Nobody has ever said, “You know what? I just wish I could get more emails from companies.”
You’ll never hear any consumer tell you that your company doesn’t push enough automated messages, or that they love how you’re doing things exactly the same way as every other company they interact with.
I recently interviewed Jay Baer, NYT Best Selling author, blogger, and founder of Convince and Convert, about his 25 years in digital marketing, how to create word of mouth, and why irrelevant content might be slowly destroying your brand. You can listen to the whole interview on the podcast here.
1) Create Talk Triggers
One of the best ways for you to succeed is to create word of mouth, to turn your customers into volunteer marketers. According to Jay and his studies, word of mouth comprises roughly nineteen percent of the US economy. Think about that. One out of every five purchases made in the United States is driven by word of mouth.
100% of companies care about word of mouth, but only 1% of companies have a strategy for creating word of mouth.
[Tweet “”Only 1% of companies have a strategy for creating word of mouth.” – @jaybaer #FlipMyFunnel”]
Borrowing from Jay’s forthcoming book, your company needs to create talk triggers. Do something so strategically different that it creates conversations.
There are dozens of hotel chains in the United States, and very few have talk triggers. You know one that does?
Doubletree. Seriously. If you’ve stayed at a Doubletree recently, you’ll remember that upon check-in, they give you a chocolate chip cookie. According to some studies, more than sixty percent of customers have proactively, unaided, told someone else about that cookie in the last ninety days.
You have to create your talk triggers.
2) Same is Lame
Everybody has a choice. You can do something different, or you can play follow the leader.
You hear people say a lot that “we need to keep pace with the industry leaders. We need to do what the leaders in the industry are doing.”
The problem with following the leader, is that you will never be better than the leader.
“If all you care about are averages, you’ll never be anything more than an average marketer.” – Jay Baer
If you want your current customers to recruit new customers, you have to get your current customers to tell their friends about you.
Find something that you do different, then use marketing to draw attention to that difference.
3) You’re Building or Killing Your Brand
Everything you send, in any format, either builds your brand, or slowly diminishes it. There is never neutral. There is no such thing as zero.
Think about a 100 point scale. If the average customer, in terms of their loyalty to you, is 75, you sending something relevant may move the needle to 80. A bad tweet may drop the needle back to 60. Everything you do moves the needle.
It’s become so easy to send a message, because there’s nearly no unit cost, that we overspend, and when you send irrelevant content, you’re committing brand suicide. You’re poisoning your brand one irrelevant tweet or email at a time.
Say you purchase underwear. Most people don’t purchase underwear on a constant basis. Then, the company you bought from starts emailing you every day.
Nobody buys underwear every day. Or every week. You’ll never buy underwear from that company again. They’ve destroyed their brand, one irrelevant email at a time.
Send something when you have something worth sending.
4) The Mom Test
Every marketer is a customer. Every marketer is a consumer, but when it comes to marketing they seem to totally forget that. It seems that they think “let’s do this thing, or send another email, or post another tweet.” They completely forget what it’s like to be on the other side.
Every marketer is a customer. Every marketer is a consumer (B2B an dB2C) but when it comes to marketing they totally forget that. “Let’s do this thing and add another message.” THey completely forget what it’s like to be on the other side.
“If your mom wouldn’t respond to this message, then nobody else is going to.” – Jay Baer
When it comes to sending content, institute the mom test. Before you send something, think about it this way. If your mom, who loves you more than anybody else in the world, wouldn’t respond to this message, then nobody else is going to.
Dare to be different. Do something that nobody else has done before. Create your talk triggers and only send content when you have something worth saying.
[Tweet “”If your mom wouldn’t respond to this message, then nobody else is going to.” – @jaybaer #FlipMyFunnel”]
This post is based on an interview with Jay Baer from Convince and Convert. To hear this episode, and many more like it, you can subscribe to The #FlipMyFunnel Podcast. If you don’t use iTunes, you can listen to every episode here.
