I’ve been thinking a lot about loyalty and advocacy audiences lately. This is the funnel stage where the same purchases occur multiple times because you’re holding onto a customer. It’s also where your customers are doing the sales work for you by inviting their community to also adopt your products and services. Despite the well-bandied stat that it’s 10x cheaper to keep an existing customer than find a new one, so many companies only focus on growth through new client acquisition.
In nightlife, the loyalty and advocacy stages are crucial. So crucial that in my unfinished book I identified that as opposed to a traditional marketing funnel, nightlife has two advocacy stages, one that typically occurs before conversion – and this is where someone who’s thinking about converting asks their friends if they want to go. Very few people walk through the doors of a concert or nightclub alone.
The path to success in entertainment requires people who’ve experienced your entity to come back. Your ability to promote requires that you develop a community that is excited to hear about whatever is coming next, be it merchandise or events. When I’m marketing club nights and events, I trade in ticket sales, attendance, and familiar faces. The need for loyalty is the primary concern and not the secondary one.
Now, flip back to agency life, be it B2B or B2C, and the goals and resources consistently seem to be weighted toward new customers and sales efforts. Why? It’s estimated that 75% of all new customers in almost any vertical come through referrals – AKA happy, loyal customers advocating for you within their communities. This route to gaining new customers is more effective, it’s cheaper, and it’s how people are used to making buying decisions.
Mind you, I’m not advocating for abandoning sales efforts. What I’m advocating for is shifting resources and emphasis to also focus on the slower build of delighting every single person who has already adopted your product or service, creating communities that they feel connected to, and providing ongoing tangible and intangible value catered specifically to them.
If you start incorporating this thinking, I’m going to add one more bit of perspective from the trenches. When I’m promoting a club night, the event itself is not necessarily the bucket where the hard work is devoted (we do work hard there, too). I call the event itself ‘the victory lap’. The bulk of the work is put into making sure people are aware of the night, what to expect, and generating excitement. By the time I take the stage, the future has already been written. Translated back to your situation, I’d recommend putting in a lot of effort into building these communities of happy customers without clear indicators if it’s working or not. You’ll have to have faith that you’re building something worthwhile before that payoff ever occurs.
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