Tribes in Today’s Marketing

What is a tribe?

Simply put, a tribe is a group of people that connect around a common goal. Tribes can exist anywhere and can be based upon any shared interest, no matter how specific. In fact, you are most likely a member of a tribe or even multiple tribes. You may even lead one. Behind every major movement and successful marketing engine there is a tribe. Behind every major movement and successful marketing engine there is a tribe. Barack Obama leads one in which he can raise millions of dollars in a single day. Steve Jobs leads a tribe comprised of a cult-like following of brand evangelists who hang on his every word during his two-hour product launch event and then go out and do Apple’s marketing for them. Tribes are not always large. Some don’t want to be big. In fact, many are exclusive. The common element around which most tribes form is actually quite narrowly-defined. These tribes are not just for golf, but for those afflicted with a natural slice in their swing; not just for personal finance, but for those obsessed with maximizing the energy efficiency of their homes; not just for shoes, but for those infatuated with handcrafted Italian leather stilettos. Balloon artists, amateur photographers, collectors of exotic southwestern jewelry, Ford Mustang enthusiasts, avid Mac users, city managers engaged in innovative economic development – all of these are tribes that gather. For their members, their interest is an intrinsic part of their identity, and their association with their peers is a point of pride. Anytime people make connections based on a shared passion, similarities in background or a common need for solutions to improve their lives, a tribe is born.

What’s changed

Tribes have always been around. Before the days of the Web, smartphones and Facebook, communities would form based on commonalities and gather face-to-face. Naturally, these tribes were geographically-based, and their numbers were fewer and limited to the most popular interests. Today’s tribes are different. The advent of the Information Age tore down geographical barriers by introducing platforms of persistent conversation and information sharing. Online message boards, which have been around for decades, overcame the limitations of locality and allowed for a tidal wave of tribes to be formed – not just big tribes, but ones that were small and highly specialized. People now had the tools they needed to find others with a shared passion and make an instant connection in the absence of physical proximity. As technology continued to evolve, the Web provided a more robust platform for these communities to take form. Smarter and more relevant searching allowed people to find outlets for their passions through 200 million websites. Website creation tools became more accessible, allowing those with limited technical know-how to create online hubs where their tribes could gather. Add to this new tools for scheduling, collaboration, coordination and real-time communication as well as wifi and the mobile Web, and you have fertile ground for tribes to flourish around any and every common goal and interest.

New types of tribes

In the past few years, the evolution of social media has allowed people to connect in ways that are not based solely on common interests but also on commonality in relationships and geography. When communities form around who their members are, where they live and how they relate to each other, a new dynamic is introduced. The tribe concept becomes even more powerful and pervasive as people forge ties around commonplace goals in their daily lives. For geographically-based tribes, the day-to-day problems of life – from finding the best deli in town to getting a recommendation for a good mechanic to obtaining a reference for a trustworthy electrician – are solved through the formation of tribes based on members’ inherent commonalities. Tribes can form around many different types of relationships. Whether it’s families bound together in a social network or colleagues that develop a web of connections on LinkedIn, the common thread that ties all these communities together is the relationship of their members to one another. in a world ruled by tribes, word-of-mouth is king Communication travels quickly through these organic networks, in most cases crossing over to other networks. Something as seemingly simple as a recommendation for TurboTax software during tax season spreads virally via word-of-mouth advertising from tribe to tribe, as members seek to solve problems in ways that enhance their own lives, the lives of others they care about and the environments in which they live. Thus, in a world ruled by tribes, word-of-mouth is king. Trust is not only essential; it is required.

The old system of marketing

Before the economy was overtaken by tribes of highly interconnected and informed consumers, success in marketing was achieved by the companies with the largest budgets and the greatest capacities to pummel the public into purchasing their brands. If you were selling a product 10 years ago, you would have run expensive advertising campaigns based on interruption, hitting the consumer over the head with your message as forcefully and as often as possible. The objectives driving this type of intellectual spamming were to raise brand awareness, create demand for more product, obtain wider distribution and ultimately apply those profits to more ads in order to fuel this vicious cycle. In what’s left of mass media, this wasteful practice still goes on. Arby’s invested more than $85 million interrupting everyone with an oven mitt to sell sandwiches. Progressive and Geico spend a fortune flashing their brands in any and all media and markets. Nike poured hundreds of millions into endorsements and marketing to sell more Tiger Woods-branded products simply because they could command higher prices. National brands aren’t the only ones guilty of still marketing by interruption and spamming. From law firms to home builders to car dealerships, local businesses in every town dump truckloads of money into carpet bombing the public with ads in local magazines, newspapers and television, shouting their claims that they’re the best, they’ve discounted everything yet again, they have too much inventory and everything must go.

Marketing in a tribe-driven world

Today, trust rules the marketplace. People have many more choices and much less time than ever before. As a result, they invest their time carefully in their passions, in the issues that count and in the things that make a difference in their lives. They have no use for or trust in traditional advertising. Instead, they belong to a tribe, and they follow the movement of its members and leaders. These tribes are formed and move with or without you. Today’s successful marketers bow to the tribe, reforming how they do business, how they develop products and how they grow accordingly. The power and influence you command through the trust you earn from the tribe is unrivaled by any form of advertising. Your membership in the tribe is earned through trust and trust alone. Trust gives you permission to talk about your ideas as well as what you are doing to improve the lives of its members. When you are active and demonstrate honest intentions and selfless motives, you are promoted by the tribe’s leaders. The power and influence you command through the trust you earn from the tribe is unrivaled by any form of advertising. In this way, the tribe is your marketplace.

Getting there

Many companies, particularly local businesses, have a hard time mapping the connection between tribes and their bottom line. In fact, most are challenged to identify where tribes exist or, if they must, start and lead a new tribe. The fact is, any successful act of business creates a solution for a problem or improves people’s lives in some way. Underneath that solution are people who are already talking about all the issues surrounding it every day. Your focus in growing your business should be to identify your tribe and lead it. Weber doesn’t just sell grills; they lead a tribe of grilling enthusiasts. Jeep doesn’t just sell cars and accessories; they lead a tribe of off-roading die-hards. Gary Vaynerchuk doesn’t just market wine; he leads a tribe of a million wine aficionados. Fame Foundry doesn’t just sell marketing and website design; they lead a tribe of entrepreneurs and decision-makers whose passions are focused on business growth. Your passion for your business is your license to lead. You don’t need to be a national brand to be a tribe leader. Your local dentist doesn’t just sell her services; she leads a local tribe of people that care about healthy teeth. She may have only 25 true fans, but when they tweet or post their endorsement for her practice on Facebook, multiplying their actions by the average of 150 connections per fan now gives her instantaneous, powerful and unbiased word-of-mouth advertising to 3,750 people. Eliza Metz applies her life’s passion to leading a massive tribe of yarncrafting fanatics who follow her on her blog, on Plurk, on Facebook and on her podcast. She has earned the trust of its members, who have elevated her to a position of leadership. As a result, when she says she likes something, they listen and move, which translates to sales immediately. Eliza has never bought one piece of advertising; instead, she leads. Your passion for your business is your license to lead. But you can’t just log in, plant your flag and begin selling your products or services. The tribe will banish you right away. The fundamentals of trustcasting prevail in every facet of business growth, and this is no different in leading tribes. In part two of this series, we’ll go beyond the foundational understanding of tribes and cover the steps to identifying, becoming a member of and leading the tribes that are relevant to your business and your bottom line in today’s marketplace.

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The Who, What, When, Why and How of Successful Email Marketing, Part I

In today’s social media era, email marketing is hardly the newest, most popular kid on the block, but it still remains a powerful weapon in any marketer’s arsenal, as it’s a highly efficient and cost-effective way of communicating with your existing customers as well as new prospects. It’s also simple to execute. With options ranging from online services like MailChimp, Constant Contact and Emma to customized, cloud-based platforms that can be integrated with your CRM system, you can easily create and manage your own email marketing campaigns. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows in the land of email marketing, however. Because of the low barrier to entry (specifically the aforementioned cost and ease of use), many companies dive right in without fully developing a sound long-term strategy. Yes, getting started with email marketing is easy, but doing it well is what will make the difference between a campaign that captivates and motivates versus one that is ignored and condemned to the trash folder. In this two-part series, we’ll cover the fundamentals of successful email marketing – specifically what you should be saying, how you should be saying it, when and why you should be doing so, and to whom you should be speaking.

The Who

Taking these points in reverse order, let’s start with the who. When it comes to email marketing, the quality of the list of recipients to whom your campaign will be targeted is a make-or-break factor in its ultimate success. There are no shortage of companies that are all too eager to sell you lists of addresses. However, even if these are “opt-in” lists of people who are supposedly willing to receive such emails, a purchased list will always be far less effective than one you have assembled yourself. People who have interacted with your business before – even if their encounter was as brief as a visit your website or your trade show booth – are much more likely to want to hear from you again and, as a result, will be more receptive to your message. To provide you with an example, I have recently done some email marketing work for a company that runs a series of zombie-themed adventure races. Participants sign up to run these 5k races and be chased by actors dressed as zombies, while others sign up to be the zombies doing the chasing. The company does use email marketing but not to find new participants; those generally come via word-of-mouth, social media sharing and advertising links from other websites. Instead, they rely on email marketing solely to communicate with people who have already signed up for a new race and those who have participated in the past. The messages that are sent either provide important logistical details for upcoming events to registrants or advertise future races and promotions of interest. Because all recipients are already familiar with the company, these emails are not perceived as an unwanted inbox intrusion. Rather, they are welcomed as valuable and welcome communication from an organization with whom they have already established a relationship. As a result, the company’s email blasts are typically opened by over 60 percent of recipients, and some boast open rates in excess of 80 percent. Anyone who has ever done any email marketing with tell you that an open rate of 60+ percent is incredible. By contrast, the expected open rate for a campaign to anonymous recipients on a purchased list is 5-10 percent at best. The difference is clear: people who recognize and appreciate your brand are more likely to open your emails. They are also more likely to read your message and take the action you desire.

Beyond open rates

While the percentage of people that open your email is an important metric to consider, it isn’t the only statistic you should concern yourself with. It’s also to critical to examine how many of those who read your message take the next step and engage in some fashion, such as by clicking on a link. Someone who simply opens your email, gives it a quick cursory glance, then immediately deletes that message is not a success story. Yes, they clicked on the email, and they will be counted in your open rate statistics, but they did not engage with your company in any meaningful way, and they will likely forget about you as soon as that message hits the trash heap. By contrast, someone who knows your company and has interacted with your business in the past will not only be more inclined to open and read your email but to take action after they have read it, whether that comes in the form of visiting your site to read the full text of a blog article or press release, downloading a whitepaper, registering for an event or making a purchase. And isn’t that the ultimate goal? After all, you’re not going after simple opens; you want people to take steps that further solidify their relationship with your business, and a better quality list will yield these more meaningful results.

Quality over quantity

Let’s look at some numbers: if you email 10,000 people whose addresses were purchased and who have no prior connection to your business, you will get a fairly low open rate – say 5% (a common figure for these types of lists), which means you should expect that only about 500 of those 10,000 people will actually open your message. Next, we take a list of contacts that you have careful curated over the years from customers you have done business with and connections you have made. The list will certainly be smaller – let’s say only 1,000 names in total. If you see an open rate of 30% (which is about average when you look at open rates across all industries), about 300 people would open your message. Yes, you would get more opens from the bigger list, but again, quantity does not mean quality! The majority of those 500 opens from the purchased list will junk the email immediately, while very few will engage in any way. By contrast, the 300 people who opened the email in our second example will, in the end, yield a much higher rate of engagement, which is the true measure of a successful campaign.

The Why

Even if you are communicating with contacts who know your company and have done business with you before, you cannot violate the cardinal rule of trustcasting, which holds that any and all efforts dedicated to the promotion of your business must be founded in building trust. When it comes to email marketing, the way you build trust is by demonstrating to your recipients that you respect their time and attention. Never send a purely self-promotional message; only communicate if you have something of real value to offer them. That value can come in any number of forms, whether it’s a great discount offer or a highly informative bit of content. Of course, the recipient’s perception of value is tied closely to the frequency of your communication. Email too often and you will become an annoyance, no matter how great your offering is. At best, people will begin to ignore your emails or see them as white noise. At worst, they will unsubscribe from the messages altogether. On the flip side, if you do not reach out often enough, you run the risk of slipping out of sight and out of mind. The trick is to find the balance between these two extremes by devising a plan that allows you to email frequently enough to provide value but not so often that you become a bother. Establish a schedule for your emails that will act as a guideline. I use the word “guideline” for a specific reason here – because this schedule should be flexible and not written in stone. If you insist on sending out an email blast simply because your schedule dictates that it’s time but yet you don’t have anything of true value to communicate, your emails will be ignored because while they will be reliable, they will not be important. Again, the schedule is just a guide; you must use your judgment as to whether it’s right to send an email or whether it’s best to wait.

A case study in scheduling

During the first week of every month, my company sends an email to our entire list of contacts featuring all of the events that we have scheduled for that month. Because we run upwards of 10 or more events each month, it would be impractical to send a separate email promoting each one (that would quickly put us in the “annoying” category). In addition, we also send two different newsletter-style emails – one that goes out to our clients on a monthly basis and one that goes out to our partners and vendors on a quarterly basis. However, there have been many months where we do not have enough relevant, valuable content to justify sending a newsletter to our clients. If this is the case, we simply skip that particular month. For our vendors, who already receive our emails with less frequency, we usually delay our blast by one month rather than let an entire quarter pass with no communication. In both cases, whenever we decide to skip a planned release, we make a concentrated effort to find something of value to send the following month to ensure that we stay on the radar with our readers. In addition to these regular emails, we sometimes send important, time-sensitive communication, such as service disruption alerts based on planned downtime or impending storms. In the event that circumstances necessitate sending these one-off emails, we adjust the timing of our other monthly blasts accordingly to ensure that we do not send too many emails within too short a timeframe. As this example shows, each month may be slightly different in its execution, but with a sound plan in place, you can make sure that you maintain an ideal balance of timely, non-intrusive communication.

The When

As with almost every form of marketing communication, timing plays a key role in determining whether your message is received. There are many conflicting reports on what day of the week and time of day are optimal for sending email blasts, but here are my findings based on extensive experience: Mondays and Fridays are the worst weekdays to send emails. Unless there is an urgent reason why you need to send your communication on one of these days, it’s best to avoid them altogether. This trend is easily explained, as inbox traffic tends to be exceptionally heavy on Mondays, and by Friday, everyone is primarily focused on tying up loose ends before the weekend. Instead, I find that mid-week emails (Tuesday through Thursday) have much better open and engagement rates. When it comes to the time of day, I have found that early is better than late. Emails that land prior to the start of the business day – say at 6:00 a.m. – seem to perform best. These emails greet readers in their inbox as soon as they arrive at the office (or during breakfast if they are checking email prior to heading in) and seem to perform better than ones sent even just a few hours later. And as a general rule of thumb, blasts sent in the morning outperform those that are sent after lunch or towards the end of the workday. When scheduling your next email blasts, I recommend planning an early morning, mid-week delivery, but within this window, try playing around with some different day/time combinations to see which ones work best for your particular audience.

More to come

So far we have taken a look at the quality of the recipients to whom our campaigns are sent and we have solidified a strategy for when and why to send them to ensure that we do not overwhelm those recipients with messages that are unimportant or unnecessary. In the next installment of this series, we will explore the remaining two fundamentals of email marketing success – what we will say and how we will say it.

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