Maddie Gray
Content Lead
What Marketers Can Learn from Taylor Swift…Ready for It?
Swift’s Secret Sauce
I talk a lot about knowing your audience being the secret sauce in copywriting, in design, in marketing—but I think Taylor Swift shows us another kind of sauce. She has transcended genres, moving from country music to pop and everywhere in the pop fringes. So, what is it? What has made her fan base stick with her from genre to genre and skyrocket from there? I can’t speak to the intricacies of the music industry, but as a marketer, I think it comes down to this:
Taylor Swift’s marketing succeeds not because she knows her audience, but because she makes her audience feel like they know her.
“…All you have to do to be my friend is like me… and listen.” So, like I said, if her fans listen, if they put in just a little bit of work, they’ll be rewarded.
What Marketers Should Take Away
Jason’s Take
There’s no doubt in my mind that Taylor Swift is a “brand.” Maddie points out that Taylor expects a little something from her fans in return. Similarly, as marketers, we don’t just give it all away. An important ingredient in the secret sauce is an “equal value exchange” between product and customer. Getting your audience to put a bit of skin in the game makes you memorable—even remarkable. This level of engagement even goes one step further; it creates a perpetual feedback loop. A slice of that value exchange comes in the form of criticism and guidance from customer back to you and your product. This is a hundred fold more valuable to you than clever headlines, marketing incentives, or even competitive research. And I’m certain that Taylor Swift listens intently to the feedback from her tribe of Swifties.