Most brands continue to explore new ways to reach and engage their communities, especially given the shift in customer needs during the pandemic. Audiences expect greater levels of empathy and authenticity than before, but the emergence of Dark Social channels makes it harder to track customer conversations and understand their needs. So how can brands break through to their customers? And how can businesses develop deeper community relationships that weather even the greatest industry turbulence?
In this #ContentChat, we’re joined by Jessika Phillips (@JessicaPhillips), founder of NOW Marketing Group, to discuss how companies can build a Craveable brand—one that keeps our communities wanting to come back for more—through content marketing. Read the full recap below, where we share the challenges that marketers face in reaching their communities in 2021, the importance of a brand manifesto to explain your brand’s greater purpose, and the ways that you can leverage a brand manifesto to create personalized and audience-focused content.
Q1: What challenges do marketers face in understanding and reaching their communities and ideal customers in 2021?
Marketers face a range of challenges in 2021. Most conversations and interactions now happen online, which means brands need a way to track, reach, and engage their virtual communities.
A1) Many brands have marketed Face to Face via networking events & simply out in their communities. With the lockdowns, this has proven challenging to get in front of their target audience if they haven’t had relationship marketing in place. #ContentChat
— Jessika Phillips #RelationshipMarketing (@jessikaphillips) April 12, 2021
A1) Brands who haven’t built community via email, social, website utilities, CRM info to know who their customers are & what they need have been very reactive in 2020-2021 but brands that have focused always focused on #RelationshipMarketing have won the past year #ContentChat
— Jessika Phillips #RelationshipMarketing (@jessikaphillips) April 12, 2021
This is so true! Marketers who hadn’t invested in building their mailing lists, and their social communities, had to scramble to adapt to a virtual mode of engaging their communities. #ContentChat https://t.co/Qu7hVGhARL
— Erika Heald | Founder @ErikaHeald (@SFerika) April 12, 2021
Buyer habits have shifted this past year, so brands need to reassess their target personas and these buyer needs.
A1: I do think there is a challenge, even for those who are invested in relationship marketing, to figure out how their customer’s communications patterns are changing. Who’s going someplace different for their interactions and where are those places? #ContentChat
— Derek Pillie 🎯 (@derekpillie) April 12, 2021
A1: 2021 is a whole new ballgame for marketers. We have customers who’ve spent the past year at home who are just now seeing their communities slowly reopen. But there isn’t any going back to the old business as usual. #ContentChat pic.twitter.com/2mNwevvSzl
— Erika Heald | Founder @ErikaHeald (@SFerika) April 12, 2021
Which ties to an increased focus on social listening.
A1) Another big issue in 2020-now has been active social listening & brand empathy. 2020 ripped off the bandaid of brands being able to be vanilla. Our customers expect us to be timely to current issues and speak up about what we believe. #ContentChat
— Jessika Phillips #RelationshipMarketing (@jessikaphillips) April 12, 2021
I frequently hear from clients that they don’t know where to start with social listening, or that they ack the (human and tech) resources to do it at scale. #ContentChat https://t.co/TXYDg1GcFT
— Erika Heald | Founder @ErikaHeald (@SFerika) April 12, 2021
Yes! This is a big issue. There are many ways to start are to set up alerts via Google for free https://t.co/WbvsIFAdhq then use a tool like @Agorapulse to help or simply search for your industry and see what people are saying. AND set up interviews with your clients #contentchat
— Jessika Phillips #RelationshipMarketing (@jessikaphillips) April 12, 2021
But Dark Social, or conversations happening in private or niche communities, is on the rise. This makes it difficult to fully understand our audiences.
A1) Plus the growth of Dark Social (ie conversations happening in private /niche communities have caused an increase in brands who don’t have relationship marketing in place to need to “pay to play” so to speak. . #ContentChat
— Jessika Phillips #RelationshipMarketing (@jessikaphillips) April 12, 2021
I’ve seen this especially with the rise of private Slack communities, Discord channels, and Facebook groups. There are a lot of places that brand listening tools can’t monitor. #ContentChat
— Erika Heald | Founder @ErikaHeald (@SFerika) April 12, 2021
A1) PS- more on dark social here: https://t.co/eAguiM5pXk
— Jessika Phillips #RelationshipMarketing (@jessikaphillips) April 12, 2021
And not to mention the struggles of efficiently collecting and making sense of your data.
A1: I’ll echo @520eastbrands & @jessikaphillips: For us, it’s a combo of not having those in-person events and having a small business budget with a lot of ground to cover. Another big challenge? DATA. Getting good data and cleaning existing data. #ContentChat
— Melanie Graham (@WriterGirlMel) April 12, 2021
Having relevant, clean data is a huge effort and so foundational to precision demand marketing. #ContentChat
— Erika Heald | Founder @ErikaHeald (@SFerika) April 12, 2021
This increase in online activity also means that customers expect more online resources and assistance, like chatbots and FAQs.
A1) cont’d ie chatbots, knowledge centers, online shopping etc.
Customers should be able to do business with us online and off. How can we remove friction during their buying journey should always be a question in our minds #ContentChat— Jessika Phillips #RelationshipMarketing (@jessikaphillips) April 12, 2021
A1) Brand websites & social channels that haven’t built in the right utilities to provide access, speed & ease of doing business have seen a drastic loss of business since 2020. #ContentChat pic.twitter.com/CPAyShRH6n
— Jessika Phillips #RelationshipMarketing (@jessikaphillips) April 12, 2021
A1) funny enough I actually wrote a blog on the future of business in 2020 in 2016- based on a Walker study & it’s still pretty spot on 😬 #ContentChathttps://t.co/VrN7xMsKQO
— Jessika Phillips #RelationshipMarketing (@jessikaphillips) April 12, 2021
A common thread is that communities feel more dispersed before and marketers need to stay focused in their efforts.
Hi gang…I think the biggest issue is a lack of focus with communities. They are trying to do too many things and become mediocre at best at community building. PS: Hi @jessikaphillips OHIO in the house #ContentChat
— JOΞ Pulizzi (@JoePulizzi) April 12, 2021
A1 Cannot wait to hear Jessika’s reply to this. I find a big challenge is so many platforms, so much diversification of audiences, so little time. We want to hit everyone’s eyeballs but we just can’t. Not on small business budgets. Not well. #ContentChat https://t.co/cSBFzzB85M
— Shane Shaps (@520eastbrands) April 12, 2021
A1 Put your content in the right places. Platforms are pretty fractured, and great content is only great if it’s where your audience is. #contentchat
— Dan Goldberg (@Jonas419) April 12, 2021
And Rebekah makes an excellent point: Most often, marketers get in their own way. Brand communities look for genuine interaction, solutions to their challenges, and a sense of belonging.
A1. In terms of community-building, I think marketers get in their own way. Fans don’t stay for the brand, they stay for interaction, conversation, development. When members are connecting over the value provided by the brand – it elevates customers to community. #ContentChat
— Rebekah Bibee (@BekahBibee) April 12, 2021