Go....Going......Gone!

Winter 2015.

A client came to Lauric to request our assistance to launch and market his service. We recommended the following:

“You have to build up you community, and continually engage them.

This is best achieved through a digital brand character.

We will do a demonstration of his services through a simulation in a mall, with his digital brand character interacting with all his users.

If proven successful, we will extend it to other areas” 

Spring 2016.

We worked with the client. But they didn’t really understand what we were saying. They went along with the digital brand character part. But they didn’t get the community part. They didn’t get what it was all about and why it was necessary and why without this character engaging the community there would be nothing to go on. Neither did they comprehend the importance of this digital brand character demonstrating what their service was about.

Strangely they weren’t the only ones.

Influencers and non-believers questioned the whole concept and laid down the assumption that this concept would not work because of… whatever. Doing this would drain the battery life, they said. Oh, no one will use this service since it doesn’t really contain the action. Oh, why would you need to engage customers with Entertainment because entertainment is entertainment and you know, we’re totally into hardware… They said.

Summer 2016

No one is questioning why Entertainment, hardware and services are now ONE. No one is questioning this very famous IP that got resurrected after a long, long time why they’re doing all the above.

They’re just totally into it now. And not only are they into it, they’re suddenly experts who can micro-analyze why it’s so successful now (like it wasn’t successful before?!) and what this will mean for businesses in the future. And do they talk convincingly, like they have went to the future and saw it.

 

Learn from the "best" Karate Expert

 

I bet they wish they could speak to those who saw this through from its development phase and know the product's roadmap. But those guys aren’t talking. It doesn’t matter whether you ask them or not. They’ll tell you that they don’t really know what the future will be and they’ll tell you in all honesty that even if they did, there’s this thing called a Non-Disclosure Agreement and so they can’t mention what’s gonna happen at all, and certainly not what this company or that company will be doing. Uh uh. Zilch.  

But what they can tell you… and that’s if you’re really, really keen, is

 

"it is possible for a tie-up if your product or service is a good fit."

We’re saying the same thing too. Because we’re an Entertainment Content Strategy Consultancy. We know entertainment. We know the opportunities that exist and we’re pretty sure that for the future of your business, you won’t want to lose out this opportunity.

After all, it’s what you’ve not seen and yet debuted it to success is what makes you a market leader. If you’ve seen it, that opportunity’s long gone.

Don’t you think so? Its not too late, as there will be other opportunities.  As long as Entertainment Content continue to exist, it will continue to drive change Its time to move beyond small content, and learn how to utilize Entertainment Content in your business.

Where Is The Human In The Age Of Data?

Numbers are a great attraction.

The core of nearly every business function is data, and nowhere more so when it comes to Marketing, Finance and Product R&D. Without the numbers, no way are we going to get our reports done. Without the numbers we don’t know where to align our financial budget for the year. Without specific consumer behavioral data, we run the risk of squirreling precious dollars down the drain researching and manufacturing a product that benefits no one. That’s why we pay agencies to work through the methodologies of obtaining the necessary information. Traditional media, social media, online, offline, one-to-one customer surveys and so on, it is all done.

All that information is valuable, make no mistake about that.

It does get easy to focus our attention to the overwhelming amount of numbers, figures, statements and conclusions. When that happens, the information is nothing more than a spreadsheet if the centre of all that is lost.

I’m referring to the Consumer.

The Consumer has to be at the heart of all the data you’ve accumulated. Because that’s what your business is really about, isn’t it? Your Consumer. Your Customer. It leads us to this next question- How then, does one marry the two together whilst achieving the required outcomes?

Through Content.

To me, Content is what drives behaviors. Content is what attracts your audience in the very first place and then makes them your prospects before becoming your customers and your evangelist eventually. Content is what keeps them with you every step of the way as they progress through the funnel.

When it comes to data collection, Content drives response- and this response- however it is, negative, positive, etc.) is in fact what consumer behavior exhibits. With audience-specific content, consumer behavior becomes predictable. Yes, predictable.

Content ---> à Response ---> à Behavior Pattern ---> à Data

Let’s say you’ve got a product that you’re about to launch and you have to know how well it is going to do in the market. You create audience-specific content based on your understanding of your customer, or as some will put it, demographic-specific content that will evoke a response.

 

From the historical data you can predict whether they will buy your current and future product, whether they will not. You can predict who will buy it, when they will buy it, why they buy it and whether they will tell others about it. You can predict how more of your product they will want to own or if they will never use it again. With these data, you know where to allocate the budget and what kind of content is required to trigger the desired response. All these predictions will translate into actual behaviors, and those behaviors will confirm the data if you release the correct content. In other words, data becomes nothing more than a tool to guide and tell the companies what kind of content the consumer is demanding, and the confirmation to the BIG data is what the consumer buying behaviors exhibit.

It’s a cyclical thing. Well-known products often go through the data mill as a form of check and balance pretty frequently too. After all, buying patterns disappear, demographics do change, buyers change their minds, whatever. You can do all the psychological and sociological predictions and there will always be an anomaly somewhere. There will always be new preferences. All of which formulates new data, which then creates further need for product development and content creation.

It is vital for brands not to over rely on the science of numbers alone though. Despite what might appear to be an overwhelming confirmation of a certain behavior, a balance between those figures and your own instinct has to be achieved. Hollywood studio executives do this from time to time. Occasionally a character in fact gets scripted in halfway during production or the movie goes for reshoots after filming completed because fans demand for it, despite the fact that the big data predictions report on the executives’ table may say its very well positioned otherwise.

Nothing replaces paying close attention to your prospects and following your instinct. Making business decisions based entirely on the numbers leaves the human element out, and with that, the experience and emotional resonance you need with your consumers themselves.

After all, if the machine after gaining self-awareness can shed tears, your customer is really, just human?

IS BIGGER BETTER?

The timeless question that everyone gets all heated up about. Some will tell you that yeah, bigger’s definitely better. It’s more impressive. It draws attention. It shows that you’ve got stuff that lots and lots of people know- and want to know. We hear numbers that can be totally mind-boggling- and frankly, they can make our mind go wow.

10,000. 100,000. 1 million, 2 million.

Whoa. That’s a lot. And it is really very impressive.

But ask them how many have joined in the last 90 days- and the answer can leave you out in the cold. Community engagement is a consistent one. It is a process that involves frequent new views, frequent likes, frequent additional members. We send them emails for primarily two reasons:

1. To serve them with content, promotions, news, updates, etc. that they want
2. To affect some greater number (sales, revenue etc.)

We want them to be excited about receiving the update. We want them to be thrilled by the fact that there IS news, that there IS something happening. When there’re no updates or content, we want them to wonder why there’s nothing happening and wait eagerly for the next news that pops up on their screen.

And if you’re finding that amongst your gargantuan community numbers there’s only a teeny weeny portion that’s reacting to your news, then it’s time to shake off that indecisiveness (cos’ we know you’d seriously thought about it before but changed your mind) and bring the chopper to the numbers. That means cleaning up the mailing list and putting aside the inactive ones.

Wait, what, you say, if I do that, I’ll be left with a pathetic few! How will I survive then? And what about those that I’ve tossed away?

Well, firstly, there are more important things than the size of your email marketing list. Yes, seriously. A smaller, higher-quality email list works better than flinging your news into the abyss. It’s not news if no one reads it. It’s not news if no one gives a shit about it. Segment your email list and provide them specific content that will engage them and you’ll find that the response is more effective than a one-way communication.

Yes, it can be a very scary thought when you compare your now-very-tiny numbers to the other small content marketer who has hundreds and thousands on his list. But not all battles are won with large armies. I love Entertainment, and since I think Entertainment Content is fantastic for illustrations, let’s look at the movie 300. (You know, that movie with the “THIS IS SPARTAAAA!!!!” line and the other famous one, “TONIGHT WE DINE IN HELLLL!!!”) 300 is based on a true story about an army of 300 Spartan soldiers that fought against a million-strong Persian army. And like all true stories of ancient warfare, we see this small VS big victory legacy repeated in Alexandre The Great and Genghis Khan.

And it’s not your fault either that the list has *painfully* shrunk. This is part of what community building and community engagement and reengagement is about. If people can break up and fall out of love, if people can get married and settle down with three kids, if people can change email providers or change jobs or move from one place to another, for a million over reasons they can stop reading your email marketing or stop getting interested in your updates.

What then, you now ask, do I do with those that I’ve chopped away?

Run a win-back campaign. Study why they left. Figure out why they ignored your email newsletters. Did they grow out of a phase? Did they discover new interests? Did they have so much else to look at that they deleted yours without even looking? Why did they stop being loyal? Did they forget you entirely?

This is the time to convince them. This is the time to reach out to the inactive ones and re-engage them with compelling content that meets their current lifestyle needs and fire up their lost love for you. (And if they don’t re-engage, well, clean the list again and stop mailing to them entirely.)

How then, you ask now, do I go about it? Here’re some questions to help it along.

1.     How many new subscribers have you had in the last 30 days?

2.    How many have joined beyond 30 days and opened an email from you in the past 90 days?

3.     How many have joined between 30-90 days and have not opened your email since they subscribed?

4.    How many have joined beyond 90 days and have not opened your email in the past 90 days?

5.    How many have joined beyond 180 days and have not opened your email in the past 180 days?

Rather technical and number-crunching, isn’t it? But so, so necessary.

Because the content to win back each of the five groups above differs from each other. Content to engage new subscribers in the last 30 days will differ (even slightly) from content to re-engage those that were your subscribers more than 180 days ago but haven’t cared about a single update of yours since.

It is all about the emotional connection with each of them. If your current content isn’t touching their hearts, you’ll have to go beyond small content marketing and pump in content that sparks off the fire at every stage as they move through the funnel.

If not, it’s no use punishing your generals either. You’ll still be, you know, dead.

EMOTIONS - THE RECIPE FOR A COMMUNITY

I’ve received a couple questions about what experience and emotional connection is about. Some of you are also wondering why it’s so fundamental to the Entertainment Content Sales Funnel. Why exactly, you ask, is it such a big deal? What really is it anyway?

First of all, let’s not get mixed up between creating an emotional connection and creating and sustaining it. It is possible to create an emotion with bright, backlit surroundings, happy colors, happy people, happy places and a close-up shot of your subject doing something that is meant to leave the viewer feeling similarly, or at least hoping to feel the same as the model. It is possible to create an emotion with the right typography, like this font and font arrangements makes me feel hipster, cool, streetwise, childlike or babyish. There is a connection, true, at that very moment, but what you want is for your content- whether it be words or visuals- to evoke sufficient emotion where those very emotions become internalized by the viewer.  

 

That’s one of the basic blocks when you’re building a Community.

Without the emotional connection- the part that connects and lingers in your audience, you don’t get a Community. It’s just that. You probably know why the Community is so important. If you don’t, ask the gamers. Or the comic book fans. Or the fan clubs of pop singers. Or the cosplayers.

 

You may think that it’s only for the big guys, you know, people with lots and lots of content and announcements and stuff happening and characters taking place and the singer’s new single release and so on. But everything starts somewhere.

All healthy communities have a story. What distinguishes one from the other is the fact that they have a history of experiences together and the belief that there will be more experiences in the future.

 

 

I’ve used examples from the Entertainment industry, but it’s definitely there in real life too. In racial culture, in cross-racial culture, in lifestyle choices, in geopolitical culture… it’s the sense of belonging, it’s the sense of having being there when those experiences happened, and it’s the knowledge that you’ll be there when new stuff takes place. It’s a familial sort of feeling, an excitement shared, a sense of “we”.

RIO Carnival

 

In Entertainment Content, the Community is what drives your content which in turn drives your product or service. Right there at the bottom of the funnel is the Evangelist and the Evangelist(s) are what form the Community. It is a result and an extremely powerful extension of our funnel. With the right members who are Evangelists making up your Community, the digital marketing and social media campaigns are “literally” running solo. How? Through user-generated content. Through questions and discussions and debates that builds a strong emotional bond between the members. Whether they be on this ‘team’ or that ‘team’, whether they agree or agree to disagree, they form the definitive element for true community. To build a community is not a walk in the park but it’s worth the effort, it’s worth the time.  

Beginning one doesn’t start at the bottom of the funnel. You don’t wait till you have one evangelist before you think, oh, okay, now’s the time to start one, because you’ll never get one that way. It starts from your content strategy itself. Think about it. If no one’s gonna be interested in whatever you put up there, if you don’t have an audience at all, how are you going to find a lead to become a customer to become an evangelist?

Here’re some questions to guide you along.

1. Boundaries- Who are your right members? How do these people become members? What is the criteria to adhere to? How do you keep others out?

2. Emotional Safety- How do you create a sense of trust amongst members? How do you prevent members from trolling other members? How do you create the sense of safety within the group?

3. Belonging- How do you make members feel like they fit in and that this is theirs?

4. Contribution- What are the avenues where members can contribute to the community?

A point to note, though, it’s wise not to invite just about anyone and everyone to your community. Each evangelist is an asset. Think about what you want your community to be about, who you want to be your evangelist and who would be able to make your community better.  

Because it is all about the experience that you manufacture for your community. Whether it be a debate where they can throw out their gauntlets and get all fired up and passionate (but become more united afterward), whether it be an event they can physically gather at- think the burgeoning year-on-year Comic Con San Diego or video game launches by Sony Playstation, it’s all about the shared experiences, the shared emotional connection that lingers in them, that identifies with them, that they can claim for themselves.

That’s the kind of content we’re talking about. That’s the kind of experience we need to create. It’s pure Entertainment Content, and it can be done for your product or your service. If you’re finding that your current content isn’t strong enough to be internalized by your audience, you need to go beyond it, and you can do it. Help is just around the corner   

 

ITS ALL ABOUT THE EXPERIENCE

Now that you know how an entertainment content sales funnel looks like, let’s delve a little deeper. Into the Why. What is the difference between one sales funnel and the other? Why is this sales funnel gaining traction amongst start-ups and renowned manufacturers? Why is this sales funnel getting marketing departments interested?


Jessica Jung in short film by JW Marriott

The past couple of years have seen a gamut of short films released by many major brands. The spectrum of product offerings is wide. From insurance companies to skincare products to hotel booking websites to anti-smoking campaigns to anti-litter campaigns to luxury fashion, all of them have released short films ranging from 15 seconds to 15 minutes, utilizing either the latest film technology or a star-studded cast, or both. Whilst it has been disruptive to film production as a whole, however, what’s more interesting to note is that this gorgeously-produced short film does little else than to keep it swimming on the upper part of the funnel.

Which means that you’ve got Awareness and Interest but your audience remains there- in the upper half. And small content marketers, truthfully, are realizing that it’s really, really hard to move it down to the lower half where there’s Decision and Action.

It’s not just the small content marketers. The major brands are too starting to find out that changes to social media algorithms are making that ‘engaging’, ‘comedic’, ‘artistic’ short film way costlier for it to go viral.

How then, does one reach the lower half of the funnel? How do we get the audience to get down to the evangelist stage? How do we turn the audience into a prospect? How do we generate leads from the audience? How will the customer become an evangelist?

Through experience. And through emotional connection.

That’s what it is. You build a universe where there is mundanity and there is thrill. You build a universe where your characters are involved in solving problems, demonstrating what your product or service is about through what they do. You let your audience become involved in the problems themselves and make them want to be that very character who is solving that one particular problem. You make them feel for the character. You make them vested in the lives of these characters. You build emotions. Whatever it is your audience feels, your character awakens an emotion and evokes a reaction. Add the algorithms possible through social media and you have an engagement with your audience which starts from the upper funnel towards customer and beyond.

The following 6 questions are great starting points to create the ultimate customer experience utilizing the Entertainment Content Sales Funnel.

Qn1:   How do you create the ultimate customer experience where price becomes secondary?

Qn 2: How can you make it special, personal, interactive and fun for your prospects and customers?

Qn 3: Do you have something to offer in your business that captures their undivided attention when customers enter your universe?

Qn 4: Do you provide your customers and prospects sufficient opportunities to spend? See if you can create new opportunities with the products and services you currently offer.

Qn 5: Do you offer an upsell in a balanced way that complements your existing product and services?

Qn 6: How can you create an upscale version or higher-end offer with your product or service?  Can you bundle in more offerings to justify a higher-value proposition?

Once you’ve got a road map down, it’s time to look at the gist of all your answers itself. The Story, the Content and the way to go about it.

At Lauric, we’re vendor neutral. There are consultants who are vendor evangelists themselves and they get insistent on utilizing this one particular tool only, that everything else is faulty and unsuitable and will not achieve your goals and your film or product will not impress, or something. Or they might say that to create this content you have to only use this one and only software- never mind your budget, never mind the actual reach it can attain, never mind that you’re gonna blow your marketing budget out of proportion for the sake of production itself. That’s not something we do. In fact, we seldom talk about specific tools because we are Entertainment Content Strategists and we place total emphasis on implementing solutions that work. After all we don’t want you to have a result that is at best 8-12 percent increase in brand awareness and purchase intent. We think you deserve more.

Meanwhile, The Two Bellmen Three will be shot at Seoul, South Korea, and the JW Marriott Dongdaemun Square.

That just reminded the author of the time that he was at Olivo while at JW Marriot Seoul and wondered what would he do or say to Jessica if he had met her there that night.

Entertainment Content Driven Sales Funnel

You know this really colorful funnel above like the back of your hand. It’s right there, ingrained in your head every time you do up a business plan or work out a marketing strategy. It’s the core of every sales pitch, every marketing collateral, every advertisement, every public relations plan, and there’s just one focus- to drive your customers to the Action stage.

We do apply the same funnel at Lauric, except we make it more relevant to what we do.

And if you’re thinking, “What? Why are you messing it up? This WORKS! This friggin’ WORKS! What the shit are you guys doing?! Why do you even bother?!”

That’s because what we do is Entertainment Content and in Entertainment Content, we’re dealing with more than a product or a singular product line. We’re dealing with Stories. All kinds of stories.

 

We’re dealing with Characters. Characters that are timeless. Characters that speak to us and convey their message to us. Characters with names that are synonymous with what they do *think James Bond* *think Superman* *think Iron Man*. Characters whom we admire and wish we could emulate. Characters that evoke our emotions, characters with whom we want involved in our own lives, whom we want to see every day, whom we can share with our friends and forge new friendships with.

Bless social media. With it, we get to tell our story in a way like no other. We can write an article about it. We can shorten it to a couple of paragraphs. We can include a video with all those words. We can load a graphic on its own or with a video or everything together. We can toss in a simple game. We can pop in one of those fun tests that everyone loves to play. We can go long text or shorten everything we want to say in 160 characters and a compelling picture. But what matters most is a good story, and inside a good story, captivating characters that do stuff, eat stuff, wear stuff, use stuff. Time and time again in these stories, they produce solutions to resolve problems and halt world crises- with… stuff.

Which is why our sales funnel starts with the Audience stage, followed by Lead, then Prospect follow by the Customer stage and finally, the Evangelist stage.

At the Audience stage, we decide on the right audience- and we drop them a teaser- with the right distribution. In Entertainment, we release the first trailer. In Entertainment Content, we make a headline. We make a poster. We release a graphic still. We drop hints. We use our channels- traditional and digital- to distribute seemingly varied messages with a consistent theme that triggers feelings and emotions and we nudge that theme out just that little bit more every time. 

Then we’re at the Lead stage. In Entertainment, we drop Trailer #2. In Entertainment Content, we engage the audience. We reveal more messages. We release more hints. Still the same consistent theme, but now we sink the line. With questions, with what-ifs, with new stills, with more hints about the characters revealed in the Audience stage. We reveal parts of the puzzle. We provide answers if only to raise more questions. We hint on the stuff they use. Characters share with the audience more bits of what they do- the thrilling parts- just so to let them wonder what that was all about and how the Characters got there.

Until the Prospect stage where we reach the junction that product and the audience’s need meet. Entertainment calls it “Out In Theaters” or “See It in 3D”. This is the stage in Entertainment Content where we convert the audience into a prospect. By presenting them with the opportunity to buy. By having the Characters (and ourselves) to speak to you. This is the space to be personal. This is the stage where they (the characters) tell you what it is they use and why they use it and why it’s so good. When the audience already has the emotional connection with the characters as well as the products they represent, and right now, when the opportunity to purchase presents itself, they progress to become Customers. Entertainment Content can call it sales. Or upsell. Or product distribution. Or simply, a store that offers a range of products to complement the experience. So that the emotional connection with the Character can be completed.  

Then we’re at the Customer stage. The stage where the audience-turned-prospect is now converted into a customer. The stage where the customer joins our Characters into their universe. The stage where the product in their hands fulfills the questions they’ve previously asked and includes them in the roles that the Characters play and which has them entering the…

Evangelist stage. Some call it the Loyalist stage where the Customer transforms their status from User to Advocate, sharing, commenting, discussing, opinionating about the product and service.

At every stage, our Characters don’t stop the communication. They have lives, right, and the more intriguing their lives are, the more predicaments they get involved in, the more the audience is enraptured and the more they want to know how else such techniques and tools *your products or services* can be the/their solution.  

And what we’re saying- from Audience to Evangelist- is just a brief overview of how the funnel would looks like. But if there’s US$500 billion going through this funnel every year, for sure it works.

You just have to find out how.
If you find it doesn't make any sense, since content is mainly to drive awareness at the top of the funnel, we are glad you ask, as we will be explaining that next.

And yes, we do work with both internal and external Digital Marketing team, PR team and Media team to provide a comprehensive solution for clients and also recognizes their importance in realizing the value of Entertainment Content, especially in global deployment.  In this environment, Lauric does not merely utilize small content, but continually strives to plan, create and control high value content.  

 

Go Beyond Small Content Marketing

If you’re reading this, it means that somewhere along the way in your resource reading, something got you hooked. It could have been the visuals- that gloom-and-doom cover picture of dead leaves on our Facebook page or the drawing of the bird that forms part of our story-telling logo. It could have been the words ‘branding’, ‘marketing’, ‘strategy’, licensing’ or ‘content’ that drew your attention.

If you’re a content marketer reading this right now, you know what your eyeball means to our article- and to our page. And it looks like we are doing what’s termed as ‘Small Content Marketing’, you know, the whole gamut of tools that mark the trade- webpages, infographics, videos, blogs, pictures and so on, which, yes, we do, but small content marketing forms a *small* part of what we actually do.

What we do is, in fact, Entertainment Content.

Entertainment Content is really the business- the quantifiable value- the dollars and cents- of the world of Content itself. Entertainment Content is, basically, creating content that offers High Value.

A video creates very little value if the video garners no interest, no emotional resonance and no course of action- even if you’ve used the latest film technology or the most good-looking cast.

A blog article can spark off interest, but better the value if the article can make your reader ponder and reflect on what they’re doing or living right, or wrong and drive them to initiate change.

A web page is an excellent platform for information and to establish contact, but what brings in more value is if the page can keep the user coming back again and again and again for your product or service or, for some users, without even knowing precisely why.

We could give you five tips to better the tools of your trade. But there are already too many tips swimming around in the wide, wide ocean, so instead we’ll provide you five questions instead.  

1. Can your Youtube video, website, blog, pictures be    licensed? [Yes / No]  

2. Will anyone acquire your blog, video, song etc? [Yes / No]

3. Do you have distributors who will distribute your content [Yes / No]

4. Are your content assets and properly managed? [Yes/No]

5. Does your content requires legal and business support? [Yes / No] 

If you have answered mostly no to the questions above, you need to go beyond small content marketing and make the leap right into Entertainment Content. Why? Because the only benchmark in all of content creation is when people are willing to spend good money to consume it.

If they’re not, I tell companies to whom I speak with about content marketing, it means they still need to strive to this benchmark. All customized solutions at Lauric must meet this benchmarked too, before they are proposed to clients. 

Lauric Customized Solution

A fine example of Entertainment Content is The LEGO Movie. If you watched it in the theater or on Blu-Ray, you just paid money to watch a 100minute LEGO commercial.

Entertainment Content is no straightforward business. There’s stuff like licensing, acquisition, strategy, distribution, development, asset management and legal support to look at. But for starters, before you touch on all that, the first plunge to take is into the heart of it, and that’s Anthropomorphic Branding.

Come Dance With Diana

You can read more about it here, but in short, Anthropomorphic Branding goes beyond proposing the utilization of content simply for product tie-ups or associations. Instead, it involves morphing your product or service into a character that has hopes, dreams, struggles, emotions and purpose- all of which embody your product and what it does in resolving customers’ issues.  

And though you may not have the budget to make a feature film like LEGO did to promote your company, you can still utilize Anthropomorphic Branding to create high valuable content that resonates directly to your customers.

Next up, we will take you through an Entertainment Content driven sales funnel. Subscribe below and check back for more updates.