Have you ever played the video game Civilization? It’s one of Elon Musk’s favorites. The goal is to build an empire and take over the world. One area that players have to focus on is the happiness of their citizens. If there aren’t enough entertainment venues, like sporting events and clubs, the masses get restless and might ultimately rise up and revolt. Of course, having citizens revolt is just as bad as it sounds. Could there be a parallel between the citizens and your customers?
When Video Games Become Real Life
Think of it this way: As a species, we’ve always been tribal in nature. When we moved our lives even more online in 2020, social media allowed us to find niches and sub-niches to join. This means we’re only exposed to ideas and thoughts we likely agree with. Then, we log off. Because we can hide or unfriend people we disagree with, we can effectively spend the majority of our days reinforcing our own confirmation bias.
With that in mind, here are the million-dollar questions: How can you sell your product or service to potential customers spending more and more time online and in information silos? How can you and your business adapt to capitalize on these trends in the post-pandemic world? We don’t have a one-size-fits-all answer, but here are a few key ideas.
3 Ways To Reach Today’s Customers
#1 Build A Tribe
Tribalism is human nature, but right now, people are even more inclined to join groups, membership programs, and loyalty programs. If you don’t offer those things, then now’s the time to change and adapt. You may even want to rethink your entire business model now that the hybrid-continuity model is gaining traction. Ask yourself, “How can we gather people up and place them into a group they feel comfortable with? What common interests or objectives do your customers and prospects have?”
#2 Entertain Your Customers And Prospects
This has always been important, but it’s especially important right now. So many entertainment options disappeared last year, and some have been slow to come back. John Krasinski, who you’ll likely know as Jim from the TV show “The Office,” started a YouTube channel on March 29, 2020. It’s a news program called “Some Good News With John Krasinski.” As we write this, the channel has more than 2.5 million subscribers. Since people are paying more attention, now is a great time to provide entertainment. You don’t need to start a YouTube channel to do this. In fact, depending on your business, that may not be the right media. You’ll find plenty of ways to entertain and educate your customers and prospects. A few that come to mind are niche magazines, podcasts, and digital or print newsletters. There are many more ways, but you get the idea. One of the benefits of entertaining customers and prospects is that you start to build relationships with them. No doubt, those relationships can be game-changers for your business.
#3 Get More Partners
Businesses are more willing to work together for the greater good and maybe even the survival of one or both companies. This means there are opportunities for partnerships that may not have been available at the start of the pandemic. Did the company you really wanted to partner with in the past turn you down? They could easily say “Yes” to that partnership today. All you have to do is ask. So much has changed, and potential customers are very open to reconsidering things they previously declined.
It is easy to get stuck in sell, sell, sell mode. While selling needs to happen, don’t forget that you have to entertain, nurture, educate, and market too. Getting distribution to and consumption from both your customers and prospects is vital if you really want to see massive success and growth. These things are even more important right now because of the way the pandemic changed people.
The Best Strategy Of All
One of the reasons newsletters, specifically print newsletters, are still viable and relevant in 2021 is they touch all the points above. Maybe even more importantly, they can get into nearly 100% of your prospects’ and customers’ hands. Once the newsletter has been distributed, your prospects and clients are likely to open it and consume the content because of the systems we have developed. This distribution and consumption are why newsletters are powerful. If you really want a newsletter to work like it is on steroids, use the newsletter to get people to like and join your other media channels or groups.
You’re smart to use an item that has a near-100% distribution rate to fill your other media channels and groups. Why? You’ll drastically increase prospect conversation rates, upsell rates, referral rates, and customer retention rates. Your business is touching each and every customer or prospect multiple times a month across multiple platforms. You’re also entertaining, educating, and bringing them into your tribe to help them solve their problems. No question, the customers and prospects will be happy to consume it all and even share it with friends. We can’t say for certain, but we suspect even the citizens of Civilization would approve.
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