Wanting to Belong

Below is what I originally wrote for today ... then I saw this story and thought that it is important you see the importance of community, of belonging (all of which your company already provides, either formally or most likely informally). Click here for the video from CBS Sunday Morning.

Ok, time for the original post.

The emailer told me he couldn't get access to magazine lists anymore (his magazine lists he rented stopped publishing via print a few years ago) and he told me that Google had become "too expensive". I privately wondered if his customers believed in his business? Did his customers want to belong to the ecosystem his brand was part of? Could his own customers share his story?

I suppose it's always been this way, but for many of you, your customers want to belong to something.

I was at the NASCAR Cup race in Phoenix two months ago. There was a long line at the Busch Light beer stand. I'd frequently hear patrons say how they won't drink Bud Light ("they don't get my money anymore") ... think about that, they won't give their money to one brand but will give their money to a sister brand, which means the customer wants to belong to something and Capitalism wins regardless. Welcome to 2025.

It's no different with the Costco / Target stuff that is going on. You'll harm Target if you don't feel like you belong to their overarching messaging ... if you don't feel like you are welcome anymore. Except there the money isn't flowing to the same parent company ... it's truly going to the competition.

There are, of course, the obvious financial implications of "not belonging". Ask Bud Light and Target.

There are the non-obvious financial implications. In a recent project (numbers dummied up here to protect the innocent), each website visit that didn't deliver a conversion added precisely one dollar to the future value of the customer. Five percent of the 0-48 month file visited the website in a given month, so this $30,000,000 brand generated $200,000 per month ... $2,400,000 per year (8% of annual sales) by simply "engaging" the customer.

Yes, there's a difference between the phony "engagement" created by gimmicks and the community building that causes a customer to want to belong, thereby visiting your website and adding $2.4 million per year because the customer feels like s/he belongs.

Maybe your customer wants to belong to something meaningful.

You likely provide something meaningful to the customer.

Connect the two.