John Sadowsky from Emailvision cracks into a theme, many have either forgotten or ignored.
Storytelling.
Starting out with a great quote, “god made men because he loves storytelling” ~ Elie Wiesel
The essence of storytelling not being the push out of material about your Brand, but in today’s age, leveraging your community to tell your story for you. It’s about creating an emotional tie to your product/service so that clients are talking about the product, but also what they do and how they feel about it.
That message appears again from John.
Start listening to your clients and fans, rather than disrupting them with your blast messages.
In order to speak, one must first listen, learn to speak by listening ~ Quote
Some interesting case studies included
Bike Friday – dropping an email invite and collecting great YouTube videos from their tribe of folding bike lovers.
Mathon.fr – as an apart from their brand created and invited customers to a cuisine fan page on FaceBook. With the odd giveaway, and a stream of home town recipes, the community blossomed around regional variations, conversations about how best to roll dough etc.
As authentic as a piece of content we create may be, user created content has far more street cred.
Some interesting ideas for B2C where power tools approach customers for miss use stories.
Products people don’t like to talk about or where they can’t talk about it are hard to deal with. Bit it can be done.
Genital herpes cream is not something with an open fan base, but it does go viral!
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Understand what your brand stands for is paramount to finding your story – and getting the story you’d like your fans to tell.
Nick Allen - Marketing, Growth & Running 