Succeeding at Multi-Channel Marketing with Spike Jones

Yeah, I think it goes back to a little bit of what we talked about. I’ve got an 81-year-old mother who would never go to a company’s website and talk with a chat bot—she’s going to pick up the phone and talk to somebody because that’s how she’s always done it. Then there’s the 16-year-old who doesn’t want to talk to anybody, so first of all, can I self-serve? I need a place where I can type in a question, get my answer, and boom—I’m done when I’m setting something up at home or troubleshooting my phone. And then there are people in between who want to talk to someone right now, even when they’re on their phone in the middle of nowhere. As a brand, you have to be prepared for all these variables. These things change every day with new channels popping up—some of which will stick around, like the TikToks of the world, while others, like Periscope or Meerkat, might not. The key is being available and ready to serve, whether someone is saying a great thing about you or they’re having a problem. Turning those problems into loyal, happy customers happens when you take care of their issues. I make it a point to answer surveys and give feedback when companies, like Google, take care of me well. That seamless experience is crucial.

Just warning you, she’s a hugger.

Yeah, I mean, it’s the connection points inside the company. It’s no longer something that can be ignored. In my opinion, the information that can be pulled from a company should be the nervous system of any organization—it shouldn’t be relegated just to care, marketing, or PR departments. It should flow throughout the entire company, so R&D can get involved and generate new ideas from customers in your community. I just think all those internal connection points—and having a tool that easily connects you while breaking down those silos—are crucial. It’s not a contest of who gets the most customers; it’s, “Hey, man, let’s do this together. We are one team.” In these larger companies that have done things their own way for decades, it’s really hard to break down those silos, but those internal connection points are crucial for sure.

Yeah, and having that information—people talking to you, taking that community you own and looking for the trends in what they’re saying, and then going, “Oh, crap, we need to get ahead of this on social” because it’s bubbling up inside our own community of people who love us and are talking about us. And vice versa, what are things out there on social that can inform your community, or even recruit new people into it? Like, “Hey, did you know there’s this thing over here?” It just needs to be a system where both sides feed one another, which is a huge opportunity that not a lot of brands are taking advantage of.

I mean, I can’t not say Khorus!

No, I appreciate that. And as I said, I came from SpreadFast, and we had a very robust marketing tool. But it was for outbound, for listening—the listening tool intelligence is really cool, which I love. But it was that part.

And then whenever we were acquired by VISTA, and therefore Lithium, they brought care and community to the party too. It was just perfect when I first heard the announcement—I found out 12 minutes before the rest of the company did, “Hey, this is happening.” It’s like, okay, what’s going to happen? At first, it was kind of interesting.

But then when we really started to integrate the platforms, it was clear: this is a no-brainer. This is an all-in-one, one-stop solution. And I know lots of companies talk about their tech stacks, pulling in different tools because they serve different purposes, but to have it all in one place, all at your fingertips, I think it’s really powerful.

Yeah. I think it goes back to the people. I wasn’t bashing before my flash Monday, but I really do think some of the big telcos are doing a good job. I think Verizon—people have different opinions about them, but they’re one of the ones at the forefront. You have to shift from huge call centers to thinking about implementing bots to deflect a lot of these calls, or building a robust community where people can serve. Verizon is really staying ahead of the trends, or at least staying on trend when it comes to incorporating new ways to get in contact with their customers and truly serve them. Instead of being stuck in a waiting line on hold forever and getting transferred from department to department, it’s about meeting those customers where they are, when they want to be met.

Yeah, absolutely. It’s no longer like, “We’ll be over here if you need us.” It’s like you hear your name and you go, “Hey, we need you. We could use your help.” It’s totally non-creepy, of course.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, when it comes to social, we really look at it as a progression. Phase one of social was that it was a marketing vehicle—marketers were like, “Ah, cool, another way to blast out my stuff.” In the early days, that’s what it was used for—a one-to-many world. Then, for the leading-edge brands, it became more about care—the one-to-one where you DM me because you’ve got a problem, which is great. Now, when companies have their marketing and care together, the next phase is what we call brand love. It’s about using those great experiences of solving problems to turn a customer loyal, then taking those customers—like my Chevy guy—and amplifying who they are and what they do, making them feel important. We know the number one reason someone shares a piece of branded content is because it makes them look good to their friends. So give people content that makes them look awesome, and have those interactions that make people say, “Talk to me today on Twitter. This is super cool.” We’re calling that phase three.

From a social aspect, that’s a huge trend we’re starting to see, but the customer really needs to have their marketing and care in order. On the flip side, it’s also a shift away from huge call centers. People are realizing that isn’t as efficient as it could be and that we need technology. Sure, there still need to be people answering the phone, but does it have to be as big and robust as it used to be? We can use artificial intelligence to answer some basic questions for our customers and have that AI learn over time. That’s one of the most exciting parts of the job—seeing AI teach itself, not in a Skynet kind of way, but in a really cool, customer service kind of way.

Oh, well, thanks for reading the book. I appreciate it. Yeah, it was from the company, Brains on Fire—what do you call it? Wiley. Wiley approached us because we had a blog—I wrote a blog for years, and I had to convince the owners of the company to do it at the time because they were like, “No, this is gonna stick around.” And I was like, “No, this is gonna stick around, and if you let me do it, I promise I’ll populate it five days a week.” So I did for years, and Wiley approached us and said, “Would you like to write a book, kind of based on the insights that you have?” And we tried; we pitched names to them, and they were like, “No, we want to call it, ‘Any of Your Company, Brands on Fire.’” That’s a random script—a random surprise. Basically, it was taking a look at any successful word-of-mouth movements, because really, campaigns have a beginning and an end, but movements start and go on as long as the people are involved. So that’s kind of how we branded ourselves as we created these word-of-mouth movements. We broke down 345 of our most successful word-of-mouth movements into 10 steps of how we did them, and basically wrote about them. But we also wrote about how, when we failed—like when we had one of the first successful movements and we picked it up and tried to drop it into another company—it fell on its face because you can’t have the same exact elements. But there were 10 truths that we learned through those things, and we broke them down. In each chapter, it is like, “This is the truth,” and then “this is how it played out in each of these scenarios.” I’m proud of it because it was based on real stuff. It wasn’t philosophy; it wasn’t, “You’d be cool if you do this.” It was, “We’ve done this stuff. Here’s what worked, here’s what did not work.” So again, I wrote it. I only know how to write—I wrote the whole thing, and the inputs from the other authors were that they did a lot of research, and of course, we created those movements together. There were a lot of smart people in that company, very conversational writers. It sounded like a business book whenever you wrote it—hopefully it was more like, “Oh, let’s just sit down and talk.” But still. And, you know, like you said, it’s been 10 years, which is hard to believe, but I’m still pretty proud of that book.

So when it comes to the business world, I don’t really keep up with business books as much as I used to. I’m still a big fan of Chip and Dan Heath—they wrote Switch and so many other great books. But the one I always hearken back to that set me on my path—and really set Brains on Fire on its path—was good old Seth Godin’s Purple Cow. It’s a short book, which I love, and it’s one I go to again and again. The concept is so simple: when you’re driving down the road, you see all these cows, but the Purple Cow sticks out because there’s only one of them. And that little uniqueness is what makes companies stand out. It forces me to think about great experiences I’ve had with maybe obscure brands. Like, I don’t know, do you ever… do you remember CD Baby? Do you remember that?

A little indie website—the interface was crap, but one thing I’ll never forget is when I ordered a CD from there forever ago, and with it came this letter. Actually, I got an email confirmation that said, “Spike, thank you so much for buying this. We put on our white gloves, and we went through and put this in a magical golden box, and the entire staff waved goodbye to the package.” And I was like, “That is so awesome—I’ll never forget that.” It wasn’t just a “Hey, your CD’s on its way. Thanks.” They made it remarkable. That moment flowed into everything we did at Brains on Fire when we created those movements. And I’ll never forget it—Purple Cow is definitely one I’ll always have, because I get asked this question by new people starting the company, maybe right out of college, and I’ll send them one because it’s such an impactful book.

Man, whenever I get asked this question, it’s always a different answer because there are so many ways you can come at it. But I’ve been thinking about some people lately that I think would be really interesting. First, Anthony Bourdain would be a good one—such an interesting life. It seems like we’ve all seen him have meals with people all the time, and I’d love to sit down and have a good meal with him and have a laugh.

Then there’s Larry David—I’m a big Larry David fan. He’s such a quirky character. I’d love to crawl around in his brain for a while and see what makes him tick—it would be a lot of fun.

And my third choice would be Kahlil Gibran. This is a dude who wrote a book called The Prophet, which has never been out of circulation. He wrote it in the 1920s—he was a Lebanese immigrant, born in the 1880s, I think. He was a writer, a graphic designer, a poet, and a philosopher, even though he hated to be called a philosopher. His life was just so interesting, and the way he approached things and experimented with words and different writing styles is really fascinating. That’s an obscure one, but if you’ve never read The Prophet, it’s a great little book.

For sure. For me, he seemed like a very simple man with a simple life. But then also, when you start listening to him, you just realize there’s layers and layers.

Email is sJones@corals.com. You can find me on Twitter at Spike Jones, and on Instagram @Spike. When Instagram came along, I thought, “You know what? This might be something. I’m gonna go ahead and grab this username.” I didn’t use it for years, then I started posting. I got hacked once, and everything got deleted. But it’s good to know people at Facebook and Instagram so you can get that stuff back too.

Absolutely, it’s been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for the conversation. I very much enjoyed it.