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2.7 Touches From 3 Platforms
I was at the Capitalism Conference. Michael Dubin was one of the keynote speakers. Michael is the Founder of Dollar Shave Club. He ended up selling out to Unilever for $1.2 billion. That was a pretty substantial check that he was written. I want to bring everybody one simple nugget during his talk that shook me to my core. I knew if it was impactful to me, it might be impactful to many. Ryan Moran asked Michael Dubin the question and it went something like, “When did you realize that you were onto something? Was there a numeric or a mechanical thing that was done that you realized you had your hands on something?” He said, “As a matter of fact, one of my most favorite days was when I was looking at some data.” It was pretty ironic as I was listening to this as I did a podcast a couple of weeks ago called The Dive and Drive.
As he was diving and driving into his numbers, it became very clear to him that his average customer, more than half of the customers did not sign up for Dollar Shave Club until they were touched on average 2.7 times. The key is from three different marketing platforms. He put out incredible YouTube video. 25 million people saw it. If you have not seen the Dollar Shave Club YouTube video, please put it into YouTube and see what launched his company. It was very famous. He goes, “That was great. We kept pounding on those videos. We never really had a breakthrough.” He goes, “However, when we became a more mature company and we started trying different marketing platforms, we exploded when we stumbled on the fact that we went into individual towns to try to make some noise.” His definition of making noise was going into a microeconomic piece of the country, say the south side of Milwaukee, southwest side of Milwaukee. You go into that little section of town. You jump on for marketing points. It might be Southwest Milwaukee Radio, Southwest Milwaukee newspapers, Southwest Milwaukee direct mail and maybe Southwest Milwaukee something.
Faith it until you make it. Click To Tweet
He goes, “When we started doing that, we exploded. It was then when I realized that you could be on one platform, maybe you love Facebook, but it’s not until your potential customer sees you on other platforms that they realize you are a mature, secure company.” This is Michael Dubin’s quote, “It is not until your potential customer sees you on multiple marketing platforms that they realize you are a mature and secure company. Then they will invest their hard-earned dollars into your razor or buy insurance from you or buy your car or your whatever.” That hit me so hard because we went through this a few years ago. A few years ago, I would do trade show after trade show and then all of a sudden somebody said, “Ken, you really have to try Facebook. You’ve got to try Google Pay Per Click. You’ve got to try the radio.” The bottom line is that to count, that’s tradeshows plus three other platforms. That’s four platforms. All of a sudden, we started looking at her numbers and the numbers of people that would work with us from a trade show tripled.
It was the same trade shows, different cities and different people, but all of a sudden, it would triple the amount of people that wanted to start with us. We realized the only thing that’s changed is many people would walk up to our booth and say, “Are you guys the income story that I hear all the time on the radio? Are you that Income Store?” I was in the White House with my wife once. She got invited to the East Wing. Vice President Pence and some other great people talking and she was one of 61 people invited and I was the plus one. The bottom line is I was talking in a hallway and a lady came running around the corner and she walks up to me. She goes, “Say something again?” I go, “What do you want me to say?” She goes, “You’re the Income Store guy. I hear you on the radio all the time.” I’m telling you, folks, there is power in being on multiple platforms. You can still ride your Facebook. You could still ride your Pay Per Click. You can still ride your direct mail campaign, but when you spread your budget in a microeconomic section, keeping the budget small for testing, watch the data that comes from that micro test.
Because as I was sitting there listening to Michael Dubin talk, I’m like, “I just lived through this.” We started in Chicago then we went to the Dallas and then West Coast then Florida, and then finally we did it nationwide. If you have a budget, go into a microeconomic part of the country, meaning go into a section you can control and find a way to get on different platforms. I also wanted to give a few examples. Let’s say you’re a life coach. Maybe you live in Kansas City. What I would do if I’m you and I’m trying to get on multiple platforms, first, I would do a lookalike campaign with some advertising on Tony Robbins’ page. Because that’s where people are already looking for a life coach. I would find a way to get their email and their address somehow by maybe doing some polls and surveys, jumping into some Facebook groups, reaching out to them directly, hire a team of people to reach out to people, just get their data. I would do a direct mail campaign. I would do a five-point incredibly well thought out email campaign. You might ask, “What would I put out in the email?” Why don’t you go to your biggest competitor in life coaching and sign up for their email account, sign up for their email newsletter? Why don’t you model what they do?
Go with 'we' and not 'I.' Click To Tweet
What if you have a physical product? I own a website being overhauled right now called 99 Cent Razor. Actually, it was modeled after Dollar Shave Club. We finally got some razors. What I could do is I could buy a subscription email lists from GQ magazine. I know they’re concerned with grooming. I would do a five-point email and a five-point direct mail campaign. I would retarget them. That’s a separate campaign. I would then for sure do direct mail. I would do some local radio for physical product. What if you’re an insurance man? That’s a service. I would take some small digital billboards. Every small town now has them. Get some small, quick hitting billboards. I would for sure get on the radio. I would definitely do half page ads in the newspaper. I would sponsor everything that gets in my path. Everything little kids, Little League for $50 to you name it. I would sponsor everything.
I would suffocate that little town until they saw my brand and heard my brand. Touched my brand everywhere, why? I want you to understand when Michael Dubin says, “Magic happened when I realized my average customer was not starting with me until they had 2.7 touches across three different platforms.” Your customers are the same. They’re the same. They need to trust you. They need to know you’re mature and secure. Some people are going to say, “I’m a one-man show.” So what? Fake it until you make it. Look big. Make sure you put everything out there on your website with the word we and not I. Here’s the deal. You have the budget. Start small. Get on three to four different platforms and run the numbers. I promise you, you will be ecstatic. Take care.
Important Links:
- Capitalism Conference
- Dollar Shave Club
- The Dive and Drive – Past episode
- Dollar Shave Club – YouTube
- 99 Cent Razor
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