Guest post from Susan Baier, a 20-year marketing strategy veteran with an MBA in Entrepreneurship. Her company Audience Audit provides strategic marketing support and audience segmentation research that helps organizations understand their customers better.
Being relevant to customers isn’t about just using their first name in an email. True relevance grows from a deep understanding of what motivates your customers, and ensuring that every contact they have with your organization shows to what degree your company values their reasons for choosing you. That deep respect for what drives your customers and prospects can’t be faked, either – you either live it or you don’t, and they can tell the difference.
The best example I’ve ever seen of this is from a company called ThinkGeek, which prides itself on carrying the most robust collection of unique, thought-provoking products with the biggest nerd appeal on the planet. They have 3 million unique visitors and 35 million page views every month.
ThinkGeek has a robust involvement in social media, with over 68,000 followers on Twitter, 50,000 fans on Facebook and over 11,000 subscribers to their channel on YouTube, which features 
company-posted videos demonstrating items like their proximity-meter t-shirts and fake-blood-filled, realistically gummy heart for Valentine’s Day.
They are successful because they unabashedly have the same interests as their customers, and they are incredibly consistent across all outposts. Here’s what they’re doing right:
Engage, Don’t Sell
ThinkGeek has separated their Twitter messaging into TWO feeds – one designed to sell stuff (which is hilariously called @thinkgeekspam and posts updates about products and promotions) and one which posts all sorts of geek trivia and responses to fan questions and comments, called @thinkgeek.
According to Jamie Grove, the company’s Director of Evil Schemes and Nefarious Plans (i.e. Marketing), ThinkGeek is “all about serving our community. Our social media activities live in our customer retention sphere, not customer acquisition – because the minute it’s in customer acquisition, it changes the nature of the conversation.”
Speak Your Customers’ Language(s)
ThinkGeek’s product descriptions are peppered with arcane references to geek culture, “inside jokes” that their customers not only understand, but appreciate. They have a navigation element on their site titled “OMGWTFUN”, and they recently sent an email with the subject line “ThinkGeek less than threes you.”
But the best example I’ve seen is on their Facebook page, where one fan posted an update on their wall — in BINARY CODE. ThinkGeek responded in binary, which spawned a number of additional comments and discussion, again in binary. If this isn’t speaking your customers’ language, I don’t know what is.
Be Human
ThinkGeek’s blog recently featured a post about their newest employee Guillaume, who is French – and “largely ignorant of our favorite American movie and television memes.” So, ThinkGeek launched “Operation Guillaume” – a full-scale effort to “convert” their newest employee to red, white and blue geekness.
For Part 1 of “Operation Guillaume”, the company launched an online poll of their fans to identify the highest-priority “geek” movies. Guillaume will watch the top movies and post reviews to the ThinkGeek blog – thereby connecting this employee with the company’s fans in a perpetual feedback loop.
Allow Your Customers to Express Themselves
The company also devotes a lot of website real estate (and effort) to encouraging their fans to share their enthusiasm for everything geek. Every product features customer “action shots” showing the product in use. (According to Jamie, ThinkGeek was one of the first companies to incorporate customer product photos into their online presence.) They have an ongoing “Techie Haiku” contest in which fans can win $50 (one of my favorites: “TPS reports./Didn’t make a coversheet./See you here Sunday.”)
They’re currently running a video contest for owners of ThinkGeek’s Electronic Guitar Shirt (which really plays) in which customers can upload rock videos of themselves playing the shirt for a chance to win a $500 gift certificate. They’re running another contest for owners to send in pictures of their own creations on the Lego-like Brick Construction Shirt. Engagement with their products is half the fun, and the folks at ThinkGeek encourage and cherish every fan’s own experience.
Integrate Marketing and Customer Service
After Christmas I had to return an electronic item from ThinkGeek that had stopped working. William, the Customer Service representative I chatted with saw my mailing address and mentioned the Noah’s Flood-type deluge the weather channels were predicting for us in Arizona that weekend. Jokingly, he asked if I was aware that ThinkGeek also sells arks.
That got a chuckle out of me. But what really surprised me was when I posted a Tweet about the great customer service I’d received from William, and got a reply back from @thinkgeek that the accolades had been passed along, and that William had offered to fly out to assemble my ark and bring my replacement item with him.
WOW! Within moments of my customer support conversation, the ThinkGeek Twitter feed was connected to my conversation with William. According to Jamie, the company’s employees “live on instant messaging, so customer feedback is shared all the time.”
ThinkGeek’s engagement with their customers is an organic result of their shared enthusiasm for all things geek. But the opportunity is there for any companies whose employees believe in and love what they provide.
What can you do to connect with customers who share your passion?
Do You Know Your Customers Enough to be a Social Media Hit?: Guest post from Susan Baier, a 20-year marketing stra… http://bit.ly/cLpnHN
Do You Know Your Customers Enough to be a Social Media Hit?: Guest post from Susan Baier, a 20-year marketing stra… http://bit.ly/a9Vm6p
Do You Know Your Customers Enough to be a Social Media Hit? http://bit.ly/a9Vm6p
Do You Know Your Customers Enough to be a Social Media Hit?: Guest post from Susan Baier, a 20-year marketing stra… http://bit.ly/a9Vm6p
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A great post, Susan. And it gets to something a lot of retailers struggle with — how do I make remarkable content when I'm just reselling someone else's stuff. Obviously, ThinkGeek has personality. They wrap every product with personality, plus they seek out some pretty strange stuff that you just can't get anywhere else.
And while not every retailer is quite as niche as ThinkGeek, *every* retailer can and should add their own spin on the products they sell. That's the price of admission. Be remarkable.
After that, then they can look to ThinkGeek as a shining example of how to connect with customers in the real-time world we've all suddenly found us in.
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Great post and examples of a company finding unique ways to reach and engage with customers. I love the distinction between customer acquisition and customer retention. Although social media can be used effectively for both, I think it's incredibly important to know what your motives are and then consistently speak in those terms.
Kjenner du kundene dine godt nok til å bli en hit i sosiale media? http://ow.ly/1b9wu
Thank you for this awesome post. Excellent reminder about sharing passion. It's like the lemonade stand video that Seth Godin posted awhile back… ENGAGE with your customers. http://bit.ly/4oQMmU
We can learn a lot about customers by truly engaging with them.
Mad props to @thinkgeek in my guest post on @jaybaer 's blog today. Really knowing your customers brings crazy success. http://ow.ly/1bbXT
@jaybaer has a great guest post by @susanbaier on Knowing Your Customers & Social Media: http://bit.ly/d0qWhU #kudos
Thanks, Evo! I think you make a great point about the additional challenges when you aren't creating your own “content” — but instead, selling a selection of items made by somebody else. The basic premise holds — you've chosen those items for a reason, because they speak to who your audience is. You just have to explain that reasoning, literally or not. ThinkGeek's done a great job of knowing and defining their audience for all to see, so their selection makes sense.
Thanks, Jack — I really like your use of the word “motives”. That's what's missing for so many retailers — their “motive” that ensures no disconnect between WHAT they're selling, and WHO they're selling it to. “Motive” is a great word for the WHY.
RT @jaybaer: Do You Know Your Customers Enough to Win in Social Media? (killer case study by @susanbaier) http://bit.ly/d0qWhU
Hi Lisa, thanks for the nice comments! You're exactly right — I loved that post from Seth Godin and that's exactly what we're talking about. There's a difference between “Fans” and “FANS”, and we know which one's better, don't we?
RT @jaybaer: Do You Know Your Customers Enough to Win in Social Media? (killer case study by @susanbaier) http://bit.ly/d0qWhU
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RT @jaybaer: Do You Know Your Customers Enough to Win in Social Media? (killer case study by @susanbaier) http://bit.ly/d0qWhU
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Do You Know Your Customers Enough to be a Social Media Hit? http://bit.ly/90fLff
ThinkGeek:68.000 followers on Twitter, 50.000 fans on Facebook and over 11.000 subscribers to their channel on YouTube http://bit.ly/d0qWhU
Know Your Customers Enough to be a Social Media Hit http://bit.ly/aLlkR1 This is a constant mission & customers are always changing