Make Your Customers Invincible
By: Geno Church Brains on Fire
When was the last time you put on your superhero costume or cape? Come on, admit it. Back in that childhood vault in your mind you put on a store-bought – or even better – homemade costume and ran around the house acting out heroic deeds. Mine is pretty vivid and a little bit wacky! When I would visit my grandparents, I would put on a combination of a store-bought/homemade Batman outfit and tear out to the garden performing my Batman moves on corn stalks or any other vegetable that got in my way.
I recently received an email from Angela Daniels – a lead Fiskateer – that brought my superhero days back in a flash. Angela’s email to me was titled: “You know what other companies would kill for?”
Angela’s email was about a dynamic duo: Scrap-Girl and Croppin, two newbie Fiskateers (by “newbie,” I mean they joined in the last year). These ladies drove over an hour-and-a-half to attend a crop at a Native American Reservation. FYI – a “crop” is an event where crafters or scrapbookers get together and create, share ideas, bond, etc.
Quoting Angela, “I do encourage local Fiskateers to wear as much orange as they can at Fiskateer crops by giving away prizes for the ‘Orangest’ Fiskateers who attend, but for this particular crop I didn’t mention prizes. I just reminded everyone that orange was the theme. My theory is, people are just looking for permission to have fun and be a little silly sometimes. Outside of maybe Halloween, I don’t think there is a lot of permission being granted when you are a grown-up. These two women were THE hit of the party. Everyone wanted their photo with them and to ask them all about their costumes, etc. They were clearly having fun and it infused the whole crop with a different vibe.”
Bingo! People are just looking for permission to have fun and be a little silly sometimes.
Angela’s second point my come as a shock to some. Angela calls these ladies her “offline Fiskateers.”
“I call some of the Fiskateers ‘offline’ Fiskateers because they register to our website but, after that, they rarely or never post. Scrap-girl & Croppin’ don’t even have photos uploaded as avatars, but that obviously doesn’t make them any less enthusiastic as Fiskateers offline. They are the examples I refer to when I tell someone about the Fiskateer online community and they say ‘I’m not really into online communities.’ I tell these crafters that there are all different kinds of Fiskateers and some of them are offline Fiskateers. They just check the calendar and enjoy doing the surveys but most of their enthusiasm and involvement comes when they meet at events and local crops. It’s a very good example of the classic WOM cliché that most of the “conversation” is taking place offline.
Can you make your customer invincible? Probably not, but you can sure as hell give them permission to wake up that inner spirit to have fun.
Permission granted to be a fan!
Attend Brains On Fire’s workshop at the Dallas Optimization Summits
People are the Killer App: Lessons Learned from Creating Word of Mouth Movements
Authentic, sustainable word of mouth marketing is one of the truest forms of brand communication, and it can’t be manufactured or bought. And yet, as more institutions dedicate marketing dollars to assemble word of mouth and buzz marketing programs, how can you build an effective, meaningful movement for your brand that will directly impact your bottom line? How can you identify those brand advocates already speaking out on your behalf, and work with them to develop a natural two-way word of mouth program?
Geno Church from identity company Brains on Fire will explain how word of mouth marketing works and how it doesn’t, providing techniques on how you can start to identify movement-building opportunities for your brand, with authenticity and clear measurement results in mind.
He will highlight successful WOM case studies, including data from the just launched Best Buy Musical Instruments movement and the nationally-recognized Fiskars Brands ‘Fiskateers’ movement, as well as talk about ways to define ROI for your word of mouth marketing programs.
Geno Church - Word of Mouth Inspiration Officer, Brains on Fire
Geno was born and raised in the South and proudly calls Greenville , SC his home. He spent two years at Furman University and went on to the University of South Carolina to receive a degree in Advertising. In his 13+ years with Brains On Fire, Geno has helped build word of mouth into the identities of brands that include Fiskars Brands, the American Booksellers Association, Rawlings Sporting Goods, National Family Partnership, Earshot Independent Music Stores, the US Office of National Drug Control Policy, Ronald McDonald Children’s Charities, and Rage Against the Haze (South Carolina’s youth led anti-tobacco movement). Geno is responsible for developing word of mouth, buzz, viral and evangelism strategies for Brains on Fire’s clients.
Geno has been repeatedly recognized as a thought leader in both the identity and word of mouth realms and has also received awards from numerous organizations, including the 2004 National ADDYs, where he received honors for his work with Rage Against the Haze. Rage also won a coveted gold Effie award in 2008 and a Wommie award in 2006 from the Word of Mouth Marketing Association. The Fiskars Brand Ambassador movement, of which was Geno’s brainchild, was also recognized by ad:tech and the Forrester Groundswell awards in 2007. In addition, the children’s book he helped illustrate and create, The Red Ribbon Works, was used as a backdrop for President Clinton’s War on Drugs.
Geno has given presentations at numerous events, including the National Conference on Tobacco and Health, the American Public Health Association Exposition, several Word of Mouth Marketing Association conferences, Social Media 2007 in Atlanta and Customer Management World 2007 inJohannesburg , South Africa . He is a frequent contributor to the Brains on Fire blog, which is one of the top marketing and word of mouth blogs in the world and referenced industry wide on a weekly basis.
Geno is a co-author of the book Brains on Fire to be published by Wiley Publishing in 2010. Book pre-orders being in March.
Old-Fashioned Contacts:
864.676.9663
geno (at) brainsonfire.com
Brains on Fire 148 River Street, Suite 100 Greenville, SC 29601
