Greetings, Rainmakers!
Fall might have arrived, but it still doesn’t feel like it here in Oklahoma. I’ve spent the last couple of weeks helping my brother move and catching up with visiting family — and sweating.
I’ve spent plenty of time on my laptop too, though — we’ve been putting together updates to the platform, new Q&As and more. We’re always looking for more content ideas. Reach out to marketing@rainmakerdigital.com if you have thoughts on our content offerings or have something you want to see from us.
Platform Updates: New User Portal
This month we released update 3.3.6.6. The biggest feature in this latest update is a new User Portal; we’ve been beta testing it for a while, and it’s now live for all of our Rainmaker Platform Andromeda clients.
Here are some of the new features we think you’ll appreciate:
- See all Rainmaker Platform Andromeda sites you own
- Manage FTP access and credentials
- See storage utilization for all sites
- Schedule a go-live migration for a preview site
- Submit “Site Down” emergency tickets
- Request a new site
- Enable RainMail
- View billing history
You can see the new user portal at https://portal.rainmakerplatform.com/login, and you can also access it in your site under Help > Your Account.
The first time you log in, you’ll need to use the “Forgot your password?” link. Enter the email address associated with your site and request a new password, and it will be sent to you. After you’ve received your password, you should be able to log in normally.
For further information, go to Account Questions > Rainmaker Portal in the Knowledge Base. You can also access the changelog here.
If you have any questions, please send us an email at support@rainmakerdigital.com.
Tip of the Month: Build Your Community Like Taylor Swift
I’m a very casual NFL fan (I cheer for the Packers when they make it to the playoffs, that’s about it) but even I know that Taylor Swift is dating Travis Kelce.
Kelce’s an American football player, for those of you who aren’t NFL fans or live outside of the United States. Taylor Swift is … Taylor Swift. I probably fall in Kelce’s demographic more than Swift’s, but I don’t particularly care. So why bring it up?
Swifties.
The NFL is big business here in the USA, but even it saw a spike of interest when Taylor Swift started dating a player from the Kansas City Chiefs and showing up at his games. Kelce’s last game drew an increase of over two million female television viewers. His jersey sales are up 400%. “The Swift Effect is real. Taylor Swift’s high-profile appearances at recent Chiefs games have been a boon for network ratings and for advertisers—bringing an entirely new audience to the NFL,” says Kevin Krim, CEO of measurement platform EDO.
Taylor Swift is better than just about anyone at creating and maintaining a fanbase. And it’s not because she has more money or tools at her disposal than anyone else — she’s just good at using the tools she has. And those tools are the same ones you have access to.
The triumph of modern marketing is that unlike previous eras, we all have access to the same tools. Technology has democratized access to content, audiences and distribution. Rainmaker Platform is a direct consequence of that.
The goal of the platform has always been “creating authority to be perceived as an authentic part of a community.” Here’s how you can use Rainmaker Platform and the other tools at your disposal to build a community, using Taylor Swift as an example.
Building a Community from Scratch
To start off with, you need to figure out who your audience is. Part of what made Swift successful was figuring out who she was targeting early — her audience largely skews white, female, and 18-34, and the way she markets herself reflects that.
Many of you already have an idea of who your target audience is. You’re filling a need you see in the market because you’re either part of or already working with your target audience. Take some of our recent Digital Marketing Done Right interviewees, for example.
Dawn Boxell worked with people who’d had weight loss surgery as a dietician and built her site because she saw a need that wasn’t being filled. Steve Maurer transitioned from working on industrial products to writing about them because those firms needed someone who spoke the language. Most of our clients have a similar story. Taylor Swift’s audience mostly looks like her; it’s a good bet yours does too (figuratively, if not literally).
Once you’ve figured out your target, it’s time to launch. In some cases, our clients have a following via social media or email already — in other cases, they’re starting from scratch. Either way, they need a home base for their content. You’ve probably built that home base on Rainmaker Platform already if you’re reading this.
With your site and social media up, it’s time to harness the tools that Rainmaker Platform and social media offer you to build that audience. You have access to the same options people like Swift do. But as any good craftsman knows, just having the right tools isn’t enough. You need to know how to use them. Here are the three areas you need to develop to build an audience as a Taylor Swift-level marketer.
Be Authentic
As we’ve said before, “Authenticity means not asking ‘what’s in it for me,’ but ‘what’s in it for us.’” Swift is good at that, listening to her audience and offering them what they want.
You have to listen to your audience. Offer them the kind of content they want to engage with on the platforms they use.
Rainmaker Platform lends itself to that listening. There are multiple ways built into the platform that allow you to listen to your audience. Though Universal Analytics has been deprecated by Google, Google Analytics 4 is fully supported in Rainmaker Platform Andromeda and manually configurable in the Legacy version of the platform. With our integration, you can see which pages are performing the best and where your audience is coming from — that lets you serve your audience what they really want. If you haven’t set up GA4 on your site yet, you can learn how to do it through one of our previous State of the Platform articles.
You can also use A/B testing to figure out which versions of pages work the best. Go to Conversion > A/B Tests to create variations of your pages so you can find out exactly what your audience wants. Many of our most successful clients actively use A/B testing to find out exactly what their audience wants from them and provide content that serves both their purposes.
We also go through this process for clients pretty regularly. We have some tools that can help you dig deeper than just Google Analytics or A/B tests, and a few clients have recently had us put together reports on their sites. Reach out if you need a hand.
Become an Authority
Becoming an authority means posting relevant content that drives the conversation within the community. Swift does this with her music, videos and behind-the-scenes content, and you can do the same with content that makes sense for your audience.
Rainmaker Platform makes it easy to publish authority-building content with our classic, block and Beaver Builder editor integrations. Blogs are the primary way many properties built (and build) their authority. The advantage to blogs is that they’re easily repurposed into other text-based media to create excerpts, and they naturally help your SEO if you’re following best practices. You can add blogs under Content > Posts.
Podcasts are another great cornerstone content option. You can publish your podcasts to the platform easily, and syndication options like Spotify, Apple and Google let you reach beyond your own site. You can add podcast episodes under Content > Podcast Episodes if you’ve enabled the feature in Settings > Features.
Vlogs and short-form video are useful methods to reach your audience too. You can host them on Rainmaker Platform, but other platforms like YouTube or Vimeo may be better hosting options, as these platforms offer extra discoverability through their built-in search engines.
Be a Part of Your Community
Taylor Swift’s community is large and very active. She engages them through her mailing list, her social media and regular content releases, in addition to showing up in person for fans occasionally.
The smartest thing she’s done with her marketing is be an active, engaged part of her own community. The idea that Taylor herself might reach back with a message, a comment or a personal opportunity creates powerful ties between her and her audience.
One other clever technique she uses is hidden Easter eggs and clues to future albums. These act as intrinsic rewards for the most dedicated fans, rewarding increased engagement with access to the “in crowd.”
Engaging your audience like Swift does means giving them avenues to have two-way conversations with you. Rainmaker Platform helps with that through forums, post comments and forms. Of course, integrating your social media with your site content is also a powerful way to engage and create conversation with your audience.
Want to learn more about how to build your audience with Rainmaker Platform? We can help. Rainmaker Digital Services offers the Dispatch, which lets you learn about digital marketing directly in your inbox. If you haven’t signed up, don’t miss out on articles like “SMS Drives Your Audience to Act” or “Sell an Email Course.” We also send out links to other people’s content that we love in the Monthly Dispatch. Sign up here. And if you need a hand with anything we’ve talked about here, just drop us a line, anytime.
Best Regards,
David Brandon
Copywriter
Rainmaker Digital Services