Why 49 is the new magic number for exclusive online events.

Hello, welcome to this episode of Speak PR. My name is Jim James, and this is the podcast for you if you are running an organization, a business or a nonprofit or any other kind of organization that's got value locked up in it and that you can release through effective communications. I've been running my own public relations firm on 3 continents for over 25 years. I've also built a number of other companies, so the tools and the technologies that I share on this podcast are proven. And I'm going to share with you today why exclusivity could be a strategy that you could be using to gain buy-in, to change the way that people view your company, and ultimately to use some relatively simple psychology to get you noticed. And we're going to talk about the number 49 and why that could be the magic number now when it comes to webinars. So this podcast, Speak PR, is for you. So let's tune in today and talk about exclusivity and how you can use it. Now, exclusivity is about the quality of being available to only a small number of people who are somehow qualified by the value of what they are worth, or the information they've got, or any other qualification that somebody deems makes somebody qualified to get exclusive access to something. Now, exclusion challenges people's fundamental need to belong, to believe that they are good enough, and it causes a number of dysfunctional reactions and can actually lead to chemical releases which can lead to lower self-esteem, to anxiety, to anger, to the inability to reason well. So exclusivity is used by many people, especially by the luxury brands. But it's something that you can use in running your own marketing campaigns to give people the sense that there's not just lots of you for a low cost, but there's a limited amount and it's going to cost them to do it. Now, premium pricing. Can be used as a marketing strategy. And in the same way, we can use that with public relations, because information, as the old adage goes, is power. So the control of information, therefore, is going to be power as well. Now, premium strategies rely on a couple of different aspects. Now, one of these dimensions is called information asymmetry. So this is when one group of people actually don't have an independent way of testing the claim that this information is somehow exclusive. So when we have had press relations and we've had, for example, a CEO in town or a new product available— for example, when I was launching the BlackBerry in Singapore over a decade ago, there were only a few models brought into Singapore, and we were able to get great media coverage because we were able to say to the local media There are only going to be 10 of these phones available in Singapore for trial. Now, everybody, of course, wanted to try at the time the BlackBerry phone. And so the leverage that we had with the media was that if they took the phone, they would have to agree to give us some great coverage. In some cases, it was an opportunity to extract a front cover in those days when we had printed media, an extended interview, for example. Now, at the time, the media, of course, were delighted to get their hands on something that would position their media, their title, as having more than anybody else. So the social phenomenon in exclusivity is the person who receives that information, that product, that test drive, is somehow better than everybody else. And when I launched Morgan as well, we actually made a point of not having too many cars in stock and making a point of saying that if you don't buy one now, you'll have to wait 6 to 12 months to receive one. And because no one could talk to the factory about when the next cars would be available, there was this phenomenon of information asymmetry. In other words, I had more information than my customers. I had more information than the media. So if you're looking at creating an opportunity of exclusivity, ask whether you have control over the information. And do you have some way of controlling access to information on the behalf of those people who are going to need to be motivated by this sense of exclusivity? So another aspect of exclusivity is that the good service, or in PR terms, the information— it could be the access to a spokesperson, could be access, for example, to a trial product, or the first sit-down, or the first review— is that somehow this product or service is a luxury, that it's an aspirational service or good, and that it's superior. No one's worried about exclusivity over something that's low-grade. Who wants that? So there must be some perceived status of well-being, of some higher quality. Now, the other element, the other dimension is that in the market, there is a sense of competition and also an entry barrier. So I mentioned earlier on, for example, about the use of the exclusivity with the media and the BlackBerry phone. Well, the competition was in and amongst the media. The entry barrier was that there were only going to be 10 of these phones in Singapore. And so if you were not part of our first tranche of media who took the opportunity to write up reviews, you wouldn't get one. I was able to control the supply. So if you're going to offer an exclusivity deal of some sort to the media, just as you would to a potential customer, you need to think about whether you can control the supply. Now, it's interesting because in a Harvard Business Review report saying how customers perceive a price is as important as the price itself. So in other words, the value, the scarcity value of something can be generated through public relations. And that then creates, certainly in the eyes of the media, a sense that it has a perceived scarcity, therefore has a perceived value to it. So the perception of price amongst consumers is as important as the price itself. That's why we have all these issues, for example, with cognitive dissonance, which is the, the anxiety that people have after they've made a purchase. Which is actually what almost half of all advertising is there to address. And the same is true in public relations. A lot of public relations is there in order to make people reassured that they've made the right purchase or the right decision. So what we can do then in public relations is that we can create the perception of value of this information that we're going to be making available. We can create a perception of value, for example, of the time that's available to speak with the CEO or the product expert, for example. So scarcity and exclusivity trigger an emotional response because we find it hard to resist wanting things that are scarce. Scarcity creates in all of us an anxiety that we might be missing out. This is just as true of the media as it is of a consumer. So if you think about your public relations and thinking about the media trying to deal with— if your information is freely and readily available everywhere, there is no scarcity. So is there some way that you can create information that has a rarity value— access to a customer, access to a product, access to a person that is limited in supply, that there are only a certain number of copies, there are only a certain number of moments when this is available. The second is that the exclusivity gives people a membership in some way. So When we've taken, for example, media to a test drive in the Arctic, we took some Chinese to test drive a new British gearbox, and there was an exclusivity about the invitation. And of course, the cohort that we took with us were made to feel that they were part of an exclusive, hand-selected group of media. And that they therefore, of course, owed us morally some kind of a repayment in terms of articles. So exclusivity and creating some emotional loyalty between the media and your company is a fundamental part of public relations. But if you have a room of 20, 30, 40 media, as we've had, for example, with press invitations, especially in China and India, where you can get such large groups, one has very little ability to leverage because all the media in the room basically had the same story, and they can even physically come and go without any controls. And so the third part of managing scarcity and exclusivity is the deadline. Now we've all been on the internet where it says, you know, hurry now, offer ends soon. And of course that used to be in the advertising world as well. So this idea that there's a fast approaching date when a product will be withdrawn or the price will be raised is another psychological tactic. So when we send out press releases, for example, or invitations to interview somebody, We don't make it open-ended. In fact, when I issue my my quotes to clients, I also say there's a deadline by which this offer will expire. So giving people a deadline is also a really important part, not just of media relations, but of psychology. Now, and there's another little sort of idiosyncrasy that was written about that says that. Scarce items can be seen as more valuable when they've recently become scarce rather than if they've always been in short supply. In other words, that something's running out and there's a deadline, not that there's always been hard to come by. But if we imagine, for example, we've always known that there are not lots of Rolls-Royces about, but if we knew that Rolls-Royce were going to cease production in 3 to 6 months' time, then there would be a rush on buying those. So we have to look at that in terms of public relations and how we manage the availability of our information, the availability of our spokespeople, and of our products. Now, the Bain and Company, which I mentioned before, this idea that perception beats reality in pricing— perception can also beat Reality in public relations. Now I'm addressing exclusivity today because it's a tool, a practice that I've used on numerous occasions over the last 25 years, both with public relations and also actually selling products. But also because now we've got this situation where we've got virtual events taking place, and I don't know about you, but I've sat now on Zoom calls and I've been maybe on the third or the fourth screen. As I've been scrolling along, and some people have got pictures and some have not. And the overall impact now of these large group gatherings is that there's no sense of exclusivity, and we're losing some of the sense of confidentiality. But most importantly, from a public relations perspective, we're losing some of that exclusivity which leads to loyalty. And that loyalty leading to the journalist taking action. So I'm working with a client on building an event which is an exclusive invitation-only event, and the magic number I've come up with is 49 in terms of attendees. And that is because that's the number of screens that can be seen in the gallery view on Zoom. You can have 49 faces looking at you and looking at each other on Zoom, and I think that that's going to become the new magic number for exclusivity in social media. Exclusivity is a currency that we can use to great effect. We have to invite people now into these virtual events. We have to manage them while they're there. We need to make sure that when they're there, they feel that they are part of a, a special cohort for that short duration that they're at that Zoom event or that Microsoft Teams event. Exclusivity and creating exclusivity in the digital environment during digital press events, for example, is going to be a challenge for all of us. So as we start to prepare for the winter season of events, media events, for example, that we're going to be planning, we need to think about the exclusivity of the information. We're going to think about the exclusivity of the invitations, creating limited quantities of opportunities for those people that we want to take attention to what we're doing. And we're going to need to create some deadlines as well. Now, the irony of this, of course, and the challenge of this is that we're going to be trying to get maximum coverage for the work and the stories that we've got. So this will be the paradox. We're going to want to spread our information far and wide, but we're going to limit how we distribute it. We're going to need to make it seem as though it's more valuable in order for more people to want to cover it and to get more people to want to cover it. And if you're going to be organizing events online, think about the positioning. If it's an event for everybody, Is it functional? Is it emotional? Is it life-changing? Is it having a social impact? What dimension of your story is going to be precious so that the perceived value of the information you're giving is greater than the information that anyone else is giving, so that the media and all the audiences that you're reaching out to will pay attention? Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Speak PR. My name is Jim James, and this is a podcast for all those people out there who are trying to share more information about what they're doing with limited resources, limited time, and can use technology to help, but also some strategy. And this is a podcast where we're sharing our Speak PR methodology, which is to storify Personalize, engage, amplify, and to know. So if you'd like to know more about that, please do visit our website at eastwestpr.com. And you can reach out to me, Jim James, either from the website or through LinkedIn. So in the meantime, I wish you the best of health, a profitable business, and that you keep on sharing information, but you do think about some limiting of supplies, making it exclusive, Setting a deadline, and think about whether you can really have 49 people and make them all feel special.