Audience: Marketing in the Age of Subscribers, Fans, and Followers

This book, "Audience," sets out that strategy, offering an easy-to-follow roadmap to give your organization a lasting competitive advantage. You'll figure out which marketing channels best suit your business. You'll learn how to target audiences strategically, build customer loyalty, and treat your customers as your most valuable asset. You'll also find out how to walk the fine line between keeping people informed of your products and services and overloading them with unnecessary information.

So, who's this book for? Well, if marketing features anywhere in your job description, this book's for you. "Audience" is a must-read for brand strategists, marketers, advertisers, and those in charge of social media – across all industries. But it's also relevant to anyone involved in bringing an organization's message to market, from the CEO to the new sales recruit.

"Audience" is targeted at the corporate world, but non-profit organizations, entrepreneurs, writers, and artists will also benefit from its advice. Building a brand and creating a loyal audience is as important for individual freelancers as it is for large multinationals. And, when your marketing resources are limited, it's even more vital to use them efficiently.

Even readers well versed in social media and digital marketing methods will pick up something new from the author. Jeffrey K. Rohrs has an impressive track record in this field, and he has every reason to be on top of new tactics. He's vice president of marketing insights for ExactTarget, a salesforce dot-com company that provides digital marketing software to Fortune 500 companies and small businesses.

He also co-created and produces the "Subscribers, Fans and Followers" Research Series – the world's first and longest-running study of consumer relationships with brands through email, mobile, and social channels.

So, keep listening to understand the difference between seekers, amplifiers, and joiners, how to tap into marketing channels that can send your message viral, and how to plot a strategy to build an audience that will last.

This book is neatly structured in three parts and 25 small chapters, and the author does a good job of building his argument as it progresses. He begins with an explanation of the different types of audiences, and how they engage with brands or products.

Then he gives an overview of the huge range of marketing channels available today. And finally, he offers a step-by-step plan to create a large audience that'll stick around through good times and bad.

We liked this easy-to-follow structure, and we also liked the way the author includes real-life anecdotes to drive his points home. He throws in stories about household names like Google and Nike, as well as little-known brands that have made their mark in unconventional ways.

"Audience" is also littered with references to popular culture, from Bruce Springsteen and Elvis, to Manchester United Football Club and the author's beloved Cleveland Browns. This gives the book a really broad appeal.

The author does explore concepts and theories that'll be less familiar to readers who are new to marketing, but he's pretty good at breaking down complex terms and explaining technical formulae, even if some jargon remains.

So, let's take a closer look at how the author defines "audience," and pin down the difference between seekers, amplifiers, and joiners.

Audiences are assets – and valuable ones at that. Would your company give just anyone access to accounts containing millions of dollars? You need to ask the same question about your audience.

Who's in charge of managing this precious commodity? Are these people well trained, adequately supported, and thoroughly briefed about the importance of their task? Does your organization have a haphazard approach to audience engagement, using just a few of the available marketing channels in a random fashion? Or, does it have what the author calls a comprehensive proprietary audience development strategy, headed up by a strong leader with a solid team on board?

The author says he chose the term "proprietary" in preference to "owned," because it implies a sense of belonging without the restrictions of ownership. After all, an audience is not a possession. Even if people subscribe to your email feed or follow you on Twitter, they can leave whenever they please. But a particular audience – like a group of Twitter followers – is "proprietary" because only you can message that whole group collectively.

There are three kinds of proprietary audiences: seekers, amplifiers, and joiners. Getting to grips with the differences between these groups is key to building a loyal customer base.

Seekers are consumers who browse your web page, listen to your podcast, or view your advertisement on TV or online. Perhaps they're looking for information, a store location, a service, or entertainment. They come to you – you can't initiate contact with them.

But, even though you can't approach seekers directly, there are still things you can do to attract them. Search engine optimization is an obvious example of how you can get your organization, product, or service on a seeker's radar. You can also advertise in directories, online communities, or on social networks.

Seekers offer great opportunity. But it's down to you to turn them into customers who bring financial value, or convert them into amplifiers or joiners.

Amplifiers love to share information. Just like a music system's speakers, they magnify the power of a message, and spread the word to others. Amplifiers have their own proprietary audiences or personal networks, and they can share your brand with those people to inform or entertain them. It's easy to see the value of amplifiers – they can tap into audiences you otherwise wouldn't reach, create a buzz around your product or service, and they can make a message go viral.

To get amplifiers on board, you need great content. Many people have shared a post by someone else on Facebook, or retweeted a blog link on Twitter. But what makes them do it? To have your message passed on, you need to think about images, videos, blogs, competitions, and experiences people might think are worth sharing with others. But remember – like seekers, amplifiers come to you too. You don't have a direct line to them.

This is where joiners come in. These are people who want to hear from you and with whom you can initiate contact. Maybe they've signed up to your email subscriber list, joined your company page on Facebook, followed you on Twitter, downloaded your app, or subscribed to your YouTube channel. Joiners are the most valuable of all the audience types – particularly if they're also amplifiers who decide to share your message with colleagues and friends.

But joiners also need to be handled with great care. They may have given you permission to contact them, but they haven't signed up to receive all manner of junk. Elsewhere in the book, the author gives some great tips on how to look after your joiners and make them feel valued.

We agree with the author about the importance of understanding these different types of audiences, knowing their value, and anticipating their needs. And we think he does a great job of explaining the unique qualities of each group, where they overlap, and how to find them.

In part two, the author runs through the huge number of marketing channels at our fingertips – he lists 40, but there are more. You might find yourself skipping a few pages here if you already understand how Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and other such platforms work. But he gives some useful advice about the importance of email subscribers, despite the rise in marketing via social networks. He also suggests embracing tactics you may not have thought of before, like creating apps or podcasts for your brand.

There are some great anecdotes to take inspiration from, so let's take a look at one of these.

Orabrush is a tongue cleaner that helps fight bad breath. Dr Bob Wagstaff invented the ingenious product, and then spent $40,000 on an infomercial to market it. But he only got a hundred orders in return.

Undeterred, Wagstaff tried a different approach. He paid then-college student Jeffrey Harmon $500 to create a funny video explaining how Orabrush fights bad breath, which he posted on YouTube in 2009.

The original Bad Breath Test video has had 18,000,000 views since then, and the initial publicity won Orabrush a space on the shelves at Wal-Mart. Harmon became the company's chief marketing officer, and Orabrush has now sold millions of units. Buoyed by the first video's success, the company has run many similar marketing campaigns, receiving 42,000,000 views of all its YouTube videos. It's also used the video-sharing platform to launch a product for dogs.

This is a great anecdote that drives home the importance of embracing new technologies. The author also uses it to persuade readers to take advantage of YouTube's subscriber button. This allows viewers to sign up to a particular channel and receive a regular feed. This is the moment a seeker turns into a joiner who may also be an amplifier.

You'll find other stories of marketing genius – from big-name brands to one-man bands, including a comedian-turned-podcaster, and a landscape gardener who has more than three million followers on Pinterest.

In the final part of the book, there's a four-step guide to help you develop a strategy to build a proprietary audience for the long term.

First, you need to assemble a team, bringing together all the people in your organization who are already in touch with your audiences, from departments like advertising, marketing, and events, to social media and website development. And if you're a one-person organization, don't worry. The author suggests ways to recruit help from agencies and creative partners, or tap your industry or community networks for non-competitive, supportive partners.

The next step is to find out where you stand right now in relation to your audiences. What are you getting right, and where are you going wrong? You'll want to do an inventory of your paid media, such as print or TV ads; your owned media, including your corporate website and Facebook page; your existing proprietary audiences – the seekers, amplifiers, and joiners already at your disposal; and the proprietary audiences of your employees and partner organizations. Remember – employees and partners have the power to broaden your company's reach. With your audit completed, you can then start finding the holes in your current efforts.

Third, set your goals. The author gives a list of ten goals worth considering, from increasing marketing-generated sales, to reducing customer service costs, to raising customer satisfaction.

The final step is to measure your strategy against the tried and tested SMART goals – which should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely.

The author includes some crucial questions you'll want to ask yourself as you put together your strategy, and he lists 20 tactics to help you put your plans into action. We think this is a really comprehensive guide that'll ensure you get the most out of all your hard work.

The author ends with some tips on how to serve, honor, surprise, delight, and deliver to your consumers with what he calls the red velvet touch. This could involve rewards, promotions, or competitions for loyal customers – anything that makes a consumer feel appreciated, special, or part of something. He uses examples from Amazon, to Nivea, to General Electric, to show how organizations can make this work.

So what's our last word on "Audience"?

We think the book is a great mix of workable strategy, inspiring anecdotes, and interesting insights into the world of marketing, peppered with some useful statistics. Did you know 51 percent of Internet users were on Facebook at the time of writing, or that smartphone users check their devices 150 times a day on average?

The author also does a good job of warning readers about the potential pitfalls of mass marketing tools like Facebook and Twitter, as well as singing their praises. A positive campaign can go viral in seconds, but so can a negative message – you need to be aware of this and take precautions.

Depending on your knowledge of marketing, you may find some of the book's chapters aren't for you – they'll be too technical or too basic. But the majority of "Audience" is accessible to a wide readership, and the references to household names and popular culture make it both an entertaining read and a vital addition to any marketer's toolkit.

"Audience" by Jeffrey K. Rohrs is published by John Wiley & Sons.

That's the end of this episode of Book Insights. Thanks for listening.