fans.  And I constantly stress that your brand shouldn’t get hung up on how many (or typically how few) fans you have.  The people that will Like your Facebook page aren’t typically your ‘fans’.

For example, if you join Maker’s Mark’s brand ambassador program, the brand views it as if you are accepting a job.  Your new job is to promote the product to other customers, as well as talk to bars and restaurants and either encourage them to carry it if they are not, and to thank them for carrying it, if they do.  Your job is to be a raving fan of Maker’s Mark.  Now a true fan of the brand will jump at the chance, and the brand’s program has been extremely popular from its onset over a decade ago.

But if you were to look at everyone that Liked your Facebook page or that followed you on Twitter and made them a similar ‘job’ offer, how many would take you up on that offer?  Probably not many.  So if you are a brand, you need to understand that your true fans are pretty rare customers, there’s probably not a lot of them out there.

Still, it’s incredibly powerful to connect with them, because the thing about your fans is:

1 – They have extremely high levels of loyalty.  So high that they will go out and recruit new fans among your existing customers, and attempt to acquire new customers for you.

2 – They have a high sense of ownership over your brand.   For example they will tell you what’s wrong with your brand, then work alongside you to correct it.

3 – They are your best source of marketing.  Your fans can more effectively connect with customers than your brand can because your fans are speaking in a voice that the customer can relate to: Their own.

 

So don’t get caught up in the numbers game, and don’t fret if your brand doesn’t have 50,000 fans, it may only have 50.  The point is to connect with the fans you do have.  If you need the roadmap to get you started identifying who your fans are and how you can connect with them, now it’s available.

PS:  Here’s a freebie from the book:  One way to help identify your fans is by looking for ‘hand-raisers’.  Remember that since your fans feel a sense of ownership over your brand, they will often reach out to you and initiate contact.  Look for people that are emailing you, that are contacting you on Twitter and Facebook, or even writing letters.  If you are a blogger, the reader that emailed you last week to let you know that they loved your latest post and that it resonated with you, they are likely a fan.  They want to connect with you and thank you for what you do.  Your fans have the motivation to connect with you that your ‘brand advocates’ may not.

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The Art of Book Marketing and the One Thing Many Authors Miss

Think Like a Rock Star is now less than three months from hitting stores.  So as you might guess, these last few months have been a crash course for me in how to effectively market a book and help it be successful.

Most of the information I’ve found and advice I’ve received from other authors has focused on The Launch.  The idea is to sell as many copies of your book as possible into a small concentrated window, typically the week that your book comes out.  You want to sell as many copies as possible during that launch week because typically those bestseller lists from sources like The New York Times and others reset each week.  And focusing in sales on that one-week launch period might be the difference between forever being known as a published author, and being a New York Times Bestselling author.  For the author, it’s a really huge deal.

So as you might expect, I’ve got a ton of stuff planned to help Think Like a Rock Star have as successful of a launch as possible.  And over the next few weeks I will be asking for your help in seeing that successful launch take place.

But the thing about a book launch is that it’s mostly focused on what’s best for the author.  As I was researching this, I realized there was a parallel to my book, in that really the launch is all about acquiring new customers.  Getting as many new sales as possible so that it helps the book’s ability to hit all those bestseller lists and all that jazz.  So in a way, if I strictly focused my book’s marketing on The Launch, I was really undermining one of the core lessons of Think Like A Rock Star.

Focus on  New Customers or Existing Fans?

The thing that really separates rock stars from most brands is who they market to.  While most companies focus on acquiring new customers, most rock stars focus on delighting their existing fans.  Rock stars focus most of their time and energy on connecting with their existing customers, not their new ones.

This prompted me to rethink my marketing plan for this book a bit.  There’s no doubt that The Launch is insanely huge to a book’s eventual success.  But in my opinion, even more important than marketing to new customers is finding ways to support your existing readers.

So over the next few weeks while I prep for the book’s launch, I will also be launching some efforts to support the readers of this book.  For example, starting within the next 7-10 days, I will be launching an email newsletter to compliment the book.  This newsletter will also be a tool to help readers learn how their businesses can better connect with their fans.  It will be an ongoing effort, and it will provide the most value to people after they buy the book.  I also have a couple of other projects that I’m not ready to announce yet.

But for now, I am going to end this post by asking for your help.  If you have or did buy Think Like a Rock Star, what could I offer you after your purchase to help support your brand’s efforts to better connect with its fans?  Maybe a place where readers could connect and get advice from me and each other?  Or what have other authors done for his/her readers that you really liked, that added value to you as a reader?

I saw where someone, I think it was Seth Godin, said that one of the best reasons to write a book was to start a conversation.  That was really the driving force for me to write Think Like a Rock Star, I wanted to start a conversation about how companies can better understand who their fans are, and connect with them.  Part of that conversation is finding ways to support the people that want to find ways to do just that for their companies.

What are your thoughts?  What could I do as an author to create more value for you as a reader after you buy the book?

PS: I’ve started sending out copies of Think Like a Rock Star to a few colleagues and I recently got feedback on the book from Paper.li’s Community Manager, Kelly Hungerford.  Here’s what Kelly thought:  “Simple, jargon-free and true to Mack Collier’s authentic style, this book explains exactly why your brand need fans and not customers, and how you can turn your most enthusiastic ones into powerful brand advocates.  Mack delivers his passion for brand advocacy, knowledge of customer-centric marketing and in-depth understanding of what makes the most devoted of fans tick in a language we can all relate to: rock stars and fans.

I love this this book for many reasons, but mostly because that for every “why” in this book, there is a “how” to back it up! The case studies, tips and social media advice are perfectly aligned with Mack’s underlying mission of helping brands understand the true value of their most passionate customers. It’s a must read for modern day marketers and I highly recommend you purchase two copies: one for you and one for your team.”

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You Build Loyalty and Create Fans With Rewards

It’s the timing and context of the reward that’s crucial.

If you walk into Best Buy and the door greeter smiles and hands you a coupon for 20% off any purchase over $100 during your visit, that’s not a reward.  It’s an incentive to make a purchase.  While that coupon might increase the chance that you will make a purchase during that trip to Best Buy, in the grand scheme of things it’s probably not going to make you more loyal to the chain.

If you walk into your favorite antique mall and the owner greets you and says “BTW, do you still need that final glass to complete your Pepsi collection from 1975?  Because we just bought a large collection of glassware and I found it and put it aside to ask you about the next time you came in.  Here you go!”  That’s a true reward because it comes as a result of previous purchases and isn’t directly tied to a future purchase.

Above that, this type of reward communicates appreciation to the customer for their business.  That builds loyalty because the business is literally saying Thank You.

The Best Buy example communicates a desire to have you buy something.   So even though you are getting a coupon, you understand that Best Buy is acting in its best interest.  And yes, the antique shop owner is also acting in their best interest by giving you the Pepsi glass you need, because they could sell that to someone else.  So it is worth money to the owner, but the owner also understands the value that you place on this item.  It’s the final glass you need to complete a collection that you’ve been assembling for 10 years!

So if you are wanting to offer rewards that also build loyalty, focus on ways to reward existing behavior versus trying to incentivize new behavior.

Now, what about loyalty punch cards?  You’ve probably seen these at restaurants, coffee shops and the like.  Buy 5/10 meals, get one free.  Is that what we mean by building loyalty by rewarding after the purchase?

No, because even though the reward comes after the purchase, there’s an incentive to make the next purchase.  So really, punch cards like this are building loyalty to the offer, not the brand.  For example, let’s say it’s your lunch hour and you are about to run to Subway, when you remember that you have a Pizza Hut lunch buffet punch card, and that with one more punch you card will be full and you’ll get a free meal.  That will probably swing your lunch decision to Pizza Hut, but what happens next week when your Pizza Hut punch card is empty?  Will there still be the same level of incentive to start a new punch card, or will you then decide to go to Subway for lunch?

Remember, the timing and context of the reward is crucial to building loyalty.  It determines if you are saying ‘Thank you!’ for existing behavior, or attempting to create new behavior.

Also, when a business shows you that they appreciate your business, it validates your loyalty to them.  It makes you feel better about supporting them, and it does become an incentive to make an additional purchase.

But the incentive doesn’t come from the brand, it comes from you.  We all want to support the brands that we feel appreciate us and act in our best interests, as well as their own.  There’s a feeling of ‘well they did something for me, now I want to do something for them!’

You don’t get that with coupons and incentives, because we understand that the brand is offering these to entice sales.  Which means its motivation lies in its own best interests.

You build loyalty by offering the reward after and independently of the purchase.  Not by offering it before and tying it to a purchase.

PS: In the above picture the incentive is obvious but the reward might not be.  On June 13th, 2010, Taylor Swift held a special free autograph signing for her fans in Nashville.  She started signing at 8am in the morning, and finally stopped at 10:30PM that night.  This was one of the many ways that Taylor says Thank You to her fans for their existing behavior.   And it’s one of the many reasons why they love her.