What the Vinyl Record tells us about Marketing

Bob and Sue are celebrating 40 years of marriage.  Now empty-nesters, they finally ventured into the city to try the latest celebrity chef bistro.  Enjoying locally sourced cuisine by mason jar candlelight, Bob and Sue couldn’t help but feel like newlyweds again.  Their conversation quickly turned reminiscent, re-telling stories of college, their wedding day, and sleepless nights with infants.  Maybe it was the energy of a younger crowd (or the wine), but Bob and Sue forgot…for a moment…that it was 2016.

Walking back to their parking meter, a door unexpectedly flung open, hitting Bob with a familiar aroma.  A musty smell: part dust…part mothball…part worn cardboard.  Bob, for a moment, was convinced he’d traveled back in time.  As Bob glanced beyond the departing patron, Bob noticed rows and rows of vinyl…neatly organized…in cubbies upon cubbies.  Bob was immediately taken back to his adolescence.

“A record store!? Sue, we HAVE to go in!”

As they walked in, both Bob and Sue’s jaws dropped.  They were the oldest people in the store by more than 30 years.  These customers were their children’s age.  The same children that wouldn’t let go of their smartphones, out of their cold-dead hands.

“How is this even possible?”

In a struggling industry, a surprise contender is rising in the ranks.  In fact, 180 gram discs of vinyl grew by 30% in sales in 2015 (according to Forbes).  To make this even more remarkable, use of connected devices increased by 11.3% to 5 hours 29 minutes per day in the same year (according to eMarketer).  These are connected devices that can now stream free music through Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, and other streaming services.  At the surface, Vinyl’s rebound seems to be inexplicable at best.

 How can a digital society promote growth in the most analog of products?

We live in a society that has an insatiable urge to be connected.  It’s not uncommon for people to be mindlessly meandering through crowded sidewalks, heads down, scrolling through their smart phone.  Inundated with social media, email, push notifications, streaming content, podcasts, and text messages; it’s easy to be overwhelmed.  In fact, our brains can only handle so many simultaneous pieces of information until it is either suppressed (after about 10-15 seconds), or we must force it into long term memory (according to human-memory.net). With this limitation, an inherent cap is placed on how much content we are capable of, or willing to consume through digital media.

As technological innovation continues to make our lives more convenient and productive, we (as a society) continue to look for more opportunities to use it when time is our most precious resource.  Businesses, above all other entities, are even more motivated to equip their workforce with tools to improve efficiencies.  Over the last several decades, the pendulum has shifted from using technology primarily for leisure to a more prominent use in the work place.  This has resulted in the steady growth of telecommuting, without sacrificing perceived productivity (according to businessnewsdaily.com).

If our screen-time has a cap, our career is starting to consume more of it.

Naturally, if consumers need an escape from screen-time…they begin to look for alternatives.  They crave physical experiences, objects they can touch, and people they can interact with.  Gone are the days of coming home from a long day of work and wanting to browse the internet or watch cable television.  The citizens of 2016 flock to gastropubs, farmers markets, and boutiques for an opportunity to escape the screen.  Some go as far as moving into high-density urban areas, simply for the increased sense of community and stimulation through constant interaction.

Media industry performances seem to support these trends.  Overall, movie ticket sales in North America have been relatively flat, declining since 2002 (according to statista.com).  Cable subscriptions are steadily declining, while content streaming service subscriptions have climbed by 30% since 2013 (according to business insider).  In fact, consumers’ desire to fit media consumption into their screen-time cap is causing TV viewership to decline by as much as 50% (according to variety).

Meanwhile, consumers have pushed vinyl sales to a 26 year high (according to nme.com), farmers market growth of 180% since 2006 (according to NPR), and theme park market size and revenue per firm to a steady increase from 2010 to present day (according to anythingresearch).

Highly connected people are seeking analog experiences.

Given the context of today’s digital society, it’s actually no surprise that consumers are investing in their own personal vinyl collection.  People have a desire to physically hold the album sleeve, beautifully designed by world-renowned artwork contributors.  They want to own a personal piece of their favorite band’s work… a piece with physical grooves representing each chord, snare hit, and bass line…a piece of vinyl that, over time, wears down to it’s own unique sound that is unique from any other of the exact same copy of that exact same pressing.  They simply want to disconnect, close their eyes, and listen to the warm analog tones of their favorite songs while they escape the entangled mess of email waiting for them on their work device.

So where does this leave us as marketers?  We have a target audience with an increasingly limited attention span…who are receiving an increasing amount of noise when they are connected…and seek to find more time to physically interact with the world around them.  Do we need to go back to the stone age of physical print?  Do we need to move back to direct mail?  Should we abandon digital marketing altogether? No.

We need to leverage technology to simulate analog experiences.

Technology should be used as a means to provide smarter marketing…AND NOT… as a means for mass marketing.  In other words, digital marketing should be viewed as a marketing enabler first, and a communication method second. When you flip the model on it’s head, a strategy emerges to personalize your marketing. When you do this, you begin to pull on some of those levers that consumers are so actively seeking.  The brand relationship becomes more personal, your messaging becomes more authentic, and you begin to make more informed decisions on who to target.

Imagine a world where you can better understand the behaviors and preferences of your customers, first.  No longer sending email blasts to an overwhelmed inbox, you now have the capability to target customers through emerging technology to reach them at times when they are not actively connected.  This can come in the form of push notifications to apps via location-aware technologies (such as iBeacons), or activity based messaging such as purchase history centered messaging at the point-of-sale (you usually purchase 2% Organic Milk with these items, did you forget it?).

The key is figuring out how to insert yourself into the conversation while a customer is not actively connected.

Much like the musty smell of the record shop, marketers must figure out how to leverage Bob’s interests, and provide a prompt (as personal as Bob’s nostalgic sentiment) to get the Bobs and Sues of the world to enter their door.  If marketers can figure this out, they will succeed in communicating with a more captive audience…at a time in which they have disposable time… in a context that is more meaningful to the customer.  This will undoubtedly provide a more powerful campaign that a customer will truly appreciate.

Recommended Approach

• Identify your customer personas
• Invest in a CRM database
• Implement a Customer Data Strategy
• Leverage Customer Data to quantify, qualify, and target segments
• Ideate personal “moments”  that leverage customer data
• Create an execution roadmap
• Invest in technology to support CRM integrations
• Develop analytics and reporting capabilities
• Pilot and Rollout personalized campaign
• Measure KPIs and determine campaign performance
• Adjust and prepare for the next campaign