The web is crowded and filled with distractions. A successful business finds ways to break through the clutter and deliver compelling messages to the people most likely to act upon them.
But how well can you articulate who your target audience is?
“Whole Foods is actually a psychographic, not a demographic,” said Paul Rossi, The Economist’s managing director and executive vice president for the Americas. “One of the things people say is, ‘You go after an affluent audience.’ But we don’t define our audience by their demographic. We define our audience based on what they think.”
That’s a bold move — and, at least for now, one that’s paying off on The Economist’s bottom line. But, to do this, a company must understand what its core audience thinks, wants and needs, and be able to deliver those solutions in a manner that resonates.
If you can do that… why stop there?
How Creative Concepts Helps Its Clients Expand Their Core Audience
When a client asks us to help them deliver a message, they often already know what they want to say and to whom they’d like to say it. What they initially expect us to do is help them find that audience online. And we do.
But we also help them tailor their original message to the tastes of multiple audiences, each of which combines to form different aspects of their extended customer base.
For example, Ecover is a multinational company that manufactures sustainable cleaning products. Their obvious core audience is “green” moms in search of healthier alternatives to chemical cleaners.
But the list of customers who are, could, or should be motivated by Ecover’s solutions is much broader, including:
Journalists
Scientists
Teachers
Fathers
Kids
Grandparents
Gardeners
Cleaning staffs
Corporate buyers
… and so on.
Likewise, tea might not seem like an obvious conversational topic for sports fans, traveling salesmen or history buffs, but our work with Bigelow Tea has helped expand brand awareness among these unlikely audiences.
And while Ouidad may be the “Queen of Curl,” the interested audience for her products extends far beyond the walls of her New York City salon. As we helped Ouidad track inbound web traffic and blog comments, we found passionate customers from around the world — many of whom speak Spanish or Portuguese. This prompted us to begin translating Ouidad’s content, in order to better serve her growing multilingual audience.
Understanding your core audience is a key to driving your business forward. But finding different ways to deliver one message to multiple audiences is one way Creative Concepts helps our clients expand beyond their core customers.
Most companies consider Facebook, Twitter and blogs to be the cornerstones of their social media strategy. If they invest in a fourth channel, it’s usually YouTube, because video is often a high-impact media asset.
While most of Flickr’s massive userbase are amateur or professional photographers, Flickr’s actual audience is as large as the web itself. This makes Flickr increasingly attractive to brands seeking to capitalize on its unexplored traffic-driving possibilities.
Surely your company has dozens of product shots, photo spreads, news articles, in-house designs and personal candids that tell your brand’s story. And those images might be interesting to long-time fans and potential customers alike.
As a family business (for 65 years and counting), Bigelow’s history is a family photo album, and they wanted to share their memories with their customers. But they also wanted to ensure that curious tea drinkers could easily find their way to the Bigelow website, so we at Creative Concepts embedded links to any relevant Bigelow products within the text descriptions of each photo. (Because if that photo of a vintage 1960s Constant Comment canister looks good now, why not order a box today?)
2. Promote your fans.
Ouidad (also a client) is known as “the queen of curl.” Her delighted customers often post photos of their amazing post-Ouidad hairstyles on Ouidad’s Facebook page. But why stop there?
With our help, Ouidad has begun cross-posting fan photos (along with product shots and “before-and-after” images) to Flickr. And, as with Bigelow, each Ouidad photo includes a text description with links inviting viewers to further explore the Ouidad product line or join Ouidad on Facebook. (Because if their hair looks this good, shouldn’t yours?)
3. Use Pictures to Solve a Problem.
The Redwood Rollers (not a client, but we still like their moxie) are a roller derby league in Humboldt County, California. While Flickr provides them with a home for their photos — over 2,000 uploads so far! — it also provides them with a means to overcome a possible business pitfall: audience perception.
The sport of roller derby is increasingly popular, but it still takes a few extra nudges to get a skeptical viewer to attend his first live event. What better way to convey the thrills of a fast-paced sport than with visuals? Being able to see the competitors’ personalities and camaraderie up close can provide potential fans with the emotional fuel they need to get involved and start cheering. (Plus, you can’t get this personal at the major leagues.)
So… still on the fence about Flickr?
Don’t just take our word for it — check out what these other worldwide brands are doing, from 7-11 to Urban Outfitters. And then think about all the ways your company can make use of those overlooked images.
And while you’re at it, check us out on Twitter or Facebook!
Social media is about people. Companies are about profit. Finding ways to bridge that gap can sometimes seem tricky.
But there’s one commonality that’s always worth discussing: charity.
Most companies have at least one charitable cause that they feel passionate about, usually for personal reasons. And whenever your company invests their time and effort in a cause other than direct profit, that’s a potential feel-good story that your employees and your customers can get behind.
Ouidad and her family have been personally affected by breast cancer. In response, Ouidad founded her own charity to help raise funds for cancer research.
Why do we mention our clients’ non-profit endeavors?
Because they’re the kinds of stories that remind customers how the products they purchase are, ultimately, created by human beings. These are the conversations that help the people on both sides of the storefront find a common ground, and remove the barriers that make us think of all businesses as impersonal moneymaking machines.
Ultimately, social media and business are about people.
Your company is people.
Don’t forget to remind your customers — and yourselves.
Want to connect with us more personally? Follow us on Twitter or Facebook!
As we’ve helped our clients build and manage their social media profiles on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube and more, we’ve learned a very valuable lesson:
You can’t force people to care about you.
Plenty of services will sell you Facebook friends and Twitter followers, which is the modern equivalent of buying a list of email addresses: it’s spammy. We’d never advise that our clients do that because it’s invasive (and, often, it’s a waste of money).
There’s also the tactic of “batch following” other users — or, in layman’s terms, manually choosing to “follow” (or “subscribe to the updates of”) dozens or hundreds of Twitter users at a time, in the blind hope that those people will choose to follow you back in return.
The problem is, very few people do. It takes such little effort to follow someone on Twitter that doing so is no longer seen as an expression of interest in that person, but a self-interested request for attention on the part of the follower. (In other words: “Hey, I see you. Now look at me.”)
This is explains some of the lopsided “follower ratios” you’ll see on some brands’ Twitter accounts. In many cases, a company has chosen to follow thousands of users, but only a few dozen users have found that brand worth following in return.
Keep that up and you’ll start thinking your brand really is boring, when your problem is actually in the execution.
Don’t Beg. Be Interesting.
At Creative Concepts, we encourage our clients to build their online following organically, by reaching out to:
Existing customers
Potential customers
Industry peers
Industry journalists (bloggers, podcasters, newspapers, magazines, etc.)
Anyone with a problem that our client can solve
For example, in the dead of winter (or, worse, in the dog days of all this summer air conditioning), Twitter is alive with the sound of head colds. Users can’t help but complain about stuffy noses, dripping sinuses and general misery. They’re also frequently in search of a remedy — and that’s been a great opportunity for (our client) Bigelow Tea to suggest lemon or mint teas that might help ease someone’s sore throat.
We find proactive engagement to be a far more valuable way to grow our clients’ web communities. Not everyone responds, but those who do are more likely to continue that active engagement, and to spread the word among their own audiences.
And since social media empowers your brand to find its own audience, wouldn’t you rather have an audience that actually pays attention to what you’re saying?
A few years ago, we helped our client, Bigelow Tea, produce a video showing viewers how to naturally decaffeinate an ordinary teabag. (Why would someone do this? Because sometimes a cafe doesn’t have your favorite flavor in a decaf version, so wouldn’t it be great to reduce that caffeine level all by yourself?)
There was just one problem: the metrics Bigelow cited in that video were outdated. Newer studies had clarified the expected levels of caffeine after natural decaffeination, and they differed from the numbers in the video.
Fortunately, one astute viewer noticed this discrepancy and brought it to Bigelow’s attention.
Even better? Bigelow listened.
Initially, they hoped they could fix those numbers with updated graphics, but there was no way around the numbers Cindi Bigelow herself was saying aloud throughout the how-to section.
So, in the end, they opted to have Creative Concepts (that’s us) reshoot the whole video and replace it across all video outlets. Cindi even tracked two of the most recent studies the night before the video was filmed, just to ensure that the numbers were still in line.
In Bigelow’s view, sharing accurate information is far more important than cutting corners. They pride themselves on providing their customers with insights and information they can count on, and when those facts and figures are in dispute, they take their corrections very seriously.
How committed to clarity is your company? (And are they listening to their customers to make sure their messages are being heard… and heard correctly?)
We were flattered to see our client, Bigelow Tea, mentioned in Stephanie Schwab’s recent post on how to schedule blog content. She cites the Bigelow Tea blog‘s occasional use of celebrity-driven tea stories, correctly surmising that celebrities + tea + health benefits = quick and easy ‘feel-good’ reads that have built-in SEO juice.
If you want to grow your company’s blog but you’re stuck for inspiration or overwhelmed by time constraints, here are some additional tips we at Creative Concepts frequently apply to our clients’ blogs:
Know (and write for) your audience(s). Odds are, your brand appeals to more than just one type of customer. Identify the various audience segments who might find value in your blog posts. Then, ensure that each of your posts appeals directly to at least one of those segments — science, sales, history, culture, celebrity, how-to, etc.
Holidays are your friends. It seems like every day in America is National Something-or-Other Day, or World Whatchamacallit Week. In what ways can your brand connect with each of these opportunities? Writing about Bigelow Tea during National Iced Tea Month is obvious; writing about them during American Heart Month is an opportunity to connect with health-conscious readers.
Surveys provide a one-two punch. Not only do they offer a chance for your readers to weigh in on a topic, but their answers can help you better understand what they’re most interested in. For example, when our client Ouidad asked readers what their favorite Ouidad product was, their responses indicated that one of their products was a hands-down winner. That feedback gave us an opportunity to help Ouidad create more content that showcases their top products, and to highlight those products whose benefits may not be as well-known.
Find the best in-house writers. Some of the best voices for the Ouidad blog are the stylists at the Ouidad salons, who can speak firsthand about their experiences behind the chair. And if someone has a great story but they’re not writers by nature, you can always interview them and then publish their story as a Q&A.
Of course, even the best content can’t find readers if it’s buried deep in a stack of “to-do list” items. By sticking to an achievable blog management schedule, you’ll ensure those posts get written, published and read in a reliable fashion.
On the web, video works wonders. It’s fast-paced, personable, entertaining and informative. And since production time is always a factor, it helps to have a solid plan in place to make sure you stay on track and under budget.
But if there’s one thing we’ve learned here at Creative Concepts, it’s that our best-laid video production plans often need to be scrapped once the camera starts rolling.
Here are three examples of the ways we’ve adapted our original video ideas to suit a client’s newfound needs — or to accommodate the limits of reality.
“What Do YOU Know About the Children’s Aid Society?”
That was the question we expected to ask people on the streets of New York. And their answer?
Well… as it turned out, not much.
Although nearly everyone we spoke with had heard ofThe Children’s Aid Society, most of them weren’t quite sure what the charity actually does. Despite operating in NYC for over 150 years, we quickly realized the organization was still “under the radar” for most New Yorkers.
When we recognized this disconnect between public impact and public image, we adapted our video’s premise and used our “man-on-the-street” style Q&As to educate the the viewers about the charity’s multitude of programs.
The First Rule of Live Event Planning: Something ALWAYS Goes Wrong
Ruth Ridgeway is a veteran event planner in the New York City market. As such, she’s unflappable in the face of any challenge — including having her entire event crew videotaped during one of their signature two-day location transformations.
But when the wrong furniture gets delivered and there’s no time to revise her designs, Ruth switches from “management mode” to “problem-solving dynamo” in seconds — and our video capitalizes on her shrewdly-solved conundrum.
Have A Cup of Tea with (Windblown) Wally at Fenway Park
Even when everything goes right, there’s still no way to control the weather.
As proud sponsors of the Boston Red Sox, Bigelow Tea was thrilled to have a chance to shoot a quirky video with Wally the Green Monster. The idea was to have Cindi Bigelow herself teach Wally how to make a cup of tea. But the weather refused to cooperate, forcing Cindi and Wally to race through the process before their props blew clear across the field.
The lesson?
No matter what happens, find a way to make the most of every unexpected, inconvenient and downright blustery situation.
We’re often asked to showcase our client, Bigelow Tea, as a social media case study. Last Friday, I told the tale of Bigelow Tea’s blogging beginnings (and their present day story) at the Corporate Communication and Web 2.0 conference for The Conference Board.
Some stories that caught the audience’s attention included the infamous Don Imus incident (as we’ve written about here, and which was included in Shel Holz’s and John Havens’s book, Tactical Transparency), the “How a blog saved Fruit and Almond Tea from oblivion” incident (written about here), and my closing summary, which included these tips:
Make sure your brand is consistent online and off-line
Everything begins with great content. Do your customers want to read your blog?
Reach out to your online fans and support their efforts on their turf.
Don’t forget to listen.
Evolve with your customers and try to stay ahead of your industry’s curve.
A recent article about a social media-savvy Domino’s Pizza franchise in Chicago proves that even a bad customer experience can lead to positive opportunities. In this case, it revolutionized the way this particular pizza shop interfaces with its customers and manages their expectations.
It also reminds us of a story about our own client, Bigelow Tea, and how they turned customer frustration into customer loyalty.
In January of 2007, fans of Bigelow’s Fruit & Almond tea were having trouble finding it in stores. Confused, they went to the website and learned it had been discontinued. Because one ingredient had become difficult to acquire, and due to Fruit & Almond’s relatively low sales (compared to their top-selling teas), Bigelow had opted to cease this flavor’s production.
Now frustrated with Bigelow’s decision, Fruit & Almond fans turned to the first interactive channel they could find — namely, the comments of a completely unrelated Bigelow Tea blog post — and asked for help.
After receiving a litany of impassioned comments on the subject, Cindi Bigelow blogged the economic reality of the Fruit & Almond decision and apologized for the inconvenience. But, having also seen this situation as an opportunity, Cindi realized that Fruit & Almond tea just might be worth saving.
Bigelow already had enough ingredients to make another 400 cases of the flavor. They used that announcement to buy their R&D department time to concoct a new recipe that could be produced cost-effectively while still satisfying the flavor’s fans.
As much as we enjoy a happy ending, we love it even more when it reinforces our core business belief: Listen to your customers. If they care enough to complain, it means they want a reason to keep coming back.
Politics — and political correctness — are tricky things. Everyone’s entitled to their own beliefs, but when a business becomes associated with a political sound bite, those beliefs can create a PR problem. (See our previous post about what PR can’t help you do in a crisis.)
Back in 2007, Don Imus made a now-infamous remark about the Rutgers women’s basketball team. As the news media swirled around the controversy, his sponsors (including our client, Bigelow Tea), were caught in the middle. They each had to make a choice: continue to sponsor Imus’s show, or retract their sponsorship as an ethical statement?
After considering all possibilities, Bigelow did something all too rare in the business world: they led with their gut.
They publicly denounced Imus’s statement and disagreed with its sentiment, but they also continued to support him. It was a fine line to walk, supporting an individual while disagreeing with a particular choice he’d made.
Needless to say, the public took aim at Bigelow. Their blog became a clearing house for all kinds of opinions, from people who admired Bigelow’s judgment to those who vowed to never buy Bigelow again. The noise got so loud, even mainstream press, like CNN and others, visited the blog to research Bigelow’s position so they could then interview Cindi Bigelow, President of Bigelow Tea, about the company’s decision.
Had Bigelow acted differently in this case, they might not have needed to make a public statement. They might not even have needed to mention their choice at all. But with our support and guidance, they opted to use the two-way channel of their blog to speak directly with the people most concerned about the incident, and to understand exactly why their choice may or may not have upset their potential (and existing customers).
In the end, like most tempests in a teapot, the Imus issue was resolved and the public turned their attention to newer, shinier controversies. Meanwhile, Bigelow Tea’s own market share continued to grow, with the exposure — both positive and negative — from the incident doing little to curb their long-term sales.
And when Imus landed a new radio show, Bigelow was there to sponsor him again. In fact, Cindi Bigelow herself was part of the Imus Radiothon this past week, helping to raise money for children battling cancer.
So… do we all make mistakes? Absolutely. But we also make good choices, too.
When judging a person — or a brand — it helps to take the whole of their actions into account. And with the reach and permanence of social media, it’s easier than ever for discerning consumers to research the brands they’re interested in and decide for themselves which companies are worth supporting.
