Lessons
Lesson Info
Class Introduction
Hey everyone, Tara here. We are going to come back to the transformational consumer. We're going to talk about how to use the frameworks that we've learned to rethink your content marketing strategy in a way that you're not just publishing content to the ether, but publishing content that people actually engage with, and pay attention to, and care about. Just keep that in mind as your definition for like, what customer engagement means in this forum, customer engagement means, what content means. It's content people care about. It's content people read. It's content people click on, watch. Sometimes in some businesses it's content people even buy. I will tell you I am so focused and fixated on customer engagement as my jam and my life, that I got an email the other day, a marketing email, from Blue Nile, the diamond, the ring company, and the subject line said, "See our customer engagement rings," and I thought, customer engagement rings? I don't even know what customer engagement ring...
s? They meant, see our customers' engagement rings. (laughing) It had lots of pictures of actual customers' engagement rings, but in my mind, I was like, customer engagement rings? I gotta figure this out. By the end of this class you too will be obsessed with customer engagement. You will learn where and how to find the customer insights you need to create engagement, engaging content quickly. We'll go back to and reflect on that customer journey mapping process that we just talked through, and we'll talk about specifically how to translate the components of a customer journey map into the pillars of your content marketing strategy. You'll learn what engagement marketing even means. What is that? Most people think of marketing as for growth. As we talked about earlier, I'm a fan of paying attention to engagement first. We'll talk about how to deploy a really lean content marketing strategy, and how to use content performance metrics to actually drive product and marketing roadmaps. I found a way in which you can use content performance to almost serve as like and R and D function in a product organization. So, we'll talk about that. Here are the relevant social media channels, if you'd like to follow along with the conversation over there. I've offered some bonus items that will help you actually bring the course content that we've gone over today to life, including a sample customer journey map that's filled out as an exemplar, and a blank, fill-able customer journey map template for you. You can download them along with one chapter of the book and some data, and consumer insights on the Transformational Consumer at TransformationalConsumer.com/CreativeLIVE. Let's remind ourselves what we're doing here today. We are here because this young gentlemen tells us that the disengagement struggle is very, very real. It is the number one limiting factor on many businesses. The idea that customers and employees, in some cases, are just truly disengaged and won't click on, won't buy, or they'll buy or download something once and not use it repeatedly. This is definitely the case with content programs as well. Disengagement, I would say, is also a primary limiting factor on the ability of a content program, even if the content is beautiful, even if it's brilliant, to be effective at driving business objectives. I often think of content programs as like a little, mini business within a business. It's like a little, mini editorial organization within a business. This statement is just as true for the mini business within a business, as it is for the whole business. The framework that we've been using for getting an escape route from the disengagement dilemma is called the transformational consumer. This is the other way. You can go the way that everyone else goes, which is really focusing on their products, or you can focus on the customer's aspirations and problems, and begin to understand people through the lens of the transformations they wanna make in their lives into their behavior, particularly around living healthier, wealthier, and wiser lives. We have gone over the data and seen that transformational consumers are not a niche. It is not a costal and urban or young and wealthy phenomenon. It is 50% of all American adults spending over four trillion dollars a year in an effort to live better lives, and being rabidly loyal to the brands that help remove resistance points along their transformational journey, and help insert progress triggers for their customers, which is something you can do just as easily, sometimes more easily with content and marketing than with product, because product is harder. It takes more people. You've gotta build it. Content, you can actually kinda just write, like write something (chuckling) or film something, depending on your program. One of the rubrics or frameworks we've been using for understanding customers and the transformation that they want your help making has been the hero's journey. So, really to rethink your customers from being just consumers into being actual heroes who are on this transformational journey that kind of comes in three parts, where they get a call to adventure, they fight battles, win, and come back transformed. Along their transformational journey, they're really looking for you, and your brand, and your product to serve as a mentor, an aid, a guide, or a tool along the way. You can start to, what we've gone over in the three preceding courses is how to begin rethinking what you sell and your everything about your brand, your product, your content, your marketing through the lens of how you can remove friction along their journey. To be able to do that you have to actually understand their journey pretty deeply.
Ratings and Reviews
Aline
Great to understand about customers interests and think of better ways to reach audience.
Latoya
Great class to understand who and what to focus on when creating a business! Tara is a deeply impactful teacher and expert with a fresh, much needed perspective.