Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Lessons - Why Paid Advertising Doesn’t Work | Swish Goswami - CEO and Founder of TruFan

Transcript

Lessons - Why Paid Advertising Doesn’t Work | Swish Goswami - CEO and Founder of TruFan · Success Story with Scott Clary

• 0:00
  If influencers, if there could be like one lesson for people that are trying to sort of
• 0:13
  take their brand, their influencer brand into the next, I guess, you know, to the future
• 0:19
  of marketing, it would be to truly build out and be authentic with their community.
• 0:24
  That's really the only way to win.
• 0:27
  I really think it is.
• 0:28
  I really think it is.
• 0:29
  I think three things, you know, building a brand, the three things that comes down to
• 0:34
  is content, community, and collaboration.
• 0:36
  Collaboration is something some people can do, some people can't.
• 0:39
  It depends where you are.
• 0:40
  If you're in L.A., you're probably going to be able to find other influencers to collaborate
• 0:44
  with, do videos with take photos with the right articles with whatever.
• 0:47
  If you're in, I don't know, Missouri or whatever, like they're in St. Louis, it might
• 0:52
  be a little more difficult compared to L.A., to be able to find those people.
• 0:56
  Content is something that can differentiate you as well, but the way that we're, you know,
• 1:01
  we're inundated again with so many pieces of content every single day, you know, and
• 1:05
  the consumer, we're bombarded with sponsored posts on top of sponsored posts.
• 1:10
  It's really hard these days to stick out unless you're Mr. Beast and you're able to put
• 1:15
  $500,000 into a video doing a crazy stunt that nobody's ever done before.
• 1:21
  That's a really hard way to differentiate yourself with yourself.
• 1:24
  I do think that the golden egg then is community.
• 1:27
  I think the way to be able to differentiate yourself is to have a very strong focus to
• 1:32
  where my top fans, how do I mobilize them, activate them, and make them feel valued for
• 1:37
  their loyalty.
• 1:38
  That's what I think, building a brand, community, building, and even true fan really comes
• 1:43
  down to.
• 1:44
  Now, do you have, because I would love to, I would love to understand like some of
• 1:49
  like case studies, a true fan has worked on that has shown measurable success.
• 1:54
  Can you speak to some things like that that could really drive the point home for people
• 1:58
  that, first of all, are they may not be comfortable with influencer marketing yet, or if
• 2:02
  they are, they don't understand, or have ever been, have any experience with doubling
• 2:07
  down on marketing to like their own following.
• 2:09
  Yeah, so I'll give you some examples.
• 2:11
  Some of these examples were also examples of how customers in the last three or four
• 2:15
  years were using social right, the platform that we bought out in November.
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  So the first is the Red Cross, about two, three years ago the Red Cross used their platform
• 2:26
  to be able to find volunteers that could come out and help them with their initiative.
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  They went online, they found people that were using the hashtag, or were mentioning the
• 2:36
  Red Cross and posts, and they were reaching out to those people and asking them to join
• 2:40
  their volunteer base.
• 2:42
  The second example, this is the current client of ours, is Netflix.
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  Netflix is currently using our platform, not even for marketing, but just to make strategic
• 2:50
  business decisions by understanding, all right, what is the main audience that is watching
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  oranges and new black, what is the main audience that's watching stranger things, and let's
• 2:59
  understand what sort of programming we can put out next that might be able to either cater
• 3:04
  to these audiences or cater to an entirely different audience that we haven't tapped
• 3:08
  into.
• 3:09
  And this is very vital, especially because of the fact that platforms like Netflix are
• 3:13
  also trying to cater to an international audience now.
• 3:16
  They're trying to build original programming, not just North America, but in other places
• 3:19
  like India, where the entire cultural paradigm is very different in those countries.
• 3:24
  The third example I'd bring up is the United Talent Agency, still an existing customer,
• 3:30
  and they use it for being able to find brand affinities between their talent and brands
• 3:35
  that they're trying to work with.
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  So one of their key talent is Chris Pratt.
• 3:39
  If Chris Pratt tomorrow wanted to work with a watch brand, they could come on to our platform,
• 3:44
  they could run Hublot watches, they could run Chris Pratt's account, find the brand
• 3:48
  overlap very easily, and see, all right, is there a big overlap?
• 3:52
  It is a big overlap, but let's go to Hublot and tell them that this is a seamless partnership.
• 3:57
  If there isn't a big overlap, that still could be spun in a good way, because we could
• 4:01
  go to Hublot and say, hey, do you want to reach out to an audience that genuinely doesn't
• 4:05
  follow Hublot right now.
• 4:06
  It's kind of a win-win for them, if there's a big similarity, even if there isn't a big
• 4:10
  similarity, they can spin it using data in a way that makes that deal happen a lot quicker.
• 4:16
  I liked that a lot.
• 4:18
  It makes a lot of sense, and I understand what you're doing.
• 4:20
  I wanted to sort of tee this up with a couple like insight questions through your experience,
• 4:26
  but before I get into that, I just wanted to open the floor for anything in terms of
• 4:31
  like future of marketing or what true fans doing is running that we didn't cover.
• 4:35
  I think, honestly, I'm very impressed with myself.
• 4:39
  Normally, I'm not very good at describing what we do at that level, but I'm pretty happy.
• 4:45
  I appreciate it.
• 4:46
  No, my pleasure.
• 4:47
  It was really good.
• 4:48
  It makes a ton of sense, and I've never heard of a tech that does what true fans does,
• 4:53
  and I don't like to be so evangelistic about products or specific companies on the podcast,
• 4:59
  but I think it's very relevant because it's so different from everything else that I've
• 5:03
  seen out there.
• 5:04
  There's a lot of influencer marketing firms, agencies, but not at this level.
• 5:08
  Really, in all seriousness, they do what you do, so it's very cool to hear how companies
• 5:13
  are actually using it.
• 5:17
  You've been a six-time entrepreneur, or is it more?
• 5:22
  You've done a six?
• 5:23
  Yeah.
• 5:24
  Again, as I said at the very beginning, some of those did not work out, but very happy
• 5:30
  with the work that I've done in the last three years with a wearable company being
• 5:35
  able to deal with DUNK with my roommate in New York, who had started the account in 2013,
• 5:41
  and then now it's true fans.
• 5:44
  My question to you is sometimes I ask a question, like, would you do it again, but you've
• 5:48
  done it six times, that's a stupid question to ask, so.
• 5:51
  But I would ask...
• 5:52
  Do it again.
• 5:53
  Yeah, I know.
• 5:54
  What's the next venture?
• 5:55
  Give it another year or two of them, but I'll ask another question.
• 6:00
  This is a very vanilla question, but I like asking it because everyone interprets a
• 6:04
  question differently, and they really lay into it, so it's good to get some good insight
• 6:07
  for people that are sort of younger in their career.
• 6:09
  One lesson, that you would tell yourself, younger self, a professional lesson that would
• 6:15
  help you get to where you are a little bit quicker.
• 6:17
  Yeah.
• 6:18
  So are you looking for, like, my main?
• 6:21
  Yeah.
• 6:22
  Let's do it.
• 6:23
  You have some advice?
• 6:24
  Yeah.
• 6:25
  Some advice.
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  Some advice you tell your younger self?
• 6:27
  Yeah, I think, I mean, if I was looking back at, like, the 18-year-old switch.
• 6:31
  Yeah, I know, you're not old, so it's like, yeah.
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  Four years ago, I would tell him, first of all, don't sweat the small stuff.
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  I think this is something that my brother told me, and his words are still kind of rung
• 6:45
  a bell in my ear because a lot of times, I think, I freak out by being like, oh my god,
• 6:49
  there's so much to do, and I need to do this quickly, and, like, you feel like you're
• 6:54
  in a race with not only yourself, maybe your friends, maybe society, maybe what people
• 6:58
  are telling you to do, just don't sweat the small stuff.
• 7:01
  You know, I think every single person is on their own path.
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  Every single person hopefully will find success at their own given time.
• 7:08
  Don't rush that process, enjoy that process, and take away as much as you can from it.
• 7:14
  I think number two is, the piece of advice that my brother gave me is don't eat the
• 7:20
  marshmallow.
• 7:22
  And what that means is there are going to be a lot of distractions that come up, and
• 7:26
  this is something that I faced two years ago, and something I faced last year, something
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  I even faced right now, but I think I've become better now at putting the distractions aside
• 7:35
  and really trying to focus in.
• 7:37
  So when you get to a certain level, when you start making moves, you're always going
• 7:41
  to have opportunities around you that you can capitalize upon.
• 7:45
  So it's worth noting that there's always a time to say no, there's always a time to
• 7:49
  say yes, and being able to prioritize the current project you're working on, especially
• 7:53
  if you really believe in them, is a skill that you will need to develop.
• 7:57
  And then the third and final thing is an advice that I think has very much affected my
• 8:02
  life, which is your net worth is your network.
• 8:06
  Focus as much of your time, not just on building your business, but on trying to build up a
• 8:12
  strong network, the most organic way in my opinion of doing that is by interviewing people.
• 8:18
  So if you want to start a podcast, record it even on GarageBand and Export SoundCloud,
• 8:23
  do it in the most crappy way it need be.
• 8:25
  You don't need to go out and buy $200 mics right off the bat.
• 8:29
  If you want to write articles, go on to Medium, go on to LinkedIn, and find time to interview
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  other people.
• 8:35
  I think 99% of people love talking about themselves.
• 8:38
  I am exhibit A. It is very easier, I think, to be able to reach out to someone and get
• 8:44
  them to say yes to an interview, then get them to say yes to a coffee.
• 8:47
  So instead of taking time away from someone, I think it's always great being able to create
• 8:52
  the foundation of a relationship upon you giving value to them by interviewing them.
• 8:57
  So that's definitely something I would do if I was looking to grow my network is interview
• 9:01
  people, follow up with people, make sure you value your network, make sure you're not
• 9:06
  just trying to reach the next person, the next person, the next person, invest time and
• 9:10
  really carry through your network.
• 9:12
  I love it.
• 9:13
  Those are all very good takeaways.
• 9:16
  Thank you.
• 9:17
  I appreciate that.
• 9:18
  I like that.
• 9:19
  Yeah, there was no limit on the amount of advice, so I'm glad you went to all those.