While listening to Cheat Codes, the new Danger Mouse and Black Thought album, a verse struck a chord with me. I don't remember which track it was on, or the actual order of it, but what I remember hearing was something like this; "you got fandom, we got family".
Heck yeah! Isn't that interesting? To marketers this is nothing new, you want a loyal customer, a community to spread your gospel and positive vibes and all that fuzzy good stuff. It certainly rings true for us Old Sons. That was the whole basis of our Founders Club. Huzzah to our family!
With all this pop-commerce (coining that term here first!) and side-hustle/passive income rhetoric spewing from every platform available now, the value proposition of a fan vs. a customer vs. family and all the loyalty that comes with each must be more important than ever, no? A fan may watch your video once and think "huh". A customer might follow you for more content or buy something, and family will tell everyone they know about your stuff and consistently buy/peddle your things. I don't have answers or a five step plan to turn a passive fan into a 10x return loyal customer. I'd wager anyone who claims they have said plan also acts on a "60% of the time it works every time" kinda basis. But the questions are provocative, aren't they?
In our world, a fan likes a photo or post, a customer buys a bottle of Stiff Upper Lip and enjoys it, but our family buy 3 bottles at a time, shares it with friends and gushes tenfold how they know us personally or love what we're doing and that our Canadian Whisky is one of the best around. We feel the difference, that's for sure. Our energy is solely rooted in growing our family. Family is home to us, and home is where the heart is.....Ew, emotions.
See you for the holidays, Fam!
Cheers,
The Old Sons