How can brands win new fans? Five lessons in quotes from our latest fandom event

Having an audience is nice. But having fans is even nicer - because fans actively root for the brands they love. But how do brands win fans, and what happens once they do? 

On the 12 of November 2019, distillery invited four experts to answer these questions during an intimate panel debate moderated by our very own distiller Kalleen Knowles. Product Marketing Associate Jack Cully from Monzo, Founding Director of Wicksteed Works Jessie Scoullar, acclaimed Creative Consultant Sam Ball, and award-winning Digital Marketer Laurie Wang shared their expert tips during a night of learning, networking, food, and laughter. Here are our top five lessons from the panel, in quotes:

Our panellists get ready to share their expertise on winning fans for brands.

• 1) Find out who your super fans are.

“You can’t possibly talk with three million fans and really connect with all these people at once. Focus on finding out who your super fans are, and engage with them instead. Then let them talk to the rest of your audience for you. It even makes more financial sense: you’ll have more spend to reach out to fewer people. Use that, make your communication personal, make it count, rather than trying to please everybody at once. These super fans will be so happy, they’ll make sure your message trickles down to others.” - Sam

• 2) Be helpful and offer value.

“Brands can get things very wrong when they act as a teenage boy trying to woo a girl. ‘Please like me’ campaigns don’t work if they don’t post insightful stuff people actually care about.” - Sam

“Create content that helps your audience somehow. When people learn something, relate with something, they share it. And this is how audiences become raving fans: through word of mouth.” - Laurie

• 3) Talk, but most importantly, listen.

“Despite how much you think you know your audience, it might take a long time to build and understand your fanbase. And you only get there by listening. So here’s my tip for brands: Listen more. It’s fundamental to find out who your people are, and to understand what they want.” - Sam

“We’re building things that our fans love because we’re actually listening to them. Many people dressed as Monzo cards this year for Halloween. Who would have expected that? We certainly weren’t, but we were paying attention to our fans, so we saw that and used it by prominently featuring those fans on our platforms. When people tell you something is good just because they love it, you tend to believe them. Monzo grew organically because of word of mouth. So we’re always listening to what our fans are saying about us.” - Jack

• 4) Authenticity is king.

“When partnering with influencers, brands need to give them freedom to do what they want with their content. Influencers know their own audience and what they want. If brands hand them templates to follow, people will notice there’s something strange and the campaign risks being less successful. People can smell lack of authenticity from miles away.” - Laurie

“I help my clients find ways to connect with their audiences through things that are meaningful to them. If they can make it clear what they’re passionate about, what their values are, they give their audience something multidimensional to appreciate and relate with. And this helps build authentic relationships.” - Jessie

• 5) Give fans what they want: be human.

“Show your face, participate, be human, talk to your customers. That’s an important part of business, not just for building a fanbase, but also because customers can give very valuable and constructive feedback.” - Jack

“Nick Cave writes his own email newsletters to his fans. This type of unmediated communication is gold. Behind every question he receives from fans there is always one in common: “Are you there?” And he makes it a point to personally respond and assure his fans that yes, he is. Ultimately, we’re all human, we all want to be heard. That’s what fans want too.” - Jessie

“Open up and show sides of yourself that others can identify with. Showing our ideal selves can cause ‘social media comparisonsitis.’ Showing our real human selves can invite audiences to connect with our vulnerabilities - and this is a great door for engagement.” - Laurie

“The work towards building a fanbase begins internally. Interact with the humans around you and remind the people within your building how amazing the organisation they’re working for is. Do you have employees who are super fans of their own brand? If you’re not a fan of your own company, why would anyone else be?” - Sam 

A big thank you to our panellists and all attendees for making this event a success. 

Find our panellists on social media:

Sam Ball is on LinkedIn

Jack Cully is on LinkedIn and Twitter

Laurie Wang is on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram

Jessie Scoullar is on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram

If you couldn’t make it this time, don’t worry: we have other events coming up soon. Stay tuned on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn and Facebook, and sign up to our events mailing list by filling in the form below to get first dibs on tickets next time.

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