Before founding Mavens and Moguls, a network of seasoned marketing professionals, she worked in organisations like Procter & Gamble, and Coca Cola, as well as for early stage businesses like Zipcar, Inc.com and Launch Media. She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and Harvard featured her business as a case to teach MBA students how to start a successful business. 

In this episode, Paige shares some strategies for better understanding the customer you want to serve, in terms of what motivates them to buy. We cover:

• Some online methods to understand the market
• Considering who might be your ideal client
• Ways to understand what the market wants
• Listening tour as a way of touching base with your audience
• How Paige helps her clients 
• How to approach people so they don't fear being sold to when doing market research
• Different ways to segment your market — demographic data, psychographic data, behavioural data, geographic data and life stages

LinkedIn: Paige Arnof-Fenn
mavensandmoguls.com

Valuable Resources:

Brand Tuned Scorecard
Brand Tuned Accelerator
www.brandtuned.com 

Paige Arnof-Fenn: So you're constantly iterating in the process until you figure out like, aha, we just cracked the code. Now we have a better profile. It's like kind of trying to figure out the persona of you know who that ideal customer might be.

Shireen Smith: Hello, and welcome to the Brand Tune podcast, which discusses all things brand related, including the essential trademark and IP diamond. I'm your host, Shireen Smith, IP lawyer, Brand Manager, and author of Brand Tuned the New Rules of Branding Strategy and Intellectual Property. 

Seeing the business from the point of view of the customer is so important, and yet it's surprisingly difficult to achieve market orientation, otherwise known as being market driven, or customer focused or being customer centric, or seeing the business back to front or inside out. These all mean the same thing. The Procter and Gamble's of this world get deep insights into their customers wants and needs. But how can smaller businesses or indeed startups, who lack the budget and resources of bigger businesses achieve a proper understanding of the consumer. 

In episode 120, I highlighted the difficulties for small businesses such as my own to do the necessary research. Before the episode begins, I just want to mention the Brand Tuned Accreditation course, which is in the pipeline, it will cover how to create a brand strategy, taking account of intellectual property as it arises during the process. brand protection considerations impact the choice of names or other brand identifiers, so to make better branding decisions, register your interest brandtuned.com. The link is in the show notes. 

Paige has a wealth of experience to provide guidance to smaller businesses and startups on how to do a search to see that business from the point of view of the customer before segmenting the market. Prior to starting Mavens and Moguls a network of seasoned marketing professionals. She works in organizations like Procter and Gamble, and Coca Cola, as well as for early stage businesses like Zipcar, inc.com and Launch Media. She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. And indeed Harvard did a case study of her company as a model to teach MBAs how to start a successful business. So Paige, thank you for returning to the podcast today to discuss how small businesses might tackle research and segmentation. To kick off, can you say something about what you'd be looking to discover, in order to orient yourself to the market that you want to segment?

Paige Arnof-Fenn: So thank you for having me back. Shireen it's great to talk about this really important topic. As you mentioned, I started my marketing career at Procter and Gamble and at P&G, everything is grounded in research. So that's really part of my training. And so my bias has always been being classically trained at Procter, it's everything starts with your customer, and what motivates them to make the purchase it's not what you like, or what I like, or my friends and family, it's what does the purchaser what motivates them to buy. So you know, the wonderful thing about starting your career at a place like P&G, or Coca Cola you have lots of budget to invest in all kinds of qualitative research, quantitative research, customer satisfaction monitors. You know, habits and practices, you can learn so much about who your audiences but as you mentioned, now, I'm an entrepreneur, I run this small marketing business. And my clients typically don't have huge budgets, but they still need to understand who they're talking to, and what's going to motivate them to be interested. So, you know, it all comes down to who your primary secondary and tertiary audiences are. Are They're gatekeepers. You know what messages are gonna break through. But the concept of segmentation is so important. And here in the US President Abraham Lincoln was a very famous president during the Civil War. And, you know, he emancipated the slaves. But he's also very famous for a quote, which I don't know if you've ever heard, he said, If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend four hours sharp sharpening my axe. And I think segmentation is related to that quote, because if you don't invest the time upfront to get your segment, right, you'll never get the right target the right message, the right positioning. So the segmentation is like the core foundation from which all these other really important marketing concepts are going to, to flow from that very important decision of getting your segment correct. So that was kind of a long winded background. Now, let's go back to your question. Sorry, you want to get me back on track?

Shireen Smith: Yeah. What would you want to find out to orient yourself to a market so you're creating a product like I'm intending to do? What would you be wanting to find out how to how to go

Paige Arnof-Fenn: There are a lot of ways to segment your market, you can do it with demographic data, psychographic data, behavioural. data, geographic data, life stages, you know, when I was at p&g, one of my assignments was in the cosmetics category CoverGirl, makeup, P&G doesn't own it anymore. But at the time, they owned Covergirl cosmetics. And we had different cosmetic lines for different life stages, there was a teenage product for young girls who have pimples, there was a normal skin product for younger women. And then there was a makeup line with more moisturizers, as your skin ages and dries out. So you know, life stages, if you're getting married, if you're having babies, if you're moving, that triggers all kinds of products and services that you need around starting a family moving to a new location. So segmentation, you can segment a lot of different ways it you know, by price, is it luxury, is it at the low end, kind of for people that are on budgets? There are a lot of different ways to segment your market. So, you know, how do you want to slice and dice and all segments are not equal. And I think you made that point as well in your podcast last week, some are going to be a lot more profitable and easier than others. And, you know, you've probably heard of the Pareto optimal solution, which is the 80/20 rule, you know, 80% of your business could come from, you know, I, you know, 20% of your market. So you definitely want to know who those who those most profitable, easiest low hanging fruit customers are. 

And you can capture the data a whole bunch of ways. You can do it with surveys, you can do it with, with focus groups, you can do it with online groups. Now, if you're not getting together in person, you can capture that and collect data, a lot of different ways that are very affordable today. I don't know if you follow Forrester, the research company here in the US, I saw a study that they published that said only 60% of businesses actually invest the time and money to segment their audience, which is really stunning that it's just over half the companies. But today with social media with artificial intelligence, it's a lot faster and cheaper and quicker to capture that data in ways that weren't even possible when I started my career in 1990. So leveraging social media, you can do a lot of social listening, which is really, you know, looking at the sentiment online when people are talking about your product or service. What's the context you can capture a lot of that just online? Are you doing Google Analytics on your website? What are the keywords that are really the ones that are driving the most traffic to your website? There's so many ways that you can creatively kind of capture that at the front end today that didn't even exist when I started my career 30 years ago.

Shireen Smith: Sure. So that's if you've got an existing business or product if you're doing what I'm doing, which is to want to introduce something totally new that we were not currently offering. And I want to actually understand designers and marketers, how do they actually do their work? I can't, it would be nice to be able to observe them. But I can't really do that. Although I'm joining courses where I've got, I've got an inkling of how things are done. So, really, I want to understand what do they do? How do they do their job? And how much do they understand about branding and IP? Or feel that they have an adequate understanding in order to do their job? Do you understand what I mean? So yeah,I don’t want to lead them on with my questions. 

Paige Arnof-Fenn: So one thing that I've done with a lot of my clients, which has been very effective, is something called a listening tour. And you see it a lot with politicians today, where they go out, and they just talk to people, and you can do it face to face. But if you're concerned with COVID, you can do it online as well or on the phone. And you basically put together a list of who some of your key targets might be, could be marketers, Chief Marketing Officers, could be designers, you know, whoever those key stakeholders are. And you put together a list of questions that you want to bounce off them. And you listen, you ask these open ended questions, and you let them talk. And then if they pause, if they say something that kind of doesn't sound, maybe as well thought out or is clear, you can probe deeper and keep asking and then go to the next person on the list and the next person. And you've kind of evolved the questions and you're learning as you go with each one of these conversations. And, you know, you can do it very simply on the phone on zoom on Skype. And it's a very cost efficient, effective way to really get those conversations started in a way that helps you define what the issues are, what those hot buttons are, where the key leverage points are. So I would highly encourage you to, you know, plan a listening tour, it is very time, time efficient, cost efficient. And you will learn so much I know I did one myself during the Great Recession, when things were really slowing down in the 2008 2009 2010 period. And I've done it again during COVID touching base with my audiences to say, how are you? What's going on? What's changed? How are you thinking about marketing today? What's your budget? Like? What are your biggest needs, and it's helped me create new products, new services, and be relevant and be able to pivot during these times of great tumult and change. So I would put that at the very top of your list.

Shireen Smith: Sure, the problem is that people might think I'm going to try and sell them something if I want to just have a chat about something. And they seem to prefer surveys, but I don't really want to do a survey because you know, that's in a way, I don't really know all the questions I want to ask, I want more to have a conversation. How would you approach people so that they don't fear that they're going to be sold to you're going to try and sell them?

Paige Arnof-Fenn: So you know, I had the same challenge during the great recession. And then when COVID started because people were paralyzed, my prospects and my clients didn't want to spend any money. And I was very transparent and very upfront with them. I said, listen, the world has kind of come to a standstill. I've got time, you probably have time. I just need to pick your brain. I just want to ask you some questions. And I'd love to have a very deep conversation to know kind of how you're doing, what you're doing the changes that you're thinking about. I want to bounce some stuff off of you. I'd love to get your reaction. I'm not selling anything. This is really a fact finding mission and I value your opinion. You're somebody who I think of as a thought leader or a trendsetter, you know you've always had such creative, great ideas I really value your thoughts on this and if you could spend a half an hour with me I really appreciate ate it. And you know, you could send them my gift card, a Starbucks card or something to thank them for their time. But I think you know, people love, they love to be asked their opinion, they love to tell you what's on their mind. And I don't know, I had no problem at all, getting my dance card filled with people that were willing to talk. And I delivered on the promise, I didn't sell them anything. I sent them, you know, maybe it's a $20 Starbucks gift card or like a some chocolate or candy or something as a thank you for their time. But I don't, I don't feel like it's problematic at all, I think you just have to be authentic in your request. And the questions need to be sincere, and I think you're going to get some amazing feedback.

Shireen Smith: You know, one problem I've had in the past when I want to survey people, is that I end up having to educate them about IP, because they, it becomes obvious they don't actually know very much. I now know they're not trained in IP. But before I didn't know. And so instead of me getting information, I ended up telling them about IP with, how would you avoid that so so that you only kind of you would say, well, what do you think IP? What do you think IP as well. And I don't know how I would actually avoid getting dragged into telling them about IP.

Paige Arnof-Fenn: One idea might be if they agree to set up a time to talk, you could say, do you mind, if I send you a one page or two pager like not, you're not sending them a white paper, or, you know, some dissertation on the topic. But like just as context for our call, I'm going to send you just a quick one or two page document to give you some context of what we're going to be talking about. You know, I think a lot of people think of intellectual property in the legal framework, and maybe with technology, but I'd like you to think about it in the context of my work. And, you know, if you could just spend five minutes reading this, before we talk, I'd really appreciate it, I think that might be a nice, you know, kind of, again, managing expectations and setting the context for the call. And then you know, they're going to learn something in the process, too. So you're getting something but they are too. So I don't think I don't have a problem with that at all.

Shireen Smith: That's really useful. Thank you for that, that really is very useful. And then in terms of segmentation, I know there's demographics and all these different ways you can segment and behavioural and all that. But that, in a way, is what creates the complexity to be able to map the market and get a lot, you know, say I want to just go on behaviour, you know, who actually thinks IP is important? How would I even go about mapping the market, I mean, mapping the segments, that's really the difficulty I have of actually creating an objective map of the market before I select.

Paige Arnof-Fenn: So the one, one way to do that might be to think about your ideal client. And maybe there is somebody who you've either worked with in the past or in your mind is kind of that, you know, perfect situation. And you kind of deconstruct why that person is so good, what is it about their habits and practices that make them the perfect client? Is it? You know, is it because they read certain things, they go to certain websites, they attend certain conferences, so you deconstruct and kind of unravel what it is What are the things that trigger that ultimately lead to the fact that they really get what you do, they would be perfect for what you're doing? And then you slice and dice based on those criteria, where you try to replicate what it is that's special and great about that particular type of possible client. 

So, you know, are they people that you know, attend certain types of events they read, or listen to certain types of media, they consume different, you know, products that like there's a much higher likelihood that people that do that also care about this issue. I know when I was the Chief Marketing Officer at Zipcar, which is a car sharing service here in the US, and we have cars as well overseas, we realized that a lot of the people that believed in the concept of car sharing, also believed in things like public television and public radio. So we would do a lot of our bartering and exchanges and advertising, with people that listen to public radio in the morning. So we would do events, where we would talk about it on Public Radio, and that, that ended up being one of our very best ways to get people to do free trial offers on the cars, because they had heard about us on public radio. So again, it might be something that you might not think of directly with your product or service. But if it's, you know, psychographically, demographically behaviorally, attitudinally. If it's something that people who do this also do that, or they like this, they also like that, you just have to connect the dots in creative ways.

Shireen Smith: Okay, so in a way, you already need to have in your mind, an ideal type customer, before you even tackle segmentation? 

Paige Arnof-Fenn: Well, I think you have to have a working theory. And then as you are testing, you're learning and you're tweaking, because what you might realize is you your hypothesis is, you know, the people that do this shop here, and then you're hearing through your Q&A through your questionnaire through your listening tour. They don't shop here, they shop there, they don't eat this, they eat that. They don't, you know, wear this brand, they wear that brand. So you're constantly iterating in the process until you figure out like, aha, we just cracked the code. Now we have a better profile. It's like kind of trying to figure out the persona of you know who that ideal customer might be.

Shireen Smith: Right? So. So you do the persona, after you've decided on the segment, don't you?

Paige Arnof-Fenn: I kind of go down concurrent paths, if you will. So you kind of have a working theory, and then you're constantly challenging that theory to see if it holds up. And then you have to keep course correcting as you go.

Shireen Smith: Okay, so you're not really, in my case, I'm not really trying to work out how many designers and marketers work in big agencies or work in, in house departments or freelancers. That's not necessary is that right?

Paige Arnof-Fenn: So I think you in your listening tour, I think you want to talk to some who are freelancers, some who work in small agencies, and some who work in these big conglomerates. And I think you want to ask them your, your 10 questions or 20 questions. And you may realize pretty quickly, that it really doesn't resonate with freelancers. But the bigger the organization, the more relevant it is. And so that kind of helps you start kind of narrowing in on who your real audience is. But don't know if you don't ask. So I think you have to kind of cast a wide net to start, and then that starts honing in as you're collecting more data, and gathering more data. When you start analyzing that data, you realize, okay, this information is rising to the top.

Shireen Smith: So Seth Godin says don't find customers for your products, find products for customers,

Paige Arnof-Fenn: I guess I would say, solve problems and figure out you know, if you have solutions to problems, find people who are willing to pay for those problems to be solved. But I agree with Seth Gordon, I think he's brilliant.

Shireen Smith: Yeah. So I mean, I'm it may be that I find people don't find it so much of a problem, and therefore I don't even create this course. That's really what I'm trying to do is right. So it's kind of like detective work by the sounds of it.

Paige Arnof-Fenn: You're like a forensic, you know, you're trying to figure it out.

Shireen Smith: Mm hmm. So how do you help your clients so mean what sort of type of clients are they say it's a marketing director from a company.

Paige Arnof-Fenn: So you know, our clients range from early stage startup to Fortune 500. In a small business, we may be the marketing department, they you know that we may get hired by the CEO or by somebody on the board, one of the investors, and it's a technology business, and they don't actually have a marketing head, they need a voice of the customer, they need a marketing voice at the table. So it for the very smallest companies, we are at the marketing department for the kind of emerging market, middle market firms, which is the majority of our clients, they may be 2 million to 200 million in revenue. They may have a very skeletal marketing department, but they need more bench strength, they need bandwidth. So they bring us in to fill in those gaps and holes. 

For the very biggest companies, the fortune 500, they may have a problem that they're trying to solve that they just don't have the right talent for. They've got a marketing department, they've got an agency of record, they have a PR agency, but maybe they just have a problem that they've never dealt with before. And there's no great resource under their umbrella. So they bring in us for specific expertise to help them solve that problem. So it really depends, we have other companies that bring us in because maybe their marketing head needs to go away for surgery or maternity leave. And they need somebody to keep the trains moving while that person's away for a few months. So it really just depends.

Shireen Smith: Yeah. Do you have any case examples where like, when you were working in smaller businesses, I don't know Inc.com or Launch Media? Were you oriented yourself to the market really understood what the market wanted?

Paige Arnof-Fenn: So uhm one example. I mean, I guess you I'm always doing that in some way, shape, or form. One funny story when I was at Procter and Gamble, actually, in the cosmetics business, you know, we were always trying to come up with the right colour palettes and figuring out what's going to be important for spring or fall. And we used to do a lot of focus groups. But you know, anyone who's done focus groups knows that there's always like one person at the table that's got a very loud voice that kind of dominates the conversation. And there are people that are more shy and reserved, and people want to be accepted by the group. So they don't really want to go against what you know, everyone wants to kind of like, be part of the kind of groupthink like, Yeah, I think that too, or I agree. Um, so we were doing some focus groups with teenage girls, on lipsticks and nail polishes. And we were trying to get a sense if they liked bright colours, or muted colours, if they liked sparkly or more matte shades. And so, you know, we had brought them in after school, we had pizza and Coca Cola, and they were eating and talking and polishing their nails and putting on lipstick. And you know, there were those dominant voices around the table. And you can always kind of tell in a group who the leaders are and who the followers are. So when the group ended two hours later, and we knew every piece of makeup that was on the table, when we started our group, and when the girls were leaving, they were gathering their things, and they all leave and they tell us what they thought we wanted to hear probably to please us or whatever. And at the end of the session, the girls leave and we notice about a third of the makeup has disappeared off the table. So the girls just took the makeup with them. But we were very curious, what colours did they take? So they told us that they liked these kind of shades, but in fact, the ones that they put in their purse or their pocket, were not the shades that they told us about they were different. So they liked the brighter sparkling your shades but the big mouth in the room had said no, she likes something else, but that's not what she took home. So it was very interesting to watch it's not just what people tell you but it's what they do. You know what are their actions.

So I think you know, and we did versions of this when I was at Launch Media, in the music and entertainment space, we were trying to help people discover new music with CD ROMs. And this was before kind of high speed internet access was pervasive. So we had this monthly magazine, if you will, that we distributed on CD ROMs. So people could discover new music online. 

And our target audience was generally, you know, 18 to 24 year old boys. And we were headquartered in Los Angeles, about five blocks from the beach. And there was a big promenade near our office. And we would go down at lunch with different mock ups of ads that we were going to run, or the covers of the CD ROMs. And we would, we would stop anybody that looked like they were in our target audience if they were a young male, and they had dyed hair or tattoos or piercings, they were on a skateboard. We said, boy, that looks like one of our audience. And we'd say, excuse me, could you come over here and answer a few questions, and we'll give you some CDs, if you'll talk to us for five minutes. So of course, you know, it's a beautiful day, it's Los Angeles rally outside. So we'd stop and intercept these kids on the Promenade. And we'd ask them, which one of these ads do you like, which one of these covers do you like, which one of these stands out which of these do you prefer, and we show up at 11 o'clock in the morning, and we'd stay till one o'clock in the afternoon. 

So in the morning, we'd come in we we mock up all these samples, we take them to the promenade over lunch, then we'd go back to the office, and the ones that we that won in our intercept test, we would put on the internet that night, we would test those banner ads, we would test those that copy those headlines, and we would get real time feedback the next morning, we can track and measure which one's got the highest clicks, which ones lead to the people that purchase where, you know, follow those bread crumbs. And every we would do this iterating a couple of times every week. So you know, 5 days later, 10 days later, we can see how much better we were getting more traction online, more people signing up more people buying our stuff. So you know, you get smarter with each one of these, but you have to listen to what they say. And then see if they actually do what they say they're going to do. And if they don't, you have to go back the next day and ask okay, now let's look at it again. What about this? What about that, and you listen, and you just test and you learn and you get smarter with each iteration.

Shireen Smith: Right? So people could do something like Google ads to send traffic with certain keywords and see if people will take action like downloading something I guess.

Paige Arnof-Fenn: You could look at Google Analytics, Google Trends, and see what the keywords are that people are looking for. What is driving the traffic already? And if you try different keywords, is your traffic going up or down? You can that's all easy to do for free online.

Shireen Smith: Yeah. So there are lots of online ways that people can actually have the equivalent of conversations with 

Paige Arnof-Fenn: Exactly.

Shireen Smith: To build up a picture. 

Paige Arnof-Fenn: Exactly. 

Shireen Smith: What is where does product market fit? Come into all this? Is it something you do after you've got your segmentation? Or is that being very product oriented rather than market orientated if you do product market fit?

Paige Arnof-Fenn: So, I mean, I guess I look at it as kind of cascading, you know, you start with the segmentation. And, you know, then you, you know, focus on your targeting and your positioning and your messaging. And, you know, when it gets down to the product level, again, you're having to iterate again to see and incorporate all the lessons to see what's connecting on an emotional level. You know, what, what, you know, what's getting people's, what's the hook, what's getting them, you know, interested what, following the breadcrumbs seeing what they're clicking on, what they're reading, where are they Converting, um, you know, where is the retention? You know, where are you able to cross sell or upsell? It's all kind of interconnected, there's no, I don't think there's any one silver bullet path to success. I think you're constantly incorporating new information and new trends and new competitors and new products in the market.

Shireen Smith: So it's still in process, but it is being market oriented, of just listening to customers, maybe talking to as many as possible. 

Paige Arnof-Fenn: And, and social listening. We talked about that before, you know, watching what people are talking about online, what's the context? What's the sentiment? What are the emotions? Like? What are what is getting people excited? I think you have to watch all of that today.

Shireen Smith: Wow, it's really hard work. I'm not surprised so many businesses fail, actually because usually, people want to charge your head, they've got an idea. And they think they are the market, but they understand what the market wants.

Paige Arnof-Fenn: But I think you have to constantly be relevant, and the markets constantly changing. And then you have things like a virus, and then a variant. And then a mutation. I mean, it's like every week, every month, every year, it's like new, there's new context to incorporate their new competitors. You know, when you think about how we used to shop and travel and live and work and work out three years ago, and now what we're doing, it's completely changed. So you have to constantly update your assumptions and your messages, and everything related to you know, what's going on in the real world.

Shireen Smith: You said initially, that it, it depends on who your primary, secondary and tertiary what what do you mean by that?

Paige Arnof-Fenn: So the primary audience is the person that ultimately buys your product. But there are gatekeepers, there are people that influence that decision. So are there bloggers, are there media? Where did those people go? What are the trusted sources who influences that person's buying decision? In a corporation, there could be a procurement officer, you know, the chief financial officer might, you know, there may need to be a message that goes to the financial trades to convince CFOs that this is a good investment for marketing people to make. It's not just the CMO, it could be the procurement person, it could be the CFO that need to get on board for the marketing person to get the budget to get the support to have the organization help them achieve their marketing goals. 

The media, the blogging community, you know, who are those support people around that might write favorable articles or good blog posts that get go viral? That, you know, they do industry round ups and say, These are the five best products or, you know, if you're looking at this new service, here are the five companies to check out you want to influence all those people, not just the person who's the decision maker, who is your ultimate client or customer, but it's all the steps that go into that person being able to make that decision.

Shireen Smith: Okay, by the sounds of it, it might be easier when you've got an idea for some product to create some sort of prototype and then get some feedback on it rather than because if people are just sort of talking in the abstract, but yes, I think IP is important, but they haven't seen anything to see what you would be able to offer them.

Paige Arnof-Fenn: Rapid prototyping is great because, again, you're iterating constantly you're testing you're learning, you're incorporating the feedback, and the products gonna keep getting better with each iteration. 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 you know, each one of those iterations is getting a little bit tighter messaging, better features, the benefits are being communicated even more clearly. So absolutely, you know, putting a stake in the ground testing and learning and iterating. So yeah, rapid prototyping is a great way to go because you're getting very tangible, specific feedback to something that they can actually look and see and touch and feel.

Shireen Smith: And then you can take it back and improve 

Paige Arnof-Fenn: Bingo. Yes. 

Shireen Smith: So do offer it to people for free to have, how would you go about.

Paige Arnof-Fenn: So, you know, if we have to put together a, you know, maybe the designer is putting together some packaging, to look at, now you have to pay to get the design produced and manufactured or, and then you know, then you tweak it. But so there is an investment upfront. But again, there are ways you can shave costs out, you can do a simulation online, if you don't want to go to the trouble and expense and time to produce something tangible. They could look at a line drawing, they could look at a 3d model, they could look at an actual sample, you get I think, better feedback, the more real the test is, but you can do it kind of very scrappy, too. You know, if you have the budget, spend it.

Shireen Smith: So if you're doing an online course, you could provide a module for them to look and see. 

Paige Arnof-Fenn: Sure, sure.

Shireen Smith: Find this useful?

Paige Arnof-Fenn: Absolutely and you know, you could, for people that are willing to, you know, if you're if they're they are willing to spend, I don't know how many hours it would be to do a course, you can give them as a charter member, you can give them a big discount, if they end up buying it when it's ready or, you know, you can incentivize them. And if they tell people about it, if they post on social media, you could maybe give them 50% off the next one or, you know, there are lots of ways to build your fandom, build your fan base, and create those advocates and champions, that that you know, they're going to be invested if they got in on the ground floor with you.

Shireen Smith: Yeah, well, this, this has been really interesting because if it's taught me anything, it's that you have to do everything at the same time. So it's not linear, you don't sort of go and orient yourself to the market, segment it then target, then, you know, although inferior happens in that order, in many ways, they're all combined together, because you then go back and change something that you've already created and just keep improving. 

Paige Arnof-Fenn: Well it’s holistic process. And I think, again, when I started my marketing career in 1990, it was easier to be more linear. But today, in our always on culture in internet time, when you've got everything bombarding you simultaneously, it's really hard to kind of pull each of those pieces apart and look at them in a vacuum. That's just not the way the world is anymore. So you have to be I think you have to have over arching goals and a vision of where you're trying to go. But that's going to be your driving force, but you're gonna have to incorporate all the data and information that's being thrown at you so that you can test and learn and keep moving forward.

Shireen Smith: Great. Well, thank you very much indeed, Paige. It's been really useful speaking with you about

Paige Arnof-Fenn: Well, it's great to talk to you again and good luck. Let me know how it goes. I can't wait to hear.

Shireen Smith: Thank you. Alright then. Bye. 

Paige Arnof-Fenn: Take care. Bye. Bye.

Shireen Smith: If you enjoyed this episode, please do tell a couple of people about it. And sign up to the Brand Tuned newsletter over at brantuned.com The link is in the show notes. Thank you a bye.