The Snyder Cut Gave Me 3 Ideas To Share!
Hey-
I let the boy stay up to watch the Snyder Cut on Thursday. His mom said, “Oh, you stayed up until 10:30 or so to watch the movie?”
Like a champ, he said, “I stayed up to watch the movie, yes.”
It was after midnight.
That’s not what I want to talk about this morning, not directly.
What the movie brought to mind was 3 ideas that played out as the new movie was made and promoted:
The importance of the right kind of market research
Listening to your customers
Positioning yourself effectively
Let me see if I can nail this down quickly:
The right kind of market research:
Data is still a pretty big buzzword. We may not be at peak BIG DATA right now, but data is still where a lot of conversations begin and end.
Here’s the deal, data is great.
But too much data isn’t helpful and we are often drowning in data. And, if you don’t have data that is useful to your goals, that isn’t very helpful either.
When I say the right data, what do I mean?
Well, I’m looking at data that does three things:
Helps you find answers
Make decisions
Take action
You have to focus your research.
A few weeks back, I wrote a piece for the Association of Luxury Suite Directors focused on a research method that I teach people called Backward Market Research.
This is an important concept because it helps turn your data into something actionable.
It is also pretty simple when you lay it out.
You start by defining the question you are answering.
You define how you need or want this information to show up. (charts, graphs, long-form answers, etc.)
You build your research around the answers to the first two ideas.
This simple formula helps you make sure you are getting the right kind of research done. As long as you have the discipline to not put your thumb on the scale and manipulate the questions so you get the answers you want.
In creating the original Justice League, the studio made a number of changes to the script and the story to appease to a mythical “mass” audience. To the point that the original theatrical release was described as a “Frankenstein” monster.
To me, this highlights the importance of making sure you are researching the right things because you can end up with a mess otherwise.
Listening to your customers:
Y’all know I’m big on this one.
A while back I ran a survey to test the NPS score of this newsletter. At the time, I got a 40 here.
40 is pretty great as a score, but the bigger thing that came out of the newsletter was the qualitative feedback from the answers folks left me.
From the feedback y’all shared, I found out that you like it when I share more personal stories about how these ideas apply to me or the folks I work with. I also found out that my point of view matters. And, most importantly I found out that when you apply these ideas, you get real impact.
As an example, Eventellect is a company in Houston. Their CEO emailed me when I first shared my thoughts on NPS with you. In his note, he told me that his business had just measured their NPS score and they found out that they had achieved a 77.
This newsletter has a 40 which is pretty great. 77 is outstanding, rare. It means they are crushing it with their partners, providing tremendous value in a way that people are willing to recognize the value and tell others about it.
Where the conversation around NPS got interesting with Eventellect was when we talked about the qualitative feedback.
In looking at the results of their survey, we found out how important market insights were, especially at a time that the world of tickets was falling apart. We also saw the role that new ideas and trust played in the score people were giving them.
I draw this out because their 77 score is comparable a company like Starbucks. Mine is comparable to someone like Xerox or UPS.
Both scores are excellent and typically indicate that your business is set to grow. It isn’t 100%, but tracking your NPS score and listening to your customers can tell you where your business is heading.
In looking at the Snyder Cut, it is obvious that Zack Snyder was listening to his fans throughout the process including with the trailer featuring the Joker uttering the line, “We live in a society…Batman.”
Again, this highlights the importance of listening to your customers because you might think you are doing the right thing for them, but if your customers don’t appreciate it…well, it might not matter.
Take Action:
Most importantly, if you do the right research and you listen to your customers, you have to take action.
This is the heart of what made the Snyder Cut possible.
Folks tweeted, posted, wrote letters, made signs, and took action.
And, a movie was made.
When I wrote about Backward Market Research, I didn’t pull it out of thin air. The idea was one I learned, took action upon, and encountered a few situations where starting with the end in mind made sense to the research we were doing.
The same goes for NPS scores.
When I asked y’all for feedback, I found out you like the know how things apply to me or how I’ve applied these ideas in real life. So I’ve done more of that.
Eventellect knew that insights were important to their partners and they’ve worked hard to make sure that they keep developing and sharing new insights based on the data they have.
In surveying the audience for Talking Tickets, I found out that pricing was something that folks were really struggling with and that the research and writing I’d done on discounts, packages, and research was important to people so I’ve been taking action to pull these ideas and learnings together in ways that matter to people.
The big idea is that you have to take action.
Here’s the takeaway:
Do the right kind of research.
Listen to your market.
Take action.
You may not get it right every time, but I think this simple formula helps you get more right than wrong.
Let me know what you think.
Dave
P.S. I’ve worked with Eventellect to create a worksheet to help you do your own research around NPS. As an added bonus, we are going to offer 5 businesses a free analysis of their NPS research data.
To get in on this, email me by replying to this or hit me up at dave@davewakeman.com
P.S.S. As a teaser for more pricing work to come, here are 3 quick pricing tips:
Don’t discount. The price is the price.
Pricing requires research to get it correct. There are a few techniques to help.
Pricing is a measure I use to tell me how effective you are as a marketer. The closer you get to the real economic value with your pricing, the better you are as a marketer.
P.S.S.S The Snyder Cut was better than the original. The boy gave it an 8 out of 10. I’d agree.