David Meerman Scott has been authoring books for the better part of two decades providing valuable insights into B2B and B2C marketing strategies. I’ve met him a handful of times at a past company called PermissionTV. This was back in 2009 just about when he published the book I’m reviewing today. I was producing a show called PTV Live and we welcomed David and other close colleagues of his such as Tim Washer who is a notoriously creative B2B comedic marketing genius, but that’s not the point of this review. We’re here to talk about David’s book, “World Wide Rave.”
The book has been out for some time, but I decided to pick this up to learn about more guerrilla strategies as I build out my personal brand and Business Over Brews. Although the book references social media platforms as they were in their infancy and much has changed, the content and strategies are plenty relevant today. The only problem is that currently, social media platforms are more “pay to play” than they were in the 2000’s. I remember when David was promoting this book, he shared a video he found of this person dancing alone at a rave. I can still hear the song to this day spouting “I’m going to be unstoppable” playing in my head. This person is in their own world having a blast and for the first few minutes, people just poke fun. After what seems to be a lifetime suddenly a 2nd person joins the dancing man. This 2nd person is the catalyst of creating the unstoppable rave. Shortly after there were three, then seve, then 20! Dozens of people decide to join in on the dancing. Cheering and laughter completely drown out the music as an amazing phenomenon happens right before our eyes.
This is the world wide rave.
It’s the moment the catalyst joins an effort to validify the creator. This is when people notice that something may be worth paying attention to. And this is when FOMO creeps up on those watching.
World Wide Rave covers several stories of how B2B companies have harnessed this marketing approach whether it was purposeful or accidental. I won’t say it’s luck just yet because in the B2B world, a rave can be focused on something awesome, or exacerbating something terrible. For example, this grassroots initiative called “bank transfer day” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_Transfer_Day | https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2011/1107/Bank-Transfer-Day-How-much-impact-did-it-have) where a group of consumers were fed up with Bank of America’s awful services and growing fees. This grassroots initiative has been credited with over 600,000 people leaving traditional banks on that fateful day of November 5th, 2011, and is still impacting today.
In his book, David talks about several examples where businesses have successfully created worldwide raves for their audiences to share stories and build relationships.
What I learned from this book is no matter what you’re doing when it comes to marketing a business, or even your business is:
- Meet with them where they are. Find them on specific blogs, user groups, events as opposed to blanket email or paid advertising platforms.
- Provide them with value. Don’t start spewing your corporate boilerplate. Answer their questions, share related articles (not your own) that will help. Engage with people 1 on 1 in public forums.
- Speak with your heart. Emotive responses will always connect with people. I’ve used this tactic in my early career as a support rep. Even if I had support issues that were unfixable either to a misunderstanding of the product or if something wasn’t supported in a specific way, I never had my head chewed off. First I listened to them, and second I spoke to them with emotion. I understood their issues and did my best to solve them and even if I couldn’t fix the problem I always left conversations in a positive light. (I will also add that the companies I worked for always enabled me to make the right decision. To properly explain solutions and in the worst case, provide a refund.)
- Do something unconventional. When businesses focus on the “tried and true” method without considering new opportunities their days are numbered. Literally every product today is replacing a sitting giant. Zoom, Clubhouse, TikTok, I could fill this blog post with hundreds of companies. Customers will go where they get the value they want with the least amount of friction. Companies that avoid new engagement platforms where their audience is headed then they’re in for a rude awakening.
- Trust your employees to do the right thing. Countless times in this book there were references to businesses that blocked facebook, YouTube and other social media platforms because they believe they reduced productivity. In reality, those are the places where your customers build their trust with your employees that aren’t in the support department. To be active in related online communities and to be listening to potential complaints that land online and not in your support system.
I don’t want to let too much out of this book because even today this is a relevant read. And unrelated, I really liked the size, style, and cardstock used in the printing of this book!