The Power of Identify: Building Lifelong Customers  ## Metadata - Author: [[Social Media Marketing Podcast]] - Full Title: The Power of Identify: Building Lifelong Customers - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/e6cee08c-d6f1-420b-a23b-63d7f09e73d9 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Identity Marketing vs Brand Identity** - Identity marketing focuses on how customers see themselves, not how brands want to be seen. - This approach shifts marketing from a transaction to building lifelong relationships with customers. Transcript: Michael Stelzner Said another way, if we follow what you're about to share with us today to the letter, what could it make possible? What's the upside? Veronica Romney Well, I mean, honestly, think about my own story for a second, Like on the surface, right? I'm still the same buyer persona. I'm still this woman in her thirties who identifies as a fit person. I still have inclinations where I've had my purchases that like reaffirm that identity. Like on the surface, I'm the same. And you would target me as a marketing department, the same. However, like I told you with my sister story, the source, the power, the why behind who I am was changing very significantly. And so I mean, I'm not sharing anything that people don't already know. The economy is kind of crazy. We've been through a little bit of a cluster in the last recent couple years. And so as a marketing speaker, I go to all these conferences and everyone's talking about rebranding and making themselves more appealable to this more sense of price sensitive buyer, Etc. But the person that no one's talking about that bothers me deeply isn't so much that the brand needs to go through a rebrand, but it's actually the consumer who's gone through their most Significant rebrand of their personal lives. And I just find that when you actually connect a brand to a consumer's identity, how they identify their self-label, their self-concept, you're no longer in the business of a transaction. ([Time 0:07:16](https://share.snipd.com/snip/da7e13fa-94a9-4371-8d1d-49b31a83e0cc)) - **Harley Davidson "Hogs" Loyalty** - Harley Davidson customers identify as "hogs" and express deep loyalty, even in death. - The brand understands both its own and its customers' identity, fueling lifelong evangelism. Transcript: Veronica Romney And so the story that I like to share to like really accentuate this point is that of Harley Davidson, because so many years ago, there was an individual who was literally being buried In a custom made plexiglass coffin so that everybody outside could see him sitting taxidermy style on top of his beloved 1967 Harley Davidson, because he wanted the world to witness Him riding into heaven. So not only was he buried a Harley Davidson buyer, but more importantly, he was buried a Harley Davidson hog. His identity was a hog, and he wanted to be remembered for like time and eternity as a hog. And that's just a great example of a brand who understands both, not just their own brand identity, which is like so American, but also the identity of the people that they service and Serve and sell to. And these hogs that will literally be buried in the grave as such. ([Time 0:09:29](https://share.snipd.com/snip/eb25efc7-affa-41b7-bad5-283aacca7e23)) - **Find Customer Self-Identity** - Audit online comments and conversations for how customers describe their own identities. - Focus on customer self-language, desires, and struggles instead of brand sentiment. Transcript: Veronica Romney What are they highlighting? What are they telling their friends about us? Like it's very us, us, us, us. What I have my workshop participants do is that they're going to do a secret shopper analysis of the internet in regards to their brand but not how they have done it in the past they're Looking for language not about sentiment towards my brand they're looking around language about sentiment towards the user themselves so what are they saying about themselves do They think they're a good mom bad mom like what are they saying as far as who they are, who they wish to become, what they're struggling with? Like, you're just looking for a voice of customer in regards to their self-concept, their self-label, who they desire to become. That is the pursuit of this identity lens secret shopper exercise that we have companies go through. ([Time 0:14:39](https://share.snipd.com/snip/04edde8a-1f25-4941-a381-5eee5bfc36c6)) - **Talkbox.mom Family Focus** - Talkbox.mom discovered moms buy language courses for family connection, not just personal skill. - This insight changed their marketing from targeting "moms" to "fluency families." Transcript: Veronica Romney One of my favorite examples is a company called talkbox.mom, literally the domain, like is.mom. They literally put the buyer in the domain name. So talkbox.mom, it's a company, it's a small company that is self-funded that teaches families how to speak foreign languages. So they recently had their whole team come to one of my workshops and we spent like 30 minutes where they kind of divided and conquered the internet. One person did Reddit, the other person did Facebook groups, the other one was like in the comments, YouTube and all the things. And independently, they came back and like shared all of the user sentiment words. And what kept them coming up as far as language was like fluency, fluent, family, etc, etc. And so what we had discovered through this exercise that was, yes, in spite of the fact that mom is 95% of the time making the purchasing decision, it's not because mom is buying Spanish To learn Spanish to run off to Mexico with her Spanish lover. Mom is buying Spanish for her family to be fluent in Spanish. She's not buying for her aspirational development. She's actually buying for the family's aspirational up leveling, so that they can draw closer to each other, they can experience the outside world with more unity and connection, Like, she's really doing it for her family. So what came out of the exercise with this concept, instead of just targeting Talkbox mom, you know, TalkBox.mom users. ([Time 0:15:36](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4462369f-c469-47d0-b8a9-164228281860)) - **Focus on Natural Customer Voice** - When reviewing comments, block out what is said about your brand. - Extract only natural customer language about their own identity and aspirations. Transcript: Veronica Romney Just that paradigm shift that when you're looking on the internet and all these little corners, your own Instagram comments, your YouTube comments, your Facebook group, your customer Survey responses, your inbox, just going through these channels, and making sure that you block out what they say about you, and you're only hyper focusing on what they're saying about Themselves. Good, bad, neutral, I don't care. You're just extracting sentiment language around them and how they perceive themselves and what they want or what they struggle with. ([Time 0:18:05](https://share.snipd.com/snip/37a40405-1412-4078-9141-764d164fc4eb)) - **Use AI Carefully for Identity** - Use AI to help analyze customer language but avoid summaries that alter original language. - Preserve raw customer phrases to identify authentic identity expressions. Transcript: Veronica Romney So yes, can you do that? Can you use AI to analyze external resources for sure? However, be careful with AI because AIs will summarize or rephrase user sentiment and user language. I don't want you to do that. Be really, really careful. I want you to see their own language in its raw form because that's oftentimes where you find the identity in plain sight. But if you have it summarized and put in a summary, it just won't work as well. ([Time 0:19:00](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f5dcfb2b-0125-4be4-ab98-347f51919f43)) - **Prioritize Prospect Language** - Prioritize prospect language over customer testimonials for authentic identity insights. - Prospect language reflects pre-purchase natural identity, avoiding post-purchase influence. Transcript: Veronica Romney And i also want to just make a quick surgeon general warning like and i mentioned in the book, be very, very, very careful. And this goes for the savviest of marketers. We're probably the most guilty of this. Be very careful that your customer data doesn't incorrectly point you in the wrong direction when it comes to prospect marketing. Me, those who have never purchased from me will have different language and different levels of understanding versus the language of customer. So yes, I love a great customer testimonial, treasure trove, but oftentimes customer testimonials will also include language that was adopted after the purchase wall. So just be really careful. I really actually care most about prospect language, which is why I like Instagram comments and things like that, because they haven't necessarily bought from you yet. Michael Stelzner Ah, okay. Well, that's important. So let's, let's just put a big pin in that folks. If you have a newsletter with non-customers on there, I would imagine that could be a really great source because they've been just like being nurtured in your newsletter. Correct. If you have a lot of people on the social channels, YouTube, Instagram, whatever, these are all great places for you to mine for this information. Right. And look for that because the dangerous thing is that the language that they adopt could be influenced by you once they become a customer is what you're saying. And you want to make sure you use their natural language before they ever become a customer. Is that what I'm hearing you say? ([Time 0:23:03](https://share.snipd.com/snip/47312a8a-0a6b-4459-85f9-c529390a4fda)) - **Validate Identity Early** - Validate identity concepts via surveys, polls, and social media to get honest feedback. - Early signals of adoption prevent wasted efforts on unwanted identity labels. Transcript: Veronica Romney Like there are very big brands who spent a ton of money trying to force feed an identity to its buyer base. And the buyer was like, no, thanks. Like my favorite is like the Pepsi generation. Like I'm not your generation. No, thanks. So even big brands do this incorrectly. So like we want to go through a step where I call it the prove it, but we want to go through an adoption or early signals of adoption step where we're at least getting validation. So same thing with talkbox.mom, like when they actually like went out and surveyed their people and kind of put, you know, an Instagram poll or things like that, like they got pretty Harsh feedback around the talk tribe concept because it was cultural appropriation. They didn't love the word tribe. So that's an example. But one of my favorite examples in the book of the prove it is actually a woman named Nicole Wingard, who's affectionately known on the internet streets as Nicole, the intern. She was literally a $15 an hour intern working at a mocktail beverage business with no funding and from Texas, and literally created an Instagram account from nothing called the best Marketing strategy ever. And in less than 60 days, amassed 500,000 followers by empowering hashtag smash army. It was the craziest thing I've ever seen. She literally like would go in her backyard with expired product, smash it with a baseball bat, film it with like zero production value, put it on the internet, had this whole narrative Of like, I have 60 days to prove to my boss that this is a better marketing strategy than his. And like within the first like 10, 15 days, the people got behind this like fight narrative and they wanted to help Nicole and they wanted to help her in her fight against, you know, this, You know, boss type of figure. Actually, Mike's very, very kind, but they're both on the podcast, really lovely people. But there was one time where she was trying these like funny halloween costumes and she found an old military hat she puts it on camera and she treats the can no longer smashing it with Michael Stelzner A baseball bat but she treats the can like a grenade like throws it over the fence it explodes when you say the can what are you talking about like i'm trying to visualize what the heck you're Veronica Romney Talking about yeah so like pretend that the can is a grenade so she pops the top open like a can of soda or what are we talking about? Yes. Yes. Like a mocktail beverage, right? So it's a can. She throws it over the fence and then it like explodes. ([Time 0:24:54](https://share.snipd.com/snip/12614d0d-19ce-4410-85b4-eb760138cf00)) - **Nicole’s Viral "Smash Army"** - Nicole the intern grew an Instagram from zero to 500,000 followers in 60 days by creating the "smash army" community. - The campaign gained massive support through raw authenticity and user-generated engagement. Transcript: Veronica Romney She was literally a $15 an hour intern working at a mocktail beverage business with no funding and from Texas, and literally created an Instagram account from nothing called the best Marketing strategy ever. And in less than 60 days, amassed 500,000 followers by empowering hashtag smash army. It was the craziest thing I've ever seen. She literally like would go in her backyard with expired product, smash it with a baseball bat, film it with like zero production value, put it on the internet, had this whole narrative Of like, I have 60 days to prove to my boss that this is a better marketing strategy than his. And like within the first like 10, 15 days, the people got behind this like fight narrative and they wanted to help Nicole and they wanted to help her in her fight against, you know, this, You know, boss type of figure. Actually, Mike's very, very kind, but they're both on the podcast, really lovely people. But there was one time where she was trying these like funny halloween costumes and she found an old military hat she puts it on camera and she treats the can no longer smashing it with Michael Stelzner A baseball bat but she treats the can like a grenade like throws it over the fence it explodes when you say the can what are you talking about like i'm trying to visualize what the heck you're Veronica Romney Talking about yeah so like pretend that the can is a grenade so she pops the top open like a can of soda or what are we talking about? Yes. Yes. Like a mocktail beverage, right? So it's a can. She throws it over the fence and then it like explodes. Like it's like, you know, this army grenade or whatever. And the reason I love this story so much beyond its crazy success is the fact that like, again, she's a $15 an hour intern, no marketing budget, expired product. And yet, because of her putting herself out there and looking for early signals of adoption and feedback and like being on board with this concept, she started reading her the comments And the Instagram comments that people were in the fight with her. And so on day 15, she offers up proactively on her own hashtag smash army. It's adopted immediately. Everyone's like hashtag smash army. This smash army is born. It was so successful of a campaign that they literally renamed the entire company from a mix all of she to smashed just because of this. Michael Stelzner So just so I understand, because I don't think I'm completely tracking here. What exactly did she do? She had a bunch of expired drinks and she figured I'm going to smash them with different things just to see if I can get attention. Is that really what you're saying? So she'd smash it with everything you could imagine, like a baseball bat versus like, I don't know, like anything, a lawnmower. Pinata, yep. And what was the hypothesis that she was trying to prove here? I guess that's the part I'm trying to grab my eye. Veronica Romney Yeah, this is an underdog brand. They don't have, there's no venture funding. There's no one's poured any money into this company. The beverage space is super saturated, wildly competitive, tons of money being funded into these organizations. They're the underdog of underdog stories. They don't have any type of like formal marketing budget. And yet they have a whole bunch of like expired cans about to expired cans. And so her and her boss, Mike, basically were like, how can we get evangelized or get people on board? How can we make the product and part of the narrative? Not necessarily because no one's going to push like a product down anybody's throat. So they came up with this idea and they use the reason I bring this up is they use social media, very much like how comedians will work out their jokes in dirty clubs before we ever see the Very polished Netflix special. They didn't even use the brand's Instagram account, they created a brand new Instagram account from zero called the best marketing strategy ever. Zero followers day one. And in 60 days grew it to 500,000 followers because they brought people into an invitation to become the smash army and fight with Nicole to like win this bet that she could outperform Her boss's marketing strategies in 60 days. ([Time 0:25:44](https://share.snipd.com/snip/71d055f0-1d4b-4020-8190-95ae48f8f568)) - **Test Identity Names** - Test identity names through A/B tests on ads, social posts, and merch designs. - Measure engagement, clicks, and feedback to determine the strongest identity fit. Transcript: Michael Stelzner What are we looking for when we're trying to validate here? Veronica Romney There's different ways to do it. You can flat out ask them like, Hey, what do you think about fluency family? This, this, or this. I've seen some of our participants just be that direct. I've had other participants put some of the identity naming on like swag mock-ups and then asking people if they would prefer to wear this shirt or this shirt or the shirt with different, Right? So like there's different ways in which we're doing it, but you're basically having somebody endorse the fact that they would wear or proudly identify in this manner. Michael Stelzner Okay. And I would imagine you could also create social posts that are themed around these things. What you're really watching for is high engagement, rich comments, that kind of stuff. Is that really what we're looking for? Veronica Romney Yep. You're all of the above, especially in the repeating the language is really, really important. We've even had validation found in cold advertising because they really didn't want their existing customers to validate this. So they actually did like five different, same exact ad creative, but the ad copy, the first line of the ad copy was like, Hey, soul sister. Hey, did it like name identity, name number two, identity, name number three. And they actually use their cold ads to, and they stripped out, they excluded their existing customer, right? Custom audience. It was through the cold advertising play and just changing the identity, the identification of, Hey, you, and then offering the name to see which ones was clicked on more. ([Time 0:30:43](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7e1e07d2-6528-4c90-ad6f-35a977f9a86c)) - **Power of Group Identity** - Creating a named customer group or community transforms marketing from advertising into a movement. - A strong group identity empowers customers to evangelize brand values authentically. Transcript: Michael Stelzner How in the world by identifying a group of people is that going to help our brand? Does that make sense? Veronica Romney Yeah, no, and I appreciate you taking a pause, a beat to just let that land. Yeah, it is important. It is really, really important. And I think too, it's like, I mean, when trying to do revolutionary things or innovative marketing techniques or strategies that like former organizations or employers or boardrooms Have not yet, you know, accustomed to seeing, you have to start with their understanding. And then I love the improv rule of yes. And yes, we will do the classic whatever has already worked. We're not throwing the baby out with the bathwater, which is a terrible expression. But yes, and what would it be like if we took all of our best prospective customers, put them in a room, evangelize them, and then just like let them loose in the world? What magic could that create, right? And having the science and the data to back that up. ([Time 0:37:53](https://share.snipd.com/snip/3a1c5293-a521-445e-b508-22d410d89754)) - **Dress Customers for Loyalty** - Instead of cheap swag, create meaningful merch with deep group identity. - Customers wearing or even tattooing your brand shows ultimate loyalty and marketing success. Transcript: Veronica Romney So what if in addition to having our name be on a billboard, on a notepad, on a mouse track, on a whatever, it was also across the chest of our most beloved customers or prospective customers And they were wearing it on a hat, or in honestly, in some cases, they literally get it tattooed on their skin. You know, you've made it in identity marketing when somebody's tattooing your logo or your, you know, emblems on their skin. It's crazy. What value would that additionally provide for us beyond just the cheap swag at a conference? ([Time 0:39:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/58d86719-1b54-45b4-976e-56dfbb7fed5f)) - **Red Ants Pants Community Success** - Red Ants Pants built a women's workwear brand by touring small towns and building a loyal community called the "ant colony." - The brand hosts festivals and challenges to reinforce identity and connection beyond just pants. Transcript: Veronica Romney And one of my favorite stories of all time is a company called Red Ants Pants, which is started by a woman named Sarah Calhoun, who literally grew up in like hard labor, manual labor in The fields of farms, right? The pastures. And 20 years ago, if you were a woman who prided herself on doing hard things the clothing that would stand up to that task was actually men's clothing like they didn't sell manual workwear For women 20 years ago there wasn't a perceived marketplace for it so she this is like the story of every entrepreneur no one's willing to solve the problem i've identified a problem I must solve problem start a business so she moves to bozeman mont Her first weekend in Bozeman, Montana, she's sitting in a local cafe, which is small. She's reading one of those like neon yellow books, like, you know, small business for dummies. Do you remember those books, the small business for dark crocheting for dummies, like really obnoxious yellow. And she's sitting there in the cafe. She's reading this book, bright and a bushy tail, like junior entrepreneur. And an older gentleman walks up to her because it's a small town, you know, kind of like strikes up a conversation, notices her book says, Hey, I see your book. What are you doing? Like, are you starting a business thinking about starting a business? She's like, Yeah, I want I think, you know, there's there's need for work wear pants for women, like we nothing. We only can wear men's clothing to do what it is that we do. And this is where like whether you believe in the invisible hand, God, the universe, lo and behold, this individual that she meets randomly in her first weekend in a brand new town that She moves into had just finished like 10 years plus working at a company called Patagonia. And not only has he worked at Patagonia, he's like the guy who knows all the peoples, all the connections. And he validates her. He tells her like, Sarah, not only do you have a good idea, you have a great idea and you should move on this extremely quickly and I want to help you. And so Red Ants Pants is born because in a red ant colony, the female red ant does all of the hard work, not the male ant. Now she makes a very, I think, controversial decision. She decides that she doesn't want to be B2B. She doesn't want to take her pants to retailers and then retailers sell it to us. She knows she wants to take the pants directly to the women. But the problem is where are these hardworking women located in the middle of freaking nowhere? They're in fields and pastures and like ranches. So her and her sister and their border collie puppy rent an Airstreamer. And they take the pants on the road all through North America going through like boom and bust town one at a time sharing the good news of red ants pants. Swell the word of mouth that starts to occur literally you can follow their journey on the blog the antidote she's inviting people to join the ant hill it's a whole movement she starts Doing these challenges where they would sew red ants into pants in different locations in the pants. So like if my aunt was on my left heel and your aunt was also on your left heel, then we would be connected. So they would do like red ants pants challenges. Michael Stelzner But they weren't real red ants. You were talking about like the emblem. Stitch, the little stitch, right? Veronica Romney And so in the first year, they also believed in elevating the economics of these small towns in addition to selling product. So they hosted a music festival and the first year 6,000 people showed up just because of word of mouth. They've had up to like 30,000, 40,000 attendees in recent years and like famous country artists will come. My favorite story though in this success is that there was a woman who was going into surgery and she was obviously frightened and she requested from the OR team if she could please wear Her red aunt's pants into the surgical room when she went in because it reminded her of her strength. Sarah and her company, they're not asking you to order now. They're inviting you to join the colony. You can literally go to the website. ([Time 0:41:12](https://share.snipd.com/snip/03056815-621f-4b11-971a-717eb9676edc))