You heard it right. Brands are taking their passion and sharing it through a variety of distribution channels. People are discovering and following them. Then the craziest thing is happening: that audience is seeking them out in real life, creating a destination for travelers and revenue for areas where it didn’t exist before. “If you build it, they will come,” was a great line for a movie, but it’s a hopeful strategy at best. With so many things competing for our time, hoping you break through the noise isn’t a strategy at all. Building an audience is a proactive approach that connects your brand with the customer, and it’s happening all over.
An hour northeast of Kansas City, in Hamilton, Missouri, a daughter and son started a side project for their mom, Jenny Doan, called Star Quilt. The town, like a lot of small rural towns, was not in great shape. “When the company was founded we had one or two antique stores, city hall, a Subway®, and a couple gas stations,” said co-founder Alan Doan. “We wanted to give people a reason to stay in a rural town in Missouri.”
Things started slowly, but really took off when Jenny started doing tutorials on YouTube™. Now a bona fide YouTube star with more than 400,000 subscribers and millions of views, the business is steaming along—and it’s brought the town with it. Missouri Star Quilt is now the largest employer in the county (more than 180 people) and it’s transformed Main Street into a quilter’s paradise. One person interviewed by NPR drove from California to Missouri just to visit the company. “It was my dream to get here and see Jenny.” When she arrived, instead of seeing a strip of rundown buildings—as she would have seen a few years ago—she strolled among a dozen different shops and restaurants, and even Man’s Land, a respite for non-quilters.
Chip and Joanna Gaines are the husband and wife team that host the popular television show, “Fixer Upper,” on HGTV. Each episode, they partner with prospective homebuyers to find homes around the town of Waco, Texas, that could use some TLC in addition to design upgrades. Luckily for the buyers, the couple offers both renovation and interior design services, with Chip managing the build and construction and Joanna lending her unique design sensibilities. Their skills, combined with their funny, approachable on-screen personalities, have created a passionate worldwide audience.
They have worked to build their business into a legitimate lifestyle brand, a line of home paint, a wallpaper line, and a quarterly journal, among other things—and people can’t seem to get enough. The result has been to drive a new energy into the area as visitors come from around the world to see what the Gaineses and the local craftsmen they partner with have created. To accommodate those guests, they created the Magnolia Market at the Silos. Once abandoned grain silos, they are now the backdrop for shopping, games, relaxing in a garden, and grabbing a bite to eat. It’s the perfect place to think and dream about your own space, just as the Gaineses imagined.
Some people have trouble imagining big dreams and stop short of pursuing them. That’s not a problem for Matt Roloff and his family, the focus of the TLC reality show, “Little People Big World.” The show follows the family: father and mother, Matt and Amy, both little people; and their four children, only one of which is little, around their farm in rural Oregon. The Roloff family and their “never quit” attitude turned what began as a dilapidated 34 acres into a family home, farm, and a thriving business.
For years people tuned into see what was happening on the farm and what the family was into that season. In the beginning, pumpkins were the draw as people came from all over to pick pumpkins in the fall. The farm morphed to accommodate the growing crowds and entertain them while they were there. The other projects around the farm changed as their children grew, from fantasy pirate ships to wedding barns. Recognizing that their audience would love to experience what they’ve seen on television, they’ve hosted weddings, created a bed and breakfast, and developed other projects that bring their audience into their world.
What is the one thing that these three family brands have in common? They converted their passionate audience into destination seekers. Because these families exude a passion for what they do and a willingness to share it, they connect with people all over the world. But all three understood that simply creating an audience was the first step. The next was to develop smart, creative, and ever-changing destination brands to attract and engage those audiences. Their ability to relate to their audiences, help, entertain, and let them into their worlds is the reason for their successes.
Learn More about Destination Marketing Learn More about Building an Audience
Check out our Destination Marketing eBooks.
Destination Marketing Trends
Technology for Destination Marketing
None of the aforementioned companies or brands are current or previous clients of Wilson Advertising, just ones that we admire and find interesting. All trademarked and copyrighted names, marks and logos are the property of their respective companies.
Everyone has a different personality. There are those you seek out at a dinner party and others you trust in a pinch. They are probably not the same person.
The same is true with brands. Every brand has a personality, but that doesn’t mean everyone will love it all of the time. In fact, if a brand tries to be all things to all people, chances are it won’t mean much to anyone. The middle has proven to be a less than ideal place to be for a number of brands recently, from J.C. Penney to the Gap. It’s better to have a strong core of supporters than a field full of passive bystanders that don’t actively dislike your brand, but don’t love it either.
Recent opinions are moving away from the 80/20 rule, where 20% of your audience is thought to make up 80% of your revenue and towards a ratio of 95/5 today. That is a much smaller target and makes finding and focusing on your core audience even more important than ever before. The fact that there are more channels available for your audience makes focusing and refining your efforts even more important. If you’re not accurate, it’s more likely than ever that you could miss a 5% target completely.
Brands need to have the discipline to ignore the masses that aren’t part of their most valuable audience. It feels counter-intuitive and like they are backing away from opportunities, and in turn, revenue. The reality is that huge efforts and expense required would deliver minimal gains, if any, while possibly diluting the appeal to the most valuable target group.
That’s why it’s critical that brands pay strict attention to the Five Gates of Branding as they plan and consider their go-to-market strategies.
Identify what your customers want, what your brand does best, and what it does better than the competition, and build from there.
What do you actually give or deliver to customers? This is the ultimate benefit you provide, not your product.
Make sure that your efforts encourage the next generation.
Study to ensure that the language you use is the language your audience recognizes to be consistent with your brand.
Be in the right place at the right time. If you are diligent in the other steps, you should be leaning in the right direction.
You can learn more about these gates in our ebook, The Five Gates of Branding, Opening the Path to Renewed Brand Growth.
The world’s first fast food hamburger chain, founded in 1921, managed to survive the great depression, multiple wars, the ’60s, and any number of diet fads and arrive as the crave king today—how did they do it? By being authentic to their brand and continually reconnecting with their audience.
A line from the 2004 movie, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, perfectly captures how a lot of people feel about the brand. “As a Burger Shack employee for the past three years, if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that if you’re craving White Castle, the burgers here just don’t cut it. In fact, just thinking about those tender little White Castle burgers with those little, itty-bitty grilled onions that just explode in your mouth like flavor crystals every time you bite into one …”
In short, when you crave White Castle®, nothing else will do.
You don’t go to White Castle for a veggie wrap. You go because of the delicious hamburgers (affectionately known as “sliders,” now part of the lexicon for small sandwiches), cooked on top of onions. That’s what they do. Sure, they have onion rings, fries, and even breakfast, but so does everyone. That’s not what differentiates White Castle. It is and will always be the slider hamburger.
For many companies, suggesting that their audience “craves” their product would be too direct. Not for White Castle. They not only suggest that the desire for White Castle can border on irrational, they embrace and encourage the idea. In fact, the word “crave” has been integral to their message since 1994, almost as critical as their name. In fact, variations of the word actually appear on the website more than the name White Castle, and they’ve created a Cravers Hall of Fame to highlight and recognize the length fans have gone to satisfy their cravings.
Long before Harold and Kumar went chasing their cravings into the night, White Castle was a must stop on many road trips. As Wilson Vice President of Client Services, Tom Jaeger, tells it, “any time we went to Cincinnati with my dad, we had to stop at White Castle, because that’s what my dad did when he was young with my grandfather. Every time.”
White Castle restaurants aren’t franchised and haven’t appeared on every corner like other fast food restaurants. Centered mostly in the Midwest, they make trips to the Castle a special occasion for many people. The idea that the sliders are worth traveling for is encouraged through the White Castle mobile app and social experiences. A great example is the interactive YouTube™ Craver Adventure the brand created in 2016: White Castle’s Nibblers Road trip. The videos enable visitors to choose their own adventure on a wacky road trip while promoting the Nibbler side items.
Because of the limited distribution, it was inevitable that fans would find a way to satisfy their cravings, no matter where they lived. Aficionados found that freezing and shipping White Castles didn’t compromise the flavor, even if it lacked the restaurant experience. The company seized on the idea, expanding into the frozen section of groceries nationwide, and ultimately even movie theaters and vending machines.
While other organizations might run away from partnership opportunities that seem unusual, White Castle has been willing to join their audience wherever they are. In addition to the aforementioned Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (an opportunity turned down by Krispy Kreme), the restaurants have been the setting for multiple editions of the show “Impractical Jokers,” where the stars hilariously act as employees and interact with real customers in their skits.
White Castle also sponsors and participates in the White Castle USA Luge Slider Search program, the official nationwide athlete recruitment tour of USA Luge. By giving young athletes, ages 9 – 13 opportunities at various locations around the country, they’re finding the next stars for USA and Olympic Luge teams, like Slider Search Graduate and Olympic medalist, Erin Hamlin.
White Castle has built a loyal audience that craves their products and everything they do. By being open to new opportunities and pushing into emerging channels, they continue to connect with new audiences to strengthen and grow their brand.
Learn more about how Audience plays an integral role for every brand.
White Castle® is not a client of Wilson Advertising. All trademarked and copyrighted names, marks and logos are the property of their respective companies.
Nearly a quarter of the population of the United States is now composed of millenials. They are a powerful consumer group that every brand needs to reach if it wants to stay competitive. So why are so many brands struggling to connect with this demographic?
They are struggling because millienials are coming of age during an era of uncertainty. Crushed by student loan and medical debt, they have less spare cash and have acquired a hefty dose of skepticism when it comes to big brands. That means your brand must work harder to woo them and their business.
For a marketing strategy to appeal to millenials it needs to be engaging in a way that is authentic, personal, and adds value to their everyday lives. Here are three ways your brand can build trust to reach these savvy consumers:
1) Authenticity. Millenials crave authenticity from the people and brands they interact with. In the era of fake news and disillusionment with big business, millenials trust brands that sound authentic. Cultivating this trust is all about reaching out to this audience using the language they use – and delivering messages on the channels they frequent. In this way, millenials are no different than any other demographic. You must understand them, what’s important to them, and where they consume their media in order to connect. Taco Bell has even incorporated a “Millenial Word of the Week” into its weekly internal corporate communications plan to keep everyone in the loop on lingo.
2) Personalization. We live in a time where we have incredible access to consumer data – so why aren’t more big brands using it to personalize their messages? Millenials aren’t fans of generic outbound marketing efforts. They have become accustomed to personally tailored experiences on platforms like Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram that serve them content that’s relevant. Big brands that succeed are those willing to embrace data-driven marketing efforts that allow them to customize and serve messages to consumers in a highly personal, targeted way.
3) Value. Are you providing millenials with valuable content, or just pushing out generic digital ads with your logo and tagline? Content marketing isn’t a new idea. Brands have always recognized the benefit of providing value to consumers, whether it’s the Michelin restaurant guide or John Deere’s education magazine, The Furrow. In 1904, Jell-O even gave away free copies of its recipe book as a winning marketing tactic. Millenials want to know what your brand can do for them – not what they can do for your brand. Offer valuable content that keeps them coming back for more.
Are you interested in creating a millennial-friendly marketing strategy? Let’s talk.
How does a software company founded nearly 50 years ago compete with startups? One of the first software companies ever, Cincom®, competes every day in this era of startups and quick evolution. What’s their secret? They continue to connect with their audience on a personal level at every opportunity. And for one of their product groups, that means a variety of events.
Cincom began operations in 1968 and bills itself as the “world’s most experienced software company.” It is an international company that has offered several different solutions over the years and excelled in many areas. One of those areas is with customer communications solutions, where Troy Gross is the Director of Product Marketing.
Cincom Eloquence® is the product name of the Cincom customer communication solution, and it goes to market with a very lean team. They recently moved from 11 to 4 in the Forrester Wave™, strongly positioning them as a “challenger.” They’re working toward the “visionary” level, and it helps that the solution has never been displaced by an outside sale. In short, the solution works. But with a limited budget, telling that story to the right audience efficiently is paramount. That can be a challenge.
B2B marketing has changed dramatically in the last two decades. As the number of industrial trade publications available has decreased, businesses have turned to self-education and information finding through the web. There’s no doubt that the web and digital communications are important. However, one thing hasn’t changed: people still need to connect personally.
That’s why you’ll find a Cincom Eloquence presence at key trade shows and events in industries where they choose to compete. “We’re not the right solution for everybody,” says Troy. “But for the ones where we are a good fit, we’re the best. You can see that in our history of not being displaced. The industries where we are successful are very tight-knit. People talk. We need to be a part of those conversations and be a recognizable face.”
For Cincom, being at the events gives them a face-to-face advantage. “The whole world doesn’t know us, but the people we need to know us, do” he says. That’s because by leveraging even seemingly obscure shows consistently, they are able to maintain their presence, hear what’s new, and have a positive impact both on sales and future product development. These interchanges don’t happen by chance. Troy and the Cincom Eloquence team meticulously maintain their contact lists. They use them for email and direct mail to let their audience know where they’re going to be and what they have in store. “We always have some sort of fun and engaging ice-breaker at our booth that is tied to the communication. That way, they immediately make the connection with Cincom Eloquence.”
The dedication to personal communications doesn’t end with events held by other people. To extend and drive even further into their selected niches, Cincom Eloquence has created their own event—a customer conference that cuts across industries. “While we are very niche, the industries in our niches have many of the same challenges across the board, even if their businesses are different,” says Troy. “Take compliance and privacy, for instance. Those are things that are critical to our customers and that we do very well. Bringing together disparate industries where that is important enables them to share and learn from each other. And for us to hear what is important to them.”
User conferences don’t have to draw thousands to be effective. “Our conference gives us a great opportunity to sell deeper across some of our bigger accounts. It’s a great place to bring prospects in and let them talk to current customers,” states Troy. “The customers that come to your event are your best users and biggest fans. It might not be all of them, but if it’s your top 10 percent it’s worth it. They’re the ones really striving to make your solution work. There is no downside I can see from having prospects talk to customers that are excited about your solution. None.”
Getting people to take the time and attend a conference away from work can be a challenge sometimes, admits Troy. “A lot of it can fluctuate with the economy. We try to keep costs down, but also make sure they have a great time while they’re with us.” To that end, one Cincom Eloquence conference was even held on a cruise ship, which was more affordable and provided more simplified planning than you might expect.
As the saying goes, often it’s not what you know, it’s who knows you. By making the effort to get out to events and be where their audience is, Cincom Eloquence ensures that those in their industry know who they are. And by taking it a step farther and hosting their own event, they guarantee that their name and face are recognized when it counts. A lot has changed in marketing and sales, but one thing hasn’t and won’t. It is still about connections. At the end of the day, face-to-face is more personalized than the best smart content or personalized content plan could ever be.
You can learn more about Cincom Eloquence here, and more about Wilson Advertising’s event experience here.
(NOTE: Cincom Systems, Inc. is not a client of Wilson Advertising and Wilson Advertising is in no way responsible for the marketing of any Cincom products, solutions or services.)
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Send Me NewsAll trademarked and copyrighted names, marks and logos are the property of their respective companies. Image courtesy of Cincom Systems, Inc.
The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, “the Greatest show on Earth,” is going into the history books. After a 146-year run, it is folding the big top and pulling the show off of the road. In an interesting–and decidedly modern–decision, they will stream their last performance on Facebook Live on May 21, 2017.
But the end of the circus does not reflect an overall trend. In fact, personal spending on events and experiences has been on the rise for several years. The fear of the millennial generation disappearing individually into their devices and a virtual world hasn’t materialized. Maybe because of the digital separation, they are much more willing to spend their income on experiences instead of things. Whether it is to fulfill a need for human interaction or just to have something to share later, American spending on events and experiences has been on the rise since the digital generation arrived.
In the face of overall category growth, how did the circus fail and what’s in store for other iconic events and their changing brand audience?
It’s a conundrum that companies, especially event brands, have faced before: how to address changes in audience. The Ringling Bros’ and Barnum & Bailey Circus had been facing growing protests regarding the elephants used in the show for years. And although attendance at live family shows was growing nationally, by as much as 18% recently, changing interests and values didn’t result in a growing audience for the circus. People were apparently more interested in seeing animals in their natural habitat or as close to it as possible. Those interested in daring feats were less impressed with circus offerings on the high wire than by any number of extreme sports activities and videos available anywhere. Bowing to pressure, the circus decided to drop the elephants.
One problem. The audience that was attending was interested in one thing: the elephants. A year after announcing the retirement of its iconic elephants from the center ring, Feld Entertainment, the parent company of the circus stated, “the decision to end the circus tours was made as a result of high costs coupled with a decline in ticket sales, making the circus an unsustainable business for the company. Following the transition of the elephants off the circus, the company saw a decline in ticket sales greater than could have been anticipated.” Or maybe it could have been, if the circus was more in tune with the audience that was actually attending.
Two examples that should be paying very close attention to their audience right now are the NFL and boxing. For 2016, the NFL saw viewership drop by 24%, 19%, and 18% for Monday, Sunday and Thursday night games respectively. That’s huge. While the NFL is still a behemoth on the television schedule, these decreases should be noted for several reasons. First, the loyal audience, the ones that consume games in their entirety, is aging. Secondly, the new audience is less engaged and might care more about their “fantasy team” than an actual franchise. They have no need to sit through a 3-hour broadcast full of commercials – they can get the information they need through their smartphone wherever they are.
The sweet science of boxing is squaring off against the new kid on the block, mixed martial arts (MMA). While globally, top boxing bouts out-draw the biggest MMA challenger, Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), by a large margin, that’s not the entire story. Boxing’s true showcase events are limited to just a handful of names that have broad international appeal. They are not getting younger and won’t compete forever. By many measures, the UFC has more star power within its ranks. That translates to marketing power and a growing audience. This Google Trends chart compares the US interest in both sports. If the trend continues, boxing could follow the circus into the annals of history.
As the population looks to spend more on experiences, events won’t get a free pass to success. Those that don’t listen and provide their audience with the experience they want will be passed by. The shift could come from anywhere: changing values, norms, technology or interests. It’s up to event brands to ask the questions of the audience and listen to their responses.
Learn more about how legacy brands can connect with new audiences in our ebook, Five Gates of Branding.
You might also like FIVE GATES OF BRANDING: AUDIENCE.
So you’ve finally decided to take the plunge and plan a business conference. There can be many reasons to run your own conference. It’s a great way to meet like-minded people in your industry, promote your business solutions, connect with customers and potential customers, and network with peers.
But pulling off a successful business conference can be tougher than it looks. At Wilson, we run corporate events and business conferences for global brands, so we know all about what can go right – and wrong. Here are some tips based on nearly two decades of our experience in this space:
Bonus tip: Get social! Download our free social media guide on how to leverage social media to drive event attendance and engagement.
What will you do when your brand audience shifts? The world is becoming increasingly mobile and the impact is just now starting to be felt across a variety of industries. For example, as Robert Rose voiced more than a year ago, and AT&T with Mark Wahlberg states: what is television? Is it a thing on a wall–or is it something you view on whatever device you happen to have handy? That’s something that users might not think twice about, but many companies producing content can’t afford to ignore.
Consider ESPN. When they burst onto the market with the birth of cable TV, they were in the cable sports business. In fact, they were the cable sports business. There were only four ways to get information about sports at the time: see it live (either in person or on TV), hear it on the radio, or read about it in print later. While ESPN eventually added media options, with radio shows and a print magazine, things have changed dramatically in the last five years. Now, anyone can get the information they want instantly, in any number of ways. Want to watch live tennis from around the world? Pick your device—tablet, smart phone, computer or TV. Want to know what happened in every game in the league? Check your social feeds. The ESPN audience doesn’t have to reserve a time on the couch to watch specific shows or events to get the information they want. ESPN has to adapt if it wants to continue to be relevant with its audience.
A consequence of the new streaming and mobile technology is that more and more people are cutting the cord from cable, either entirely or paring back to the basics. This is especially prevalent among millennials and generations to follow. This also happens to be the next potential generation audience for ESPN. If they are not going to consume content via cable, the company has to make a decision to provide content where their audience is. That’s not easy to give up when the network gets a purported $7+ per cable household, totaling $7.8 billion per year. But the signs are in and changes are on the way. If you look outside of the U.S., new and developing markets will never have cable. Why would they?
With ratings dropping and audiences moving away, ESPN made the decision to let go of a significant portion of its on-air talent. These were many of the faces that its audience would recognize when they came to the channel—but that an online and mobile audience would never see. If you’re looking for a 30-second sports highlight, you don’t want half of that time to be a talking head explaining what you are about to see. Just. Show. The. Video. That’s what the audience wants.
The alternative? Keep feeding the cable audience until the ESPN brand is locked behind the audience brand gate and the world has moved on. That’s not a path for sustained brand growth. Brands can live forever, and ESPN is taking smart steps in that direction by reducing its dependency on cable and meeting its next audience where they want to be.
ESPN is making adjustments now to move with its audience—are you? This shift away from cable doesn’t just affect ESPN and other content providers, it impacts all of the companies that advertise on its programs, sponsor its events, and use its programming to reach their audience. Each one of these organizations will have to determine the best way to stay connected with their audience or risk being left behind. And one thing for certain is that they are going to change.
Learn more about how legacy brands can connect with new audiences in our ebook, Five Gates of Branding.
As your messaging begins to take hold, the right destination marketing technology tools enable you to track visitors actual experience before, during, and after their visit. Thanks to technology like predictive analytics and others, we can know with certainty when members of our audience are planning a trip, what their interests are, and when they will arrive. “Listen to what they say, but watch what they do” isn’t just an adage anymore. In many instances, we can watch and tell precisely what they did while they were here through their digital footprint.
That knowledge enables us to tailor experiences now and in the future, ultimately creating loyal fans and increasing revenue.
Because you’ve established channels to communicate with your audience on a regular basis, you can see who is looking and interested in your destination. Social platforms are generally pretty clear and offer some built-in collection and analysis. But for all of your properties, including web, you’ll want to add additional technology.
By now everyone should be familiar with Google Analytics. It is a free and powerful tool but constantly changing. This will reveal rough numbers and locations that are great for high-level reporting and synopsis. But to be truly effective you’ll want to invest in some type of marketing or email automation that can identify individual contacts.
Programs like Mailchimp, Hubspot, Marketo and open source Mautic provide increased levels of sophistication and detail. These programs enable you to clearly identify potential visitors’ interests and communicate in a more personal and conversational way, delivering the right message at the right time.
You’ll also see triggers that indicate that a particular audience member is ready to take the next step. This could be requesting a planning guide, visiting a certain number of pages, or returning to the site for the third time.
Of course, big data is taking hold here as well. We know that every digital touch creates a data point (or several) about that person and their activity.
Whether we can see it, and better still, take action on it, are another story. But we’re getting better and better every day.
AirSage can employ mobile data to reveal how active an area is, how those visitors arrived, when they arrived, and even their movements within 100 yards. Other services can monitor and track what influenced their behavior.
Arrivalist can measure the way network-enabled devices change locations after being exposed to your communications. This provides direct insight into how your message has impacted their actions far beyond the last click.
The following list is just a sample of the technology resources that could be useful for destination marketing.
To see how branding can work in tandem with these technologies, download our ebook, Destination Marketing Merges onto the Digital Highway.
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Here at Wilson, we love Arby’s. You can catch our team making a run over there a couple times a month. Most importantly, we love Arby’s not for what it could be, but for what it is: a purveyor of juicy, delicious meats. All. The. Meats.
Arby’s CMO, Robert Lynch, understood that those meats are what the company does best. He knew that the world was chockfull of fast-food brands that featured happy folks running around with various types of sandwiches. Lynch understood that what Arby’s needed to find a way to differentiate. His solution? Focus on what makes Arby’s great.
Focus on the meats.
All. The. Meats.
The company’s fresh “We Have the Meats” campaign put the … meat of the marketing matter front and center. The brand wasn’t afraid to poke fun at itself or loop in its audience on the shared jokes, either, like in this spot the brand ran for Pepsi:
Paired with a chain-wide restaurant refurbishment, plugged-in new social voice, and strategic store openings, same-store sales climbed nearly 10% at the company.
Every brand that’s been around for a few years has been faced with the same dilemma that Arby’s was. At some point, the messages that once worked for your brand’s audiences simply don’t resonate anymore. Time moves on. Competitors march in. And if you aren’t careful, your brand gets lost in the sea of sameness.
If you think your brand may be ready for a refresh, subscribe to our newsletter to learn more about the Five Gates of Marketing that may be preventing your brand from reaching its full potential.
Learn more about how legacy brands can discover renewed growth in our ebook, Five Gates of Branding.