Geno Church wants us to understand that while we live in a different world today due to the internet, the new world isn't about technology or social networks—it's about people. And now that “people” have all the power, the authors aim to show us how to utilize that fact.
Movements vs. Campaigns
In Today’s world, movements are much more powerful than campaigns. It’s important to be able to distinguish between the two. Here are some ways to spot the difference. First, If it has a beginning and an end, it’s a campaign, not a movement. A movement is much more passionate and loving than a campaign. If you’re in a meeting and it sounds strategic and calculating, odds are you’re in a campaign. Most importantly, campaigns are when you talk about yourself and movements are when other people talk about you.
Movements aren’t about the product, they are about passion.
You are going to have a lot of trouble accepting that you can’t create a movement around a product or a service. You need to create a movement around something people are passionate about. So how do you create that passion? You have to find it. You need to go out and find out what people are already passionate about. Find out what keeps them up at night, and what gets them out of bed in the morning. Over time it will become crystal clear what connects your company to the lives of the people you serve.
Movements empower people with knowledge and make their advocates feel like Rockstar.
How do you make people who already love you, love you even more? You need to empower them with information. The people who love you want even more information than you ever thought possible. They want to know everything about you. These things can create an even deeper bond and encourage them to share even more with you.
Cultivating closeness fuels results
None of this would mean anything unless it makes a difference to the bottom line. And that bottom line can be profits. Advertising and traditional marketing often only go one way with little or no interaction between the consumer and the company. In a study by Hermann Simon, he found that 88% of insanely successful companies have an unusually high percentage of their employees having customer contact. He also found that staying close to your most demanding customers compels performance and innovation. These things indicate that cultivating closeness between employees and customers leads can lead to huge results and potentially —profits.
Conclusion
One important thing to conclude from these things is that being willing to overturn some of your traditional practices, and being willing to put in the legwork to create a movement, big things wil follow