Transformational Consumer Trends for 2014: Video from Habit Summit
The Enchanted Marketing Bunker: The Magical Properties of One-on-One Off-Sites
The job of a leader can really be boiled down to 3 things:
- hire the right people
- create a set of conditions and systems which unlock their individual and collective superpowers, and
- get them the resources they need to do the work play our organization needs them to do.
Sometimes you can borrow tools and systems that have already been proven to work in other organizations, like OKRs. But other times, it’s our job as leaders to detect needs and create our own systems or approaches that align right up to the unique strengths, challenges and needs of the human beings on our team and the factual circumstances under which they are working.
How to reach the Transformational Consumer: life cycle vs. life event marketing
Historically, marketing was something companies did to drive growth – to get new people to buy what they sold. These days, the more we understand what it takes to make a business thrive, and the more digital companies play a role in the marketplace, the more we see a shift to marketers being called upon to engage existing users (vs. just getting new ones).
Engagement marketing didn’t really used to be a thing. What we used to hear about in that vein was “life cycle” campaigns: messages you would deliver to customers based on where they were in their “life cycle” of using your product. So, if a customer had been using an app for a few months, they would get a “drip” email message with different content than someone who had been using it for just a week or two.
5 Ways to Listen to Your Transformational Consumer Audience
The customer segment I call Transformational Consumers are defined by their common characteristics. But your product’s or company’s Transformational Consumers may reflect a subset of this overarching group. And as such, they probably have their own special quirks, values, priorities, content cravings, up-at-night fears, hopes, dreams and vocabulary.
To create products that appeal to them and send them the bat signal that THIS is for THEM <homebuyer/Crossfitter/etc.>, you have to
- listen to them
- think like them and especially
- communicate in their natural language, and be present in their natural habitats, online and off.
Transformational Consumer Trend: HiberNation
Anyone who has ever belonged to a gym or yoga studio knows that New Year’s Resolutions drive abundant interest in getting fit — and that the lines to the treadmill will be pretty non-existent by January 20th, latest. What’s less obvious than this seasonal peak in health and fitness transformation is that there’s probably also a seasonal trough, and it’s starting right about now.
It probably actually started a few weeks ago. Right around the time the Halloween candy goes on sale and the time changes, many fitness industry businesses see a slowdown in user engagement. For digital health technologies, that might look like fewer people wearing their devices or keeping track of their fitness activities, and in health clubs, there’s just a dip in workouts – fewer people showing up, and even the avid folks showing up less often.