This week’s master is always up for fun, and he’s got the receipts to show it.
“The most fun brand in the world hired us to make them fun,” he smiles. “We are certified fun and we can prove it.”
Case in point: When I asked Chandler Quintin for an interview, I failed to mention what it was for (I’d blame Monday’s brain, but it was a Thursday) and he still gave me more laughs and ideas that I could not have integrated. e-mail.
Lesson 1: Have an entertainment strategy.
“People are subject to marketing all day long, whether we ask for it or not,” explains Chandler Quintin. I immediately think of looking for the mute button on the fuel pump these are screaming advertisements against me. Is no place sacred?
“If it’s at least interesting to watch and checks the box of ‘Hey, I don’t mind seeing this,’ then everyone’s lives will improve because we won’t be inundated with boring stuff .”
Quintin is convinced that we are at what he calls “peak white noise on most platforms.” (And that goes double for you B2B marketers.)
Do you use an ad blocker? Does your thumb have lightning-fast “skip ad” reflexes? Do you scroll through sponsored posts on LinkedIn? Well, the same goes for the audience you paid so much money for.
Quintin believes the best way to reduce white noise is to make content fun – and one day soon marketing departments will have entertainment strategies in the same way that we now have editorial strategies.
“Now I want to clarify that when I talk about funny content, I’m not saying everything has to be funny.“Funny is just a kind of fun, and fun is different for different brands.
He gives the example of a campaign Brothers video created for an outsourcing company. On the pleasure scale, outsourcing is usually somewhere around the popcorn kernels stuck in your gums. Quintin and his team created an ad suite focused on pronouncing the word “outsource” as a dirty word. By tackling the taboo of outsourcing head-on, their advertising stands out from competitors who were dancing around the subject.
But he emphasizes that the key word remains “strategy”: you need an overall plan for a well-connected marketing campaign, based on audience insights.
“It’s not just about creating flagship content and building on it, it’s about building a strategy around fun content.» The series on outsourcing, for example, was built on first-hand knowledge of clients’ attitudes towards their sector.
“Think less about marketing and more about the people on the other end of the phone. What things might interest them?
Lesson 2: Think less about marketing and more about people.
For Quintin, good marketing is above all about people.
Even though you’re B2B, you’re not actually selling to a business, are you? You’re selling to a CMO, a director, a manager – and unlike jokes, they’re people.
And the problem with people is they don’t think about your cool new feature. They think about meeting deadlines, what’s for lunch, or getting the kid to band rehearsal.
“Many marketers focus on the product, the features, the benefits, everything their product or service can do,” says Quintin. “And, 9 times out of 10, the audience is just looking for a pain to solve. They are not enthusiastic about this new integration.
For most businesses, this means not leading with your brand or even your product or service. Instead, lead with something your customers can connect to… then connect the dots to your product or service.
And, coming full circle, that’s also how you find entertainment value.
“When you look at the pain that your audience might be feeling – that you’re resolving – there’s probably humor or something intelligent in that pain, right? »
Lesson 3: Engage with the people who interact with you.
While you’re busy figuring out how to connect with your audience, don’t forget to actually connect with your audience.
“The first thing you can do to maximize the money you spend is simply engage with the people who interact with you. »
And he’s not just talking about reactive engagement, like responding to social posts or emails. This stuff is a no-brainer. It talks about proactive outreach to people who interact with your business presence. Quintin himself sends a message to anyone who views his LinkedIn profile or watches a video he posts.
“We booked almost 80% of our calls just by interacting with the people who interact with us rather than going to our website and filling out a form.”
And I am a living testimony to this tactic. Thursday morning, I sip tea and browse LinkedIn for marketing masters. (I’m doing it for you! Well… not the tea. It’s for me.) A few minutes later, Quintin messaged me asking for help because he was upside down. (See hero image above.) Friday morning we schedule an interview.
Quintin acknowledges that it takes effort.
“It takes a lot of time. Maybe there are ways to automate it. But ultimately, I think people can kind of see through the automations a little bit. Especially when you’re trying to make an authentic connection. The bar for this is: just be authentic. Be a human being.
But the return is worth it.
“If you only have $1,000, you’re going to be able to turn that $1,000 into a power of five or 10,000 if you just go the extra mile and commit.»
Throughout our interview, the conversation kept coming back to two points: Being human. And have fun. This seems to be the soul of Chandler Quintin, who smiles as he drops the moral of our story:
If you’re committed to creating fun content, “the worst that can happen is someone remembers your brand.”
