“Fuck the Ravens”: One Sign; Two Quick Marketing Lessons
TL;DR - Be yourself (within reason) and let your audience sort itself out. Who wants to pretend to be what they aren't anyway?
I live in Baltimore and “Fuck the Ravens” is not a sign you expect to see.
I’m a Saints fan but respect the passion of the Ravens fan base (for non-NFL fans or you “proper football” people, the Ravens are the NFL team in Baltimore).
So when I saw a hand drawn “Fuck the Ravens” sign on the windshield of a truck while on my way to the vet with Sasha and Oscar this Wednesday, I giggled a little and thought “that’s a brave Steelers fan.”
As I kept thinking about it, there are two quick marketing points here
The first is the power of being yourself
Rabid fans are awesome
The Power of Being You
I’m in the midst of Ayo Awosika online cohort about writing a 5k offer because I historically suck at the business side of writing – not a great thing as a freelance writer and content marketing consultant.
My first thought was that it’s an opposing fan, probably the Steelers given Pennsylvania is only about 25 miles north of here. It’s not Saints/Falcon-level rivalry, but there’s no love lost between the teams. So that’s a bold statement to be sporting on your vehicle in Ravens’ territory.
What’s this got to do with marketing or the cohort?
Be you.
Unabashedly you.
Wherever you happen to be.
Whover you happen to be.
One of the most common questions many of the new writers or new to publishing their writing in the cohort worry about is some variation of “how much ‘me’ do I put in my writing.”
All — or at least almost all — of it.
We are each a unique resource with a unique story – no one can replicate you.
It makes me think of the Howard Stern theory. It’s kind of hard to remember how huge Stern was as a cultural presence during the heyday of his radio program – a book, a movie, the ill-conceived Fartman appearance at the MTV awards.
He was himself.
He was polarizing. People loved or hated him and sorted themselves accordingly. Obviously there were enough people who loved him for him to have a hugely popular radio show – and he continues to have a fan base even now.
Be yourself, you’ll attract your audience of fellow travelers.
I used to say this, and there’s a comedy special on Netflix with the title, “I’m not for everybody.”
None of us are a fit for everyone.
That’s OK.
Have a unique voice. Have a POV. Have some likes and dislikes and share them. The folks you turn off are the people you are probably going to hate working with anyway. I’m not saying to share as much of yourself as Stern did/does – that was HIS brand. You’re almost certainly in the business of selling yourself (whoa, that sounded bad - selling yourself as a service, hmmm, somehow that sounds worse; you know what I mean or was it just my mind in the gutter?) or a product, so unless you’re in entertainment – tone that shit down.
But don’t swallow who you are to conform to some nebulous concept of being serious about business.
I cuss. Obviously. I don’t cuss in my writing to be controversial or make a point or self-consciously “build a brand.” It’s as simple as, well, I cuss. So that’s reflected in a lot of my own writing. Plus, if you work with me, there’s a 100% certainty that some variation of the word “fuck” will come out of my mouth at some point. (Unless you remind me of my Meme or my Mawmaw — rarely said “damn” in front of either of them, much less dropping F-bombs.)
So whoever your personal “Ravens” are; fuck ‘em. You don’t want to hang with those people anyway.
OR
Rabid, Raving Fandom
The second thought I had was that this person is a passionate and disappointed Ravens fan after the team once again shit itself and lost ANOTHER playoff game they should have won - 6 called runs? Against a shit run D when you’re the best running team in the league? I’m not even a fan of the team and I was yelling at the TV - RUN. THE. BALL.
Anyway.
Passionate fans are great! What are you doing to turn your customers into fans who love you so much they hate you a little bit (for a little while) when you disappoint them?
Seth Godin wrote a lot about finding your tribe of true devotees.
Be that brand that inspires fans to get a tattoo of your logo (like the Ravens, or Harley Davidson) and put a hand-drawn sign of disappointment on your vehicle.
Because when the new season rolls around again, I’m 99.9% sure that guy will be back and cheering for the Ravens in the hopes that his next sign will be “Fuck Yeah, Ravens!”
Quick shoutout to Robert Caldwell of Datamax in Texas. They are a copier dealer I had the pleasure of working with and they have such a focus on customer service that they trademarked “Raving Fans.”
Be yourself.
Inspire passion.
Besides, how fucking boring is it to pretend to be something you’re not?
Need help creating your content (or inbound if you prefer) marketing strategy and/or content? Drop me a line at duhonius@gmail.com, reply in the comments, or give me a call (or text, text is better, what with all the phone spam) at 301–275–7496.