5 Brilliant CX Strategies From Taylor Swift's RED (Taylor's Version) Launch

Audio Transcript Auto-generated

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  Hi,

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  I'm Brittany Hodak and I am obsessed with helping businesses create the kind of C.

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  X.

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  Or customer experience that helps them create super fan customers which

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  are customers who create even more customers for your business.

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  Now we're living in an experience economy experience is everything and

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  whether you're in a product business or a service business,

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  you're ultimately in the experience business and you

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  can find best practices all around you.

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  So today we are going to look at the relaunch of Taylor Swift's Red album.

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  Taylor's version for five brilliant C. X.

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  Strategies that she implemented that you can do.

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  So all five of these are going to be things that you can

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  copy in your business to help your next launch be even bigger.

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  Now first we'll take a look at some of the numbers of this relaunch of red.

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  So it was Taylor's 10th number one billboard 200.

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  This puts her right behind Barbra Streisand for the

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  most of any female recording artist of all time.

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  She had the largest vinyl sales week ever since

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  Nielsen started recording more than 30 years ago.

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  It was the largest sales week of 2021 for any artist,

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  the biggest launch of a country record in eight years

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  and there were more than 300 million on demand streams.

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  So obviously a huge week and a lot of great accolades for Taylor with her version

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  of Red especially considering how great the original

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  version of Red dead back in 2012.

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  I was very fortunate to get to work with Taylor and her

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  team on a special super fan edition of that record for walmart.

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  I know how much she did for her fans then and how much she's still doing for them now.

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  Okay, let's jump right into the first strategy, which is,

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  Taylor is a master at connecting her story to her fans stories.

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  Every single fan feels like they are part of Taylor's story

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  because she has been Very intentional about that since day one.

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  There are countless examples of Taylor's showing up in big ways to support her fans.

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  I like to say that super fans are created at the

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  intersection of your story and every customer story and that's true,

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  whether you're the biggest celebrity on the planet or a start up brand,

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  you've got to connect your product story or your brand

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  story to every customer story because when you do that,

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  you go from being a potential commodity, one of many to a category of one,

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  that one choice for them.

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  So, you've got to connect your story too.

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  There's here's a brilliant example of Taylor doing this with just a few words.

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  This is the pinned tweet on her twitter account right now,

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  where she says Red is about to be mine again, but it has always been

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  ours, connect your story to your customers story.

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  That's the first step in creating super fans.

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  All right, let's take a look at the second brilliant thing that Taylor did.

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  She was aware of the competitive landscape and she adjusted as she needed to.

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  So Taylor announced months ago that the re release of

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  Red was going to be coming out on november 19th,

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  but then at the end of september, she said, hey guys, great news,

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  it's actually moving up a week at the time.

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  I said, hmm, sounds like maybe Adele is putting out a record on november 19th,

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  knowing that Adele is one of the only artists on the planet that has the ability

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  to move as many records as MS Swift and of course that's what ended up happening.

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  So, rather than digging her heels down and saying, I plan the release date,

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  I'm keeping it as is Taylor very smartly moved her album release up a week so that

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  she wouldn't have to share all of the pop

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  culture consciousness with Adele on the street week.

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  It gave her the opportunity to really own the media cycle

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  for a whole week with late night appearances and morning show,

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  appearances and everything in between.

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  So never be afraid to make a move based on

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  something that's happening with a competitor in your lane.

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  All right, number three, meet every customer where they are at.

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  This is another thing that Taylor has always been brilliant at.

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  She is so good at creating experiences and products for everybody

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  from the most casual listener to the most Diehard super fan.

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  So, streaming is a great example,

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  she made all of all 30 tracks available on every streaming platform,

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  she said a bunch of records across lots of different platforms.

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  So if you want to just casually listen to Taylor cool, if you want to see d great,

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  why not get an autographed version?

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  She made autographed versions available for many indie

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  record stores available in her own merch store.

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  She had a very, very elaborate for disc vinyl version that fans could buy,

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  including a special redwood available at Target.

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  She has tons of strategic merge that she has launched

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  in really cool cycles over the past several months.

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  So there's something for everyone,

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  whether you are a casual Taylor swift fan or a super fan, Diehard Swifty.

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  There is something for you,

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  so never be afraid to have offerings in your

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  product line that meet different customers at where they're at

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  because ultimately you're trying to get everybody to come like

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  further down that funnel and more into your world.

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  All right, Number four,

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  Taylor knows how to maximize the power of multiple

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  moments a lot of times with a product launch,

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  we look at it like it's one thing like this is the day it's launching, Not tailor,

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  everything is an event with taylor from the

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  time she announced this record was coming.

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  She was dropping easter eggs and hints for her fans giving them things to

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  obsess over and look at and try the merch drops like I mentioned before.

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  And then of course she gave us the amazing almost 15 minutes

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  short film to the new longer version of All too well,

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  she had the mesmerizing performance on SNL all of the media appearances

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  that I talked about before all of the in real life appearances,

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  the video that she dropped a couple of days later the making fun of herself and

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  showing that she's in on the joke of the drunk Taylor memes from a while ago.

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  All of those moments.

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  So don't look at something that is happening with your brand,

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  whether it's a new product dropping or content as

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  one thing figure out how to stretch that out,

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  expand the consciousness because when you do it

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  gives other people the chance to participate.

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  So Starbucks is one of the brands that

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  Taylor had a partnership with for this release,

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  people could go in and ask for Taylor's Latte or the Taylor's version of a latte but

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  because of this tons and tons of other brands got in on the fun as well.

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  This was one of my favorite from sour patch

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  kids but there were so many examples Alright,

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  number five, try to stand for something bigger than just your product itself Now,

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  unless you've been living on another planet for a couple of years,

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  you're familiar at least casually with the story

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  of Taylor losing her master's having them sold again

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  without her consent and that leading to the fact

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  that she's now rerecording all of her early work

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  but it's not just the re records and it's not just taylor,

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  she's become a champion for artist rights.

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  She's become a champion for people getting

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  their masters back celebrating when Anita,

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  Anita baker did it, speaking out again and again and again.

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  So if you can make your thing about more than just your thing,

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  because then what happens is you start to be the voice of change.

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  So just this week, I heart Radio announced that from now on,

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  none of their stations are going to be playing the original versions of these songs.

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  They're going to replace them all with Taylor's version as they become available.

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  Taylor is one of the biggest superstars on the planet.

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  She's one of just a handful of people who can affect the kind of change that she can.

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  So the fact that she's using her voice for that is

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  a rallying cry that a lot of people can get behind.

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  It's not just about her music is her music amazing of course,

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  but it's about more than that.

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  It's got meaning. So never be afraid to make it about more than just your thing.

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  Alright, to quickly recap those five takeaways, number one,

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  you've got to connect your story to every

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  customer story number to pay attention to your competitors

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  and don't be afraid to shift if you need to in reaction to what they're doing.

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  Number three,

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  meet every customer where they're at from initial prospect to super super engaged.

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  You want to get everybody closer down the funnel,

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  you want to invite them more and more into your

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  world until they become one of those super fans.

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  Number four maximize the power of multiple moments.

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  Don't be afraid to elevate what others might see as an

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  ordinary interaction into a memorable experience that will get people talking.

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  And number five make it about more than just your product.

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  All right, those are my five favorite sex tips from this brilliant launch of Red.

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  Thank you so much for watching.

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  I'd love to hear from you if there's something that I didn't think of that you think

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  is something brilliant taylor did that can be taken

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  to businesses large or small for their C.

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  X. Let me know in the comments below, and I'll see you soon.