How This Project Manager Transformed Passive Followers into Brand Enthusiasts by Uncovering Hidden Customer Needs

Hm. OK. Uh, yeah, so, a time that I presented a solution, an innovative solution, uh, to an unmet need, um, I Was. This is a great question. Um, Hm, thank you for this excellent question and giving me a few moments to think about it.

Hm, so, A time that I worked most closely, uh, with, uh, customers was, uh, when I worked at the Apple store. I worked with Apple, uh, throughout college. Uh, they hired me in 2007 for the, um, original iPhone launch, which was an Incredible experience to be a part of. And the, through Apple, I learned, um, a lot of really unique ways to, um, interact with people and uncover their needs. And, um, we used a protocol called the Steps of Service, uh, for asking, kind of probing questions to just uncover, um, what people needed. And so, I've always taken this kind of, uh, probing mechanism into my career when I'm working with, uh, for instance, uh, clients. I've been the account lead at a couple of marketing and communications agencies. And so, uh, Something that I do is I try to ask open-ended questions when I'm working with my clients so that I can find out kind of like what is at the root of their problem and then kind of taking this more. Uh, first principles approach to understanding, uh, how I can help them, uh, reach what they wanna do. For instance, I have a client right now, it's a small, uh, snowboard brand, woman owned snowboard brand, and she's just kicking off her own small, uh, Shopify website, and, uh, she was saying that she wanted, uh, More followers on her social media. But what we really wanted, but what, what she really wants is not necessarily more followers, is what we uncovered, so much as she wants more people who are engaged with her brand, who are going to help her advocate for her brand, and, um, Uh, essentially, uh, hopefully convert further down the funnel into customers and, uh, lead to more customers, and so we Together, uh, came up with a strategy that gets that turns kind of more passive followers on her social media into, um, more active, engaged, um, brand enthusiasts, and so we did this by creating a lot of calls to action. Uh, from her social media posts, uh, that get people to click through to her website and enter her, uh, sales funnel, uh, provide their email address, and, um, and become again, just like more engaged, uh, active participants in, in the brand as opposed to passive followers.

So, I think what she realized she didn't need, or what what she needed was not necessarily to just have more followers on her Instagram for the sake of having more followers. Uh, what we really uncovered was that she needed customers. She people to buy her snowboards. Uh, and, and also be, um, enthusiastic about her brand, and, um, develop an affinity for her brand. And so, uh, yeah, so we came up with some solutions to kind of take, um, her social media strategy from just being one of attracting followers to one that Transforms followers into taking that next step um with the brand.

Uh-huh. Um, so, this was just coming from our initial conversation with one another, where we were getting to know, um, her, her goals, um, at the kind of brand level and then taking it down to more tactical level. So, uh, we, I, I just used a set of questions to uncover, um, her, her needs and figure out like, yeah, where to go, uh, more specifically, uh, to take her brand to the next level. That was so much generic.

Sorry, oh no, sorry, nothing.

Um, so, while we, so what, what's really cool about this is that we came up with a, uh, mechanism for her to use where she could do a brand activation on her social media once a month. Uh, and we would, uh, plan this in advance, and this was a way to get more people to her Instagram as well as, uh, taking the next step to visiting her website once they get there. Um, and so this, uh, increased her Um, opt-in rate on her sign-up form on her website, and there were I can't give you the exact number at the moment, but I, year over year, uh, she's had far more subscribers to her newsletter, uh, than ever before. Um, and she's also increased her follower count, but more importantly, uh, she's grown that engaged customer base.

We, I use a software called Clavio, which is an email marketing automation platform and Clavio provides really in-depth analytics on um subscribers' submission rates and engagement rates and list growth and list health and uh so we primarily rely on the native uh data from that application to measure our results.