One Comment
-
Good reframing of the question — but I’d go further.
1) An echo chamber of fans is of little value; the purpose of communicating with fans is not to sell them more widgets, but rather to create “moments of advocacy” (needs a better name, but you know what I mean.)
For most categories, we can assume that — a priori — a fan will buy all your product that they can afford. So — a straightforward CRM strategy might be to more or less ignore them. A social strategy on the other hand would try to extract more vale by turning them into content or channel.
2) Attracting fans may not be the problem of course. Creating those fans in the first place might be. And there may be better strategies (e.g. marketing budgets shifting into customer service) to achieve this end.
04
Marketers May Have It “Wrong” If They Aim For The Wrong Consumers
by FeedbackRe: “Marketers Have It Wrong: Forget Engagement, Consumers Want Simplicity” (Forbes)
So – please allow us to adjust the premise of this article… While they are looking for the snappy headline to polarize marketers, there’s a better way of approaching the very real issue they are laying out. They point out that only 25-30% of consumers they surveyed want engagement and that the other 70-75% just want coupons and deals – they use these stats to wag a finger at marketers for misunderstanding needs. But we would be remiss if we didn’t point out: Why not aim to have all of your “fans” be the 25-30%? When I look at a stat like that I would tell a brand with that kind of split that they should try and only attract those that fall into that 30%. The ACTUAL fans. This article presumes to paint all consumers as equal (they’re not) or at least that 75% of all consumers as coupon/deal-hungry zombies (absolutely not true). The real truth is, everyone’s fans are different. Every industry is different. Get to know the community you have, the one you want, then move to make those one and the same. But if you wake up and most of your “fans” are deal-zombies – you need to attract different fans — not risk alienating the super-fans by marginalizing their experience and input for junk mail engagement.
- Dean