5 Steal-Worthy Strategies From A Brand I Couldn’t Resist

Is that a word? Bama jama? Only if you do it with the arm motions. Mama jama. Bama jama.

Hey, it's Marie Forleo and you are watching Marie TV, the place to be, to create a business and life you love. And you know, nothing gives me more pleasure. Okay, that was a lie. One thing that gives me so much pleasure is seeing companies who are doing it right or to quote an LL song,

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Translation, they give outstanding customer experience from their branding to their website. All the way through until when you give them money, I love stumbling upon brands that just get it and in a world where the only two brands people ever talk about are Apple and Virgin, I thought it was about time that we gave some other brands a little airplay. That's why we are introducing what may become a recurring Marie TV segment called,

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This segment is about looking under the hood of what smart brands are doing so you can take these big impact strategies and put them to use in your business. Now before I reveal today's Love Your Branding Baby honoree, just a little bit of backstory.

A few months ago we were looking for a new system to help us with customer support and we researched every help desk system out there. And I got to say, we were pretty disappointed with what we found. While there are some great companies, it was frustrating because most of them were super complex and had a lack of customization.

I'm not kidding when I'm telling you that all of us wanted to cry. Why? Because we take our customer support so seriously and we felt like we were basically pushed up against the wall. We even started using one of these products because we felt like we had no other choice, and my team was drowning trying to learn all these new terms and figure out all these new rules for a product that we pretty much collectively hated.

These were dark, dark times. Then one night, I was talking to my smarty pants friend Derek Halpern from socialtriggers.com, telling him about this whole situation. And he said,

Hey Marie, I think you should go check out this company Help Scout. They're exactly what you're looking for.

It was close to midnight and within one minute I was practically crying tears of joy.

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So I texted Louise on my team to see if she was still up and she was. And then we both started freaking out over this website. I am not kidding you when I say I have never, ever been happier to be on a website, any website in my entire life. So how did they blow my mind? By knowing their customers so well, and in this case it was us, that it was like they'd been tapping our phones. So here are five super smart strategies that they used that you can try in your own business.

Number one, a super effective homepage. Now, within three seconds, you know who they are, what they do, and how they can help you. The page has clean and simple design, and while it conveys a lot of key information like killer testimonials, key features, competitive analysis, it's not cluttered or overwhelming.

Number two, an E.T. Headline. Now, what's an E.T. Headline? It's a line that reaches through the screen with a long alien finger and touches your pain point. Scalable customer support, no help desk headaches. Those four magic words, no help desk headaches, let me know in a nanosecond that they completely understood my pain and that they were different.

Number three, an irresistible call to action. Now, the tiniest thing on the page is this little phrase with an arrow, but it packs a huge punch. How it works in 70 seconds. Think about the genius of this one bit of copy. They know how time-starved we small business owners are, and they know how important it is to get us to watch this really quick video.

Number four is a fast and effective video. Now this video is tight and right. It speaks directly to every frustration that we had that had been making us feel like we want to tear our hair out, almost as if, once again they'd been tapping our phones. Here's an example.

You could use the help desk, but that's a lot of new stuff to learn.

At the 17 second mark, when they mentioned macros, I literally screamed out loud. They knew the exact phrase and the exact tone of our biggest struggle, which let me know that they really understood us. And that creates immediate trust.

Number five, they're proudly "Not For Everyone." Check this out here. They say Help Scout isn't for enterprises. They have a very specific target customer and aren't afraid to draw a clear line in the sand, not to mention draw attention to their competition.

They don't try to get everybody, just the customers they're right for. So I want you to ask yourself, are you doing enough to say who you're for, and more importantly, who you're not for? Are you willing to draw a line in the sand? I see so many big companies mess this up because they're terrified to alienate anyone.

So remember, as we've said before, and yes, it's a tweetable, "If you tawkin' to everybody, you're tawkin' to nobody." So these five strategies are just the tip of the iceberg with what Help Scout is doing right. I'm a huge fan and I am sure they will continue to wow us.

Now before we wrap up, one final lesson. If you ever catch yourself saying, "Does the world really need another blank?" Yes, they do. Think about Help Scout. You don't have to be the first person in the marketplace or even the biggest, but remember there's probably someone out there crying, wanting to tear their hair out, hoping your company will come and save them.

Now let's turn the focus back to you. As always, insight without action is worthless. So out of everything we talked about today, I want to hear about this in the comments. What's the one strategy that you can take from what we talked about to help make your customers feel more deeply understood and like they're really in the right place?

As always, the best discussions happen after the episode over at marieforleo.com, so go there and leave a comment now.

Did you like this new segment? I love this kind of stuff. If you did, subscribe to our channel and share this with your friends. And if you want even more great resources to create a business in life that you love, plus some insights from me that I only talk about in email, get your buns over to marieforleo.com and sign up for email updates. They're awesome.

Stay on your game and keep going for your dreams because the world needs that special gift that only you have. Thank you so much for watching and I'll catch you next time on Marie TV.

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Keep them dumb. Keep the dumb ones around. They don't know anything. They just say, yes. I got it now. I'm like, I got that beat. Fudge in, fudge in. Jen, it's not nice to poke chicks. Hey, maybe I should do this more often. Maybe I should have my own videos. I don't know.