Now, I don’t know how old you are, but the chances are you are aware of the fabulous Swinging Sixties, a time when music formed the basis of everything in the same way as the internet probably does now.
I’m talking about Beatlemania, the Mods and Rockers, The Rolling Stones.
A time when bands played live to audiences so enraptured by them that they would scream, pass out and have to be carted off to the local hospital to recover.
It must have felt pretty amazing, being a member of a band back then.
These days, it seems that some of our young groups still have the power to hold sway over thousands of screaming fans.
One Direction, the band that was cynically pulled together through some reality TV show or another, have apparently become this generation’s answer to Mick, Keith, Pete and Ronnie. They churn out saccharine pop hits, sell loads of albums, and get underwear thrown at them when they play live.
While the lads don’t look old enough to be out of nappies yet, it seems that their ability to inspire adoration bearing on ‘stalker’ status is alive and well.
This got me thinking.
If four boys can get their fans (their customers, if you like) to the point of frenzy and worship, surely we can achieve the same thing with ours?
With this in mind, here’s how One Direction can show us the way forward when it comes to creating customers so loyal and happy with us that they just might throw underwear when we meet them face to face…
Have A Pretty Face
If you’ve ever seen One Direction, you’ll notice something standard about them. They mirror every other constructed pop group in history, in that they’ve been deliberately put together to look good for teenage girls. We’ve got the sickeningly pretty one with curly hair who looks angelic, the guy with darker skin who’s perfect to look at, a token blonde (bleached) and a couple of other nondescript preppy types.
People respond well to things that look good. If your website is a bit jaded, cluttered, or simply uncool, your customers won’t be likely to rave about your service. Make sure your site is clean, great to look at and even better to navigate, and you’re heading in the right direction to inspire loyalty.
10 Blogging Mistakes That Make Your Blog Look Unprofessional
Be Approachable
In the same way as the kids from One Direction know to stop and chat to their screaming teenage fans, so you need to exercise the same kind of customer care for your own on-line business. Answer queries promptly, be helpful, available, approachable and thoughtful in all you do, and you’ll make your customers wax lyrical about your service, and come back to you again and again.
12 Actions You Can Take To Make Your Customers Feel Ecstatic
Have a Great Reputation
The One Direction kids are all so young that they haven’t had time to get up to anything bad in their lives yet. This means that they are positive role models for teenage girls, with squeaky-clean images. Your brand needs to be exactly the same. If a customer Googles you to find out you’ve just been taken to court for not paying a service provider, or you’ve ripped someone off, you’ll lose all credibility and your clients will start to look elsewhere.
Your brand needs to be as squeaky-clean and polished as the cheeks of a boy band member!
Credibility And How It Impacts Your Online Visual Presence
Be Inspiring
You can guarantee that the next few years will spawn a glut of pre-teens getting together in bedrooms hoping to emulate One Direction’s success in time for the next reality TV series. Inspiring people is about being a leader in your industry, pre-empting trends, making sound judgments and being a genuine force for positive change. You can be a truly inspirational blogger by staying ahead of new developments, watching your industry and moving it forward through new techniques and innovation.
Love them or loathe them, boy bands can tell us a lot about how to achieve amazing brand loyalty. It’s as much about savvy industry knowledge, hard work and the right chemistry as it is about talent. Knowing this, you have no excuse but to make your customers weak at the knees with your astounding service!
Put down the hairbrush in front of the mirror, pick up your laptop, and go in the right direction for your site.
What’s you view? Are your customers raving fans?
Please share your views in the comments below.
Andrew is a website builder and helps small businesses with their on-line presence…so they can grow their customer list and increase sales. That’s it! That’s what we do each and every day.
It is interesting the way you have explained about working on our blog. Comparing the pretty ones and a website is amusing and understandable. Thanks for sharing these important links too.
you said everything well andrew. they achieved so much within a short time period, but i think old is gold. i persanally dont like their music as much as i like metallica and other old bands of 80’s and 90’s.
but talking about the post it is really inspiring, the things you have mentioned above are really true and having great reputation can help you to get more. thanks for the post. i will try to learn these things in my own way but not from 1D. i will replace 1D by any other band,LOL
prabhat
We all have bands we love!
I just picked One direction as they have grown so popular, so fast.
Andrew
Very nicely related all the essentials of becoming a blogging brand with One Direction Band, This is one of the better ways of getting your point cleared to some one who listens or reads it.
All the essentials you mentioned are very important to make a successful blogging brand on the web.
Specially reverting back to the readers and commenter, in the comment section is important as it creates a feeling of being heard among them and helps them to stick their tongue to your blog.
Thanks.
Swapnil
As you and I say, they are important. Do them and you stand out. Most on-line business owners, don’t!
Andrew
I think the appeal is also a type of voyerism, watching One Direction go from a bunch of average kids to superstars is fun. You can do this with your website too by being transparent.
Anita
Tell me more about being transparent. What do you do to make your blog transparent?
Andrew
I’m not usually a fan of One Direction but I have to say some of the songs on this album are fantastic, their harmonies in summer love are incredible. They wrote five of the songs as-well which is a great start, I can see these boys going far.
Andrew
One Direction are ‘one in a million’. Of course, they have talent but they also have a huge team behind them directing them.
My TV shows have provided my own business a big boost.
Steve
Steve
I can understand that being on the TV would give you a huge following.
Andrew
I smiled when I read your last article. “P.S. Just to let you know, none of my clients have thrown their underwear at me…yet!” let alone see illustration above article with underwear on laptop 😀
Hamzah
Glad I made you smile!
Andrew