AUDIENCE(13)
When Seth wrote this, Facebook and Twitter didn’t exist, and email was the primary permission marketing channel. Today, however, you can build SUBSCRIBERS, FANS, and FOLLOWERS through numerous channels. These push-button JOINERS grant you a greater measure of control over message content, design, timing, and frequency—control you lack with SEEKERS and AMPLIFIERS. And while the various channels you use to communicate with SUBSCRIBERS, FANS, and FOLLOWERS may limit you creatively (picture the difference between a highly visual email message and a 140-character tweet), the limitations play no favorites—they apply to all companies who message JOINERS.
SUBSCRIBERS, FANS, and FOLLOWERS are also unique because you tailor your content, products, and services to their needs thanks to their individually addressable means of contact (email address, Facebook profile, Twitter handle, etc.). Each individual address provides the foundation upon which you can add data to each JOINER’S profile, using the information they provide or you collect. This can include demographic, click-stream, search, amplification, and purchase data, and it fuels highly beneficial Customer Relationship Management (CRM), marketing automation, and remarketing efforts.
The holy grail, of course, is to build relationships of such quality that your JOINERS value each message from your brand. This not only increases response but also gives you an opportunity to turn JOINERS into AMPLIFIERS in ways that attract new SEEKERS. In essence, JOINERS supercharge all of your Proprietary Audience Development efforts.
If your messaging isn’t personally useful, timely, or meaningful to your JOINERS, you will lose them.
The Four Rights of JOINERS
Of course, with great data comes great responsibility. There’s an unspoken contract between JOINERS and companies built upon what I call The Four Rights:
1. The right message
2. To the right person
3. At the right time
4. Through the right channel
I first wrote about these rights back in October 2007 in the context of email and SMS.14 The Four Rights remain amazingly relevant because Facebook, Twitter, and similar social channels are consumer-controlled (like email) instead of marketer-controlled (like direct mail). Consumers hold all the power; it takes only one click for them to turn off your messaging by un-liking, unfollowing, or unsubscribing from your content.
The Four Rights can actually be condensed into a single mandate for every marketer interested in Proprietary Audience Development: be relevant. You must constantly be working to meet or exceed JOINER expectations—because if your messaging isn’t personally useful, timely, or meaningful to them, they will lose interest, and you will lose them.
With our understanding of permission and The Four Rights secured, it’s now time for us to do a deeper dive into the key proprietary JOINER audiences: SUBSCRIBERS, FANS, and FOLLOWERS. They are, after all, a few of the most important marketing assets you can build for your company today.
a Users of your company’s app are JOINERS rather than SEEKERS because they have “joined” your app—they have downloaded it, thereby enabling direct communications from you via app, push messaging, and/or email.
b This isn’t totally true if you’re using tracking cookies. They may allow you to personalize advertising as the SEEKER moves on to other websites, thereby increasing the opportunity for conversion into a CUSTOMER, AMPLIFIER, SUBSCRIBER, FAN, or FOLLOWER away from your website.
c I use the term CREATORS as a catch-all for bloggers, Instagrammers, Pinners, and all manner of consumers creating user-generated content (UGC).
d I have deduced the 23 percent figure from Dichter’s research, as his original article omits this statistic without explanation.
e As a fan of Cockney rhyming slang, I couldn’t resist. “It’s all gone Pete Tong” means “it’s all gone wrong.” I hope that clears things up such that “Bob’s your uncle” (i.e., everything’s good).
f Be sure to consult both the laws and prevailing customs of your country to determine what constitutes permission to message. While the U.S. CAN-SPAM law enables businesses to message customers with whom they have a “preexisting business relationship,” it does not always mean you should.
1. Julius “Dr. J.” Irving, as quoted by Vincent Malozzi, Doc: The Rise and Rise of Julius Irving (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2009), 46.
2. ABI Research, “More Than 30 Billion Devices Will Wireless Connect to the Internet of Everything in 2020,” May 9, 2013, http://www.abiresearch.com/press/more-than-30-billion-devices-will-wirelessly-conne.
3. Aaron Smith, “Smartphone Ownership—2013 Update” (Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, June 5, 2013), http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2013/PIP_Smartphone_adoption_2013.pdf