September 2024 - Edition 3 - A Product of 97th Floor
Hi there,
We made it to Fall! 🍂 Where I am in Utah it's still in the mid-high 70's... but the leaves are changing on the mountains and we are delighted to be watching slightly-spooky movies and baking with pumpkin.
Here's what's ahead:
Access to a jam-packed on-demand webinar for marketers who want to earn ownership over revenue 🤑
How P&G used the power of rituals to rescue Febreze from being discontinued 🌸
How to start an effective customer research program đź‘€
Let's do it. 🙌
CAMPAIGN BREAKDOWN
Reclaiming the SERP Throne for 75 Hard while Growing Revenue 23% YoY
Situation
Andy Frisella is an entrepreneur, bestselling author, consultant and speaker. He is the CEO of 1st Phorm, a supplement company valued over $175 million, and has founded five other businesses that generate over $200 million in annual revenue.
In 2019, Frisella created the 75 Hard Mental Toughness Challenge - “an ironman for your brain” designed to help people transform mentally over the course of 75 days.
After 75 Hard went viral, sites like Forbes, Today, and Healthline wrote about the program.
By the end of 2022, these sites began out-ranking Andy's page for valuable, high-volume secondary keywords. 75 Hard was a major traffic source for Andy’s site; losing the SERP for 75 Hard keywords hurt Andy’s brand and threatened revenue.
After bringing the issue to Frisella’s team, we began an integrated SEO and content strategy to make Andy’s site the authority on his program. The main page for 75 Hard on Andy’s site isn’t structured like a standard page, so intentional optimization and consideration of how to address the SERP and user needs was vital to our success. We used a hub & spoke approach and internal linking to connect low-ranking KW content back to the main page, and we created new content.
Results
In September 2023 alone, our new content brought in 12,000+ sessions to Andy’s site. The SEO and content strategy has increased YoY traffic to Andy’s site by 37%, and YoY revenue by 23%.
Andy’s site is now ranking in position one for over 200 75 Hard related keywords, including 75 hard (MSV: 185.0K) and 75 hard challenge (MSV: 114.0K).
At 97th Floor, we don't increase revenue for clients like Andy on accident.
We believe that none of the metrics marketers report on matter if there is no route to profitability in the long-term, and our campaigns reflect that.
97th Floor's VP of Marketing Danny Allen recently spoke to revenue marketing gurus Keith Povey and Steve Armenti about:
What it takes to earn ownership over revenue,
how marketers who impact revenue and behaving and thinking differently than marketers who don’t,
and what knowledge gaps marketers who are ready to own revenue need to close.
We recorded the whole thing just for you. Don't miss this; proactive, revenue-driven marketers will stand out and make a difference in their organizations and in the industry.
Procter & Gamble (P&G) first introduced Febreze in the late 1990s. The product was originally made to eliminate odors from cooking, smoking, and pets; sales were abismally low, and P&G was nearly ready to pull Febreze from shelves everywhere.
Extensive research revealed the problem: the very customer for whom the product was intended did not recognize their need for it.
Source: Febreze commercial, 1998
In one instance, the P&G research team visited a woman who owned 32 cats. The stench was so strong that it made the researchers gagged. When asked whether she had tried to use Febreze for the odor, the woman explained that her cats were so clean that she didn’t need to!
Researchers also observed that most people liked to be able to step back and admire their work after cleaning. Febreze's shortcoming was that it didn't add anything to the cleaning experience. It took away smells, but it didn't contribute anything.
P&G changed their formula to not just eliminate smells but to add a clean smell.
Febreze became a ritual and a reward for consumers, and a leading seller for P&G.
New research from MSQ, the global creative, media & technology group, and WARC explores the role of rituals, what they reveal human behavior, and what brands need to consider if they want to become a fixed part of buyers' lives.
The scoop on rituals:
Rituals are deeply personal experiences. They are regular, long-held, and are about emotional transformation and meaning.
A brand can only become part of a ritual if a person invites them into it.
“Observe, facilitate, participate” is the mantra for brands exploring the ritual opportunity.
Consider the rituals in your own life; do any of them include a specific brand? How did it come to be so?
MSQ and WARC report that:
72% of consumers incorporate a specific product or service into their rituals at least occasionally;
48% have had their key ritual for more than five years, and the majority of important rituals occur daily;
39% feel more positively toward a brand once it has become part of their ritual.
MSQ's Executive Director Kate Howe says, "Every brand has some unique aspect of behaviour tied to it that may be considered ritualistic. What are the (hidden) patterns amongst the consumers you serve? What are they doing, how, and why? Once you know, you’re well on your way to tapping into the power of rituals.”
If your wheels are spinning about rituals, some focused customer research is the best place to start.
Last year we spoke to B2B customer research expert Ryan Paul Gibson about how to build a customer research program that will yield rich, strategy-inspiring qualitative data. Get a jumpstart in just 30 minutes.
Ooh, a theme is emerging. And by that I mean that I used it twice in one email.
Michael Norton is a leading behavior scientist and Harvard Business School Professor with a love for rituals. Here's how respondents answered his recent survey about rituals in the workplace:
63% of people engage in a ritual before stressful meetings or presentations, i.e. a specific types of preparation, deep breathing exercises, and music.
38% of respondents have some sort of team ritual, such as sharing good news.
59% percent of readers reported having a ritual to end their workday, such as shutting off technology or connecting with family.
Okay, time for some guided introspection:
Take a minute and think through your workday. Where are the rituals baked in? When did you start to practice this ritual, what spurred it, and why do you think that particular ritual has lasted where others have failed to take hold?
Consider where you may benefit from a new ritual; experiment, and see how a regular practice can help you show up better for yourself on and off the clock.
