Top 14 Tips for Connecting with Customers from CMOs | Connections with Sarah Franklin | Salesforce

If you want to be best in your job, you have to always kind of be peeking around the corner or right what's happening over there. Because when you're in the media business or even in the marketing business, you have to know who your consumer is and you actually have to be focused on where they're going next. I was with a really great marketing consultant years ago and we were sitting in a Starbucks, we were talking about Strava, and she said, well, tell me a little bit about your customer base. And it just so happened there were a group of cyclists that were sitting over in a corner having coffee after a ride. And I said, well, see that group of four people? That's our target audience right there. And her face lit up because she said, oftentimes when I ask people this, they'll say, well, anybody here in Starbucks could be the audience. But in our case, by going and being very focused and intentional, we then could have an intimate conversation. And as you start to do that, you start to just ptease out. So this is how they talk, this is the language that they use. These are the features that they're going to need if they were ever to go digital. So I think listening comes down to, do you really know who your customer is and who they aren't? Authentic marketing is really earning the right to speak with your customers and delivering content that prioritizes their needs above your company or your product's needs. Helping, not selling. That's really a mantra that we try to live day in and day out. What are some actionable techniques that people can use to walk in the shoes of their customers? Oh, well, that's easy. Use the product, use it all the time. You've shifted your marketing playbook to reach new supporters. Talk to me about what bold blunt brief means. Bold blunt brief is our commitment to cutting through the noise. Let's get right to what it is that we actually need our audience to do. We have 2 million members across the country. They're getting emails and communications constantly. We want to get to the point. How did you pivot your programming strategy during the COVID lockdown? The switch we made was to think, well, how does the audience feel right now? So as well as cutting money, we reinvested money into super fast turnaround programming. We were all forced to have to cook every night. So we had a show every night where a famous chef here, Jamie Oliver, was cooking, and he was cooking day by day without crew. In the end, he was filming himself on his iPhone. But it was super popular because it was the Reality of what we were all stuck with. What's it like to create that content which is putting that audience and putting that trust at the center? It's about creating content that allows people to escape everything else that's going on and just really enjoy the workout. And I think that's what's so unique about Peloton and our world class instructors. They're unscripted. They bring such a unique vantage point that really allows you, as the member, to connect with it. How are you thinking about experiences as a marketer? The design thinking is all about the experience, but it always starts with consumer first and what are we solving for? And I think that's what any product innovation and marketing team really should focus on. Consumers should have a chance to play with the products. People that come here really enjoy the unique experience. People are so curious about how will this feel in my hand, what is your advice to marketers that are trying to stay one step ahead of the curve? I think it's listening to the marketplace and taking your cues from your audience. I think if you're not on the playing field, if you're not using the tools and spending time where your audiences are, you're never going to learn anything. I heard that you've done some guerrilla marketing tactics. How have you gotten that word out? Farmers markets is going to be the best way and most efficient because you already have customers walking around. So you got to say, hey, would you like to try a sample? You know, and then they finally try a sample. They. And then Bree, you know it. And you get them hooked. You get them hooked. How much do you put the customer at the center then of everything that you do with marketing, frankly, I would say with any business, you have to start with the customer. You're meeting somebody's need. And so I remember when the pandemic broke out, you know, a lot of marketers were pulling back and thinking about what they were gonna do for everybody. It was like, you know what? You have to be focused on meeting the need of your customers. That is literally the only thing that matters. And I think for any business, that's where you start. How important is community in all of your marketing and with your customers and with everything you see with the business Joining Poshmark, I realized, oh, my gosh, this business is not just an e commerce business. There's a whole entire community of people that sell that survive on Poshmark. Thinking about that customer from the very beginning was something I wanted to make sure that I honored and that I didn't just say, hey, there's probably another 50 million customers somewhere else. But really, how do we continue to cultivate the ones that we have? Let them be our best advocates. Let them help drive word of mouth. When you started Axios, your goal was to put the audience first. What does that look like in practice? You have to live by it. It's literally the first words of our manifesto, like, audience first. Is this really in the best interest of the user? And sometimes that means surrendering short term profit to make sure that you're serving that user. And our theory has always been if you do that, people will reward you. They can sniff out a phony. How much do you think that is important to your brand? To be authentic and to have a message? Extremely important. And at least for me, it was just a lot of things kind of came together at the same time with COVID in the last couple of years and designing and everything coming together. There's so many messages in my brand. But the main thing is really inclusion because we all fluctuate in sizes. I fluctuate between like a 12 and a 16. But I would like to be feel good at any size. If I can just think about that little girl, I'm going to cry. But if I can just think about that little girl feeling good in a suit and having fun and like ripping and surfing in big waves, I'm winning already. You know, I've already won. That's it. That's how I feel. Thanks for tuning in. Make sure to check out more episodes on Salesforce Plus.