I mean... we would hope you have customers. If not, you may no longer be in business, but the big question is, do you have fans?
In the soul marketing model, the simplest way to define a fan is a customer that is likely to recommend your product or service. If we take an emotional pivot, a fan is someone who shows they care about your brand, product or service. The 'amount of care’ and their 'motivations to care’ will vary but the fact that they have taken some sort of additional action beyond a transaction tells you they are interested on some level.
Things a fan would do include:
Following you on social media
Subscribing to your communications (emails, newsletters, etc.)
Showing up to your events
Taking your surveys
Participating in your contests
Thinking of a few current customers now? Nurturing the relationship with these fans can be golden tickets since they are the ones who will most likely recommend your product or service to their networks. The goal here is to establish a baseline where should that customer be asked for a recommendation, they would inherently respond with your product or service. Above and beyond that, the fans who will deliberately take time to promote or recommend we consider 'Advocates' on our spectrum – we'll have more to say about those folks on another blog.
So now what? All you’ve done so far is rock whatever it is that you do best and it’s quite likely that during this time you’ve developed fans (beyond friends and family). But maybe you didn’t know how to focus marketing efforts towards the benefits of having them. Keep a conversation going with fans and they are going to provide you with great insights for your business and support new products and services as they develop.
Now that we’ve provided our definition and value of a fan, ask yourself these questions:
Do you know how to identify a fan vs a customer of your business?
What do you know about them?
What are you doing to build a relationship with them?
A great deal of marketing dollars and resources are spent on bringing in net-new business. In our professional opinion, not enough of that budget is put towards fans to show appreciation, build stronger relationships, and encourage organic growth. Time and time again we are reminded that word-of-mouth is the most powerful marketing out there so identifying and nurturing your fans is critical for credibility and positive momentum!
Does this raise an eyebrow? Perhaps some swirling brain juice of excitement or panic? It's okay. This is the space we play in and we got your back.
New Moon Ideas is a ‘soul marketing’ or fan-focused agency that helps brands build meaningful relationships with audiences through impactful events, education and engagement. NMI takes a customer value-centric approach to design, develop, and direct integrated marketing plans that deliver fresh, exciting and thoughtful ideas and experiences.
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