Every team I’ve been on has lamented over their unfulfilled desire for more headcount.
Every CEO I’ve worked with wished their teams would come up with more fresh ideas.
Every CFO I’ve talked to has wanted their teams to find ways to do things cheaper.
Well in the words of every infomercial pitch-person ever, “There’s gotta be a better way!”
Good news. There is. Every business has access to the minds of dozens or hundreds or thousands of loyal and enthusiastic customers. Some of whom love your brand and would do anything to be a part of it. Some of whom hate your products and would love nothing more than to explain how to make it better.
Some who are marketers, some who are artists, some who are engineers, some who are brilliant, and some who are total weirdos.
And now more than ever, in the age of self-expression and over-sharing, where everyone’s creating and posting content, brand can tap into the ideas of customers. Let’s look at three examples:
Amazon
In 1997, Jeff Bezos wrote an email to 1,000 Amazon customers. The founder of the world’s top online bookstore, that recently started selling music, wanted to know what they should sell next. There was a theme to the responses, exemplified by one customer who wrote “windshield wiper blades, because right now I need new windshield wiper blades.”
The theme was that “the thing” didn’t really matter. It was about moments of need. Amazon could and should sell anything. It probably took 10 minutes to craft the email and maybe a couple hours to read all the responses. And now Jeff Bezos has Scrooge McDuck swimming-in-gold-money.
GoPro
Now let’s talk about User Generated Content, or UGC. UGC is even more relevant these days as everyone I know (and everyone I see when I walk down the street), it’s fervently taking pictures of themselves and their surroundings to share with the world.
But more than a decade ago, companies like GoPro really stood about by activating their customer base to create waves and waves of content. Content that propelled their small company into one of the most influential brands on platforms like YouTube. If your first reaction is to say “well of course that’s easy for a camera company,” then please explain to me why the dozens of video camera companies that came before GoPro didn’t accomplish this feat.
GoPro accomplished this by being intentional about their desire to leverage their customers. They constantly asked for content. They hired people to curate and edit that content. They made it a part of who they are as a brand.
And last, but now least, my old friends at Google. Google spends about as much on advertising as any brand in the world, and for my slightly biased money, they’re among the very best at crafting compelling creatives. If you don’t believe me, check out the ads Parisian Love and Google Chrome: Jess Time.
But sometimes all the marketers and all the ad agencies in the world can’t give you the same natural, organic perspective as the people buying and using your products. Which is why Google ran a program called Demo Slam.
Where, you guessed it, they asked customers to tell the stories of their products. There are some wonderful examples from the Demo Slam project, but perhaps my favorite was from The Paul Brothers. This was a video they created back in 2010 at a time when consumers were very hesitantly starting to test out Google’s new voice search features. A time before Alexa and Siri and Ok Google. The Paul Brother’s showed the world just how incredibly well voice search can work, by playing the game “Fluffy Bunny” with a bag of marshmallows.
So how do you do it? How do you tap into customers and sift through the nonsense to find the golden nuggets of great ideas? Well that’s for you to figure out! But as is the case with any cultural shift at any business, it starts with intent and noise.
Decide that you care about customer ideas. Commit to the fact that there is value to be had. Once you’ve convinced yourself, get loud about the concept. Make sure your teams know it and make sure your leaders know it. From there, it’s up to you to choose a vehicle for communication, a target to aim for, and a system to put it all together.
If you want, start small and easy. All Jeff Bezos did was send out an email and read the responses. Try posting on Instagram that you want to see examples of customers using your products. Post on Facebook that you're looking for feedback on your latest product. It may be easier said than done, but at the same time, it’s not rocket science when you’re getting free ideas from people you don’t have to hire.