[00:00:00] Harnessing the Power of Fans with Maria Delano of Kalani Marketing
[00:00:00] Ramli John: Marketing teams often focus all their energy on acquiring new customers, so they miss out on a big opportunity, harnessing the power of their products.
[00:00:07] Ramli John: Fans today, Maria Delano, founder of Kalani Marketing, shares her fandriven marketing strategy strategy in episode 54 of the marketing power show.
[00:00:16] Ramli John: You learn, first of all, the power of fan driven marketing.
[00:00:19] Ramli John: Second, the fan driven marketing flywheel.
[00:00:21] Ramli John: Third, how spark tour harnesses the power of its fans and number for a career power up and has accelerated Maria's career.
[00:00:28] Ramli John: Before we get started, I create a free powerup cheat sheet that you can download and apply Maria's fan driven marketing strategy to your business right away.
[00:00:36] Ramli John: Get it now marketing powerups.com or find that link in the show notes and description.
[00:00:40] Fan-Driven Marketing with Mariya Delano
[00:00:40] Ramli John: Are you ready?
[00:00:41] Ramli John: Let's go.
[00:00:42] Ramli John: Marketing powerups.
[00:00:45] Ramli John: Ready.
[00:00:47] Mariya Delano: Go.
[00:00:50] Ramli John: Here's your host, Ramli John Mariya.
[00:00:54] Ramli John: I'm super excited to be chatting with you about fan driven marketing.
[00:00:59] Ramli John: When I heard about this, I watched your video presentation at BTB SMX, the conference.
[00:01:05] Mariya Delano: Oh, you did?
[00:01:06] Ramli John: Yeah, of course.
[00:01:07] Ramli John: In your article.
[00:01:08] Ramli John: I read it, of course.
[00:01:09] Ramli John: But I'd love to just dig into that and we're going to get some examples from Spark Toro from the flywheel that you're applying for your own business.
[00:01:17] Ramli John: All the things that you've been chatting about lately.
[00:01:20] The Importance of Fan-Driven Marketing Strategy
[00:01:20] Ramli John: Let's jump into what is fandriven marketing strategy wise is so important.
[00:01:23] Ramli John: I know this is something that you've been really passionate about.
[00:01:27] Ramli John: Let's just dig into that.
[00:01:29] Mariya Delano: Before we do, I just want to say I'm so happy that you actually read the things I sent because a lot of people don't.
[00:01:37] Mariya Delano: I feel so honored right now.
[00:01:41] Ramli John: It's the right thing to do.
[00:01:42] Mariya Delano: Thank you.
[00:01:44] Mariya Delano: I feel very good about myself.
[00:01:46] Mariya Delano: Thank you.
[00:01:47] Mariya Delano: But yeah, why am I so passionate about it?
[00:01:49] Mariya Delano: I mean, I'm passionate about it because I'm not just a marketer, I'm a fan, right?
[00:01:55] Mariya Delano: My personality is very much being a fan of things.
[00:01:58] Mariya Delano: Like I'm very prone to becoming an excited superfan.
[00:02:01] Mariya Delano: I have been since I was a kid.
[00:02:02] Mariya Delano: I have obsessions, right?
[00:02:04] Mariya Delano: I'm neurodivergent.
[00:02:06] Mariya Delano: So I think that has something to do with it.
[00:02:08] Mariya Delano: Special interests, hyper focus, things like that.
[00:02:10] Mariya Delano: So since I was little, I've always had in rotation at any given moment, two or three obsessions, right?
[00:02:16] Mariya Delano: Things that I'm just really into.
[00:02:19] Mariya Delano: And so growing up and entering the adult world and starting to work, my obsessions kind of shifted towards the other things I was doing.
[00:02:27] Mariya Delano: So now that I'm in business and I'm in marketing, I start getting obsessed about businesses and marketing, right?
[00:02:32] Mariya Delano: And just witnessing how I experience that and being around thinking of this a lot.
[00:02:39] Mariya Delano: Like, I end up looking at a lot of forums, I end up looking at a lot of fan content for things, right?
[00:02:45] Mariya Delano: I end up just seeing people who are also obsessed with things and obsessed with companies or products or software and witnessing how they're doing it, how I'm feeling.
[00:02:55] Mariya Delano: It just seemed like a no brainer, right?
[00:02:58] Mariya Delano: It felt like a way to put my own experience that was very visceral, very emotional, very real and very personal into work and figuring out how to turn it into a framework, right?
[00:03:10] Mariya Delano: So my fandriven marketing strategy stuff, it very much comes from a different place than almost anything else I talk about in marketing, because I started out on the other side, first of the user, of the customer, of the audience member, and then I put my marketing hat on almost everything else.
[00:03:26] Mariya Delano: I start with the marketing hat and then I try to get into the head of the user, right?
[00:03:30] Mariya Delano: But here, no, it came the other way.
[00:03:33] Building customer loyalty is like preventing a breakup
[00:03:33] Ramli John: I love it.
[00:03:34] Ramli John: I love that you're a fan, and we were just talking earlier about your fandom around video games and how you get so excited about that.
[00:03:43] Ramli John: And I think that it really taps into, like, if businesses can really tap into, we're going to talk a little bit about that later about their superfans.
[00:03:52] Ramli John: It makes things easier in marketing, wouldn't you say?
[00:03:56] Mariya Delano: Yeah, it does.
[00:03:57] Mariya Delano: And I mean, that's why it's a flywheel, right?
[00:03:59] Mariya Delano: Because the whole concept of the flywheel is you want to get that momentum.
[00:04:03] Mariya Delano: You want to start doing things that don't only bring you a return right now or just based on the action you're taking now.
[00:04:10] Mariya Delano: It's also making any future action easier, right.
[00:04:14] Mariya Delano: You're setting up this foundation for success.
[00:04:16] Mariya Delano: Everything that you're doing is going to have the bonus off whatever you've done before.
[00:04:22] Mariya Delano: It's like speaking of video games, right?
[00:04:25] Mariya Delano: I think of a flywheel as a way to add bonus stats, right?
[00:04:30] Mariya Delano: So you start out as a character with character traits, and as you're playing a video game, you can keep putting points into certain stats, right?
[00:04:37] Mariya Delano: And it's like you're just adding points to that, which means as you're going on, everything you need to do with that skill gets easier and easier and easier, right?
[00:04:45] Mariya Delano: So, yeah, it's a long term investment in a way, right, to create that motion, to create that ease for the future.
[00:04:54] Mariya Delano: And I think that just makes all the sense in the world with fan stuff and with developing relationships and emotions that's exactly it.
[00:05:03] Ramli John: I think developing that relationship and emotions, people get so attached to it that it's harder to leave.
[00:05:13] Ramli John: I feel like we use the word smartest, we use the word churn.
[00:05:17] Ramli John: But when somebody is like, I'm no longer a fan of this video game or this superstar or like, Taylor Swift, I'm not entirely sure.
[00:05:28] Ramli John: You're not just leaving them.
[00:05:29] Ramli John: You're leaving a piece of yourself.
[00:05:31] Ramli John: Almost.
[00:05:33] Mariya Delano: Yes.
[00:05:33] Mariya Delano: I just had an idea.
[00:05:35] Mariya Delano: What if instead of thinking about it as churn, we think about it as a breakup?
[00:05:41] Mariya Delano: Because I feel like that gets to the core of a lot of it.
[00:05:44] Mariya Delano: Right.
[00:05:45] Mariya Delano: You're not just churning from a product or a brand or like, those customers are not just churning from you.
[00:05:50] Mariya Delano: They're breaking up with you in certain ways.
[00:05:52] Mariya Delano: Right.
[00:05:53] Mariya Delano: And that's with breakups.
[00:05:54] Mariya Delano: People might get back.
[00:05:55] Mariya Delano: Right.
[00:05:56] Mariya Delano: Often you break up with somebody and people do come back.
[00:05:58] Mariya Delano: That can happen, but sometimes they don't.
[00:06:01] Mariya Delano: And no matter what happens, in either case, there's negativity.
[00:06:05] Mariya Delano: That moment of leaving is negative.
[00:06:07] Mariya Delano: It doesn't feel good.
[00:06:08] Mariya Delano: And especially if there was attachment, it often feels awful.
[00:06:11] Mariya Delano: Right.
[00:06:12] Mariya Delano: And it's not a choice anybody wants to make.
[00:06:15] Mariya Delano: And they often end up breaking up with somebody because they feel like they have to.
[00:06:19] Mariya Delano: And I feel like if you're a brand, you really need to pay attention to that.
[00:06:23] Mariya Delano: What makes people feel like they have to leave you?
[00:06:26] Mariya Delano: What makes them feel like they're better off without you?
[00:06:29] Mariya Delano: Right.
[00:06:29] Mariya Delano: What is it that happens and how can you prevent it?
[00:06:33] Mariya Delano: Does that make sense?
[00:06:34] Ramli John: Yeah, no, it does make sense.
[00:06:39] Ramli John: This is not something I think about with my wife.
[00:06:41] Ramli John: We're like, how do I do stuff so that it makes it harder for her for us to break up?
[00:06:47] Ramli John: I think that's weird, but in some sense, that's exactly what brands that do this, well, happens is they create experiences for their fans, so much so that it's really hard for them to leave because they're leaving community, they're leaving identity, they're leaving emotions, they're leaving not just the product.
[00:07:10] Ramli John: They're breaking up.
[00:07:11] Ramli John: They're breaking up with part of themselves.
[00:07:15] Mariya Delano: Yeah.
[00:07:17] Mariya Delano: To your point about how you're not thinking about it actively with your wife.
[00:07:20] Mariya Delano: Right?
[00:07:21] Mariya Delano: I'm not thinking about it with my husband either.
[00:07:23] Mariya Delano: Right.
[00:07:23] Mariya Delano: I'm not like, okay, what do I do today to make him not divorce me?
[00:07:26] Mariya Delano: But that would be pretty sad if that's how we were going about our day to day.
[00:07:31] Mariya Delano: But I'm also thinking about, I was talking to my psychiatrist yesterday, and we always get very talkative and we were talking about how in any relationship, you're always making a choice.
[00:07:41] Mariya Delano: Like, you can always find a reason to leave and you can always find a reason to stay, and you're just deciding which one when you make a choice to remain in a relationship or break up.
[00:07:51] Mariya Delano: And I'm just thinking, how does that process in our day to day in a relationship when we're not actively in a crisis moment?
[00:08:00] Mariya Delano: Because that's more similar to a brand that's marketing and building relationships with customers who are there.
[00:08:05] Mariya Delano: Right.
[00:08:06] Mariya Delano: There's the crisis management of, like, people are churning.
[00:08:09] Mariya Delano: Let's figure out why they're leaving or they're threatening to leave.
[00:08:12] Mariya Delano: But it starts before that, right?
[00:08:14] Mariya Delano: That foundation of trust has to start breaking down a lot more way earlier, right?
[00:08:21] Mariya Delano: You start seeing cracks.
[00:08:22] Mariya Delano: You start thinking about reasons to leave.
[00:08:25] Mariya Delano: So how do you find that without just zooming in on the bad?
[00:08:30] Mariya Delano: How do you find it in the good, but also still think about how do I give them reasons to stay?
[00:08:35] Mariya Delano: How do I give them reasons to keep choosing to stay?
[00:08:38] Mariya Delano: How do I make them feel like staying is the right option?
[00:08:43] Mariya Delano: Right.
[00:08:45] Mariya Delano: It's the only option, even.
[00:08:46] Mariya Delano: Right.
[00:08:47] Mariya Delano: That's the best way to think about it.
[00:08:48] Ramli John: I love that choice.
[00:08:50] Ramli John: It's about giving them.
[00:08:54] Building a Fan Driven Flywheel for Your Business
[00:08:54] Ramli John: I guess that ties to the fan driven flywheel that you mentioned earlier.
[00:08:59] Ramli John: What does that look like?
[00:09:01] Ramli John: I know you shared this in the presentation.
[00:09:02] Ramli John: You shared this in the article with search engine Land.
[00:09:06] Ramli John: What does that look like for your business?
[00:09:08] Ramli John: Like your own fan driven flywheel.
[00:09:10] Ramli John: I know you mentioned this before, what your fan driven flywheel looks like.
[00:09:16] Mariya Delano: Yeah.
[00:09:17] Mariya Delano: So the funny thing with flywheels is it's hard to know where to start.
[00:09:20] Mariya Delano: Right.
[00:09:20] Mariya Delano: I usually start with content because I'm a content specialist and that's just my favorite thing to do.
[00:09:25] Mariya Delano: And also often it feels like the most logical place to start when somebody doesn't have an audience or doesn't have fans.
[00:09:33] Mariya Delano: So for me, I would say a lot of my flywheel starts with content as well.
[00:09:40] Mariya Delano: And it's often very particular kinds of content.
[00:09:42] Mariya Delano: It's compelling insofar as it's emotional.
[00:09:47] Mariya Delano: Often people tend to find me through my newsletter attention deficit marketing disorder, or add, or they find me through some of my LinkedIn posts, or they find me through search engine land now.
[00:10:01] Mariya Delano: And in all of those cases, people tend to come to me through very long pieces.
[00:10:06] Mariya Delano: Right.
[00:10:07] Mariya Delano: Even on LinkedIn, I often hit that character limit, like all the time where I post long videos.
[00:10:11] Mariya Delano: And that's what people like for some reason.
[00:10:13] Mariya Delano: And they are compelled by it.
[00:10:16] Mariya Delano: Because I often make sure that I'm posting things, thinking about resonance, thinking about what emotions will this make somebody feel?
[00:10:26] Mariya Delano: And how can I make content that makes them feel more connected to me or want to be connected to me, right?
[00:10:31] Mariya Delano: Like, I often think content is relationship building at scale.
[00:10:35] Mariya Delano: So I'm like, what can I put out there that would make people want to be my friend Almost, right, or want to talk to me?
[00:10:41] Mariya Delano: And the way this works well is when I do it properly, people start trying to reach out, right?
[00:10:47] Mariya Delano: So I get comment sections with a ton of people replying to me.
[00:10:50] Mariya Delano: If you look through my LinkedIn, like my most recent posts, a bunch of them have comment sections like this, right?
[00:10:55] Mariya Delano: People say that they're cheering me on even, right?
[00:10:57] Mariya Delano: Or they're saying, oh, it's so great to see what you're doing now.
[00:11:01] Mariya Delano: They're remembering things I posted about in the past.
[00:11:04] Mariya Delano: They are often commenting on the significance of the ideas, right?
[00:11:09] Mariya Delano: They're talking about the meta layers of the content existing.
[00:11:12] Mariya Delano: They feel like they know me often, and then they start sharing their own experiences.
[00:11:17] Mariya Delano: Like my favorite things are if I publish a newsletter or post or something, and then I start getting messages, comments, dms, emails from people saying how something I published made them understand themselves better, right?
[00:11:31] Mariya Delano: And those are my vocal fans, right?
[00:11:32] Mariya Delano: They're reaching out, their names are there, their pictures are there.
[00:11:35] Mariya Delano: Often they're handing me their email or connection requests so that they can message me, right?
[00:11:40] Mariya Delano: So that's step two.
[00:11:41] Mariya Delano: You find them, you start listening, you start paying attention.
[00:11:43] Mariya Delano: I spend a ton of time in my comment sections all the time.
[00:11:48] Mariya Delano: Then the next step on the flywheel is engage with them, right?
[00:11:51] Mariya Delano: So instead of just being a wall, right, I could just see all these comments, all these emails and never reply.
[00:11:56] Mariya Delano: But that kind of ruins it, right?
[00:11:58] Mariya Delano: That ruins that moment of connection.
[00:12:00] Mariya Delano: Somebody felt so much drive to reach out to me and tell me something because they thought it was important to try to tell it to me.
[00:12:08] Mariya Delano: I feel like it would be slapping them in the face if I ignored them, right?
[00:12:12] Mariya Delano: And it doesn't mean I have to respond to everybody, but I prioritize people who clearly seem to be the most emotionally invested, who seem to have the most meaning attached to their message, right?
[00:12:23] Mariya Delano: If it means a lot to them, I should show them that it means something to me, that they wanted to reach out.
[00:12:29] Mariya Delano: And then after that, once you engage with them, you start building some kind of relationship.
[00:12:34] Mariya Delano: They tend to follow you more, they tend to interact with you more often, right?
[00:12:38] Mariya Delano: And I have a lot of people like that.
[00:12:39] Mariya Delano: And the next step is promote or help them in some way.
[00:12:43] Mariya Delano: And I do, like, I shout people out, I tag them in other people's comment sections.
[00:12:47] Mariya Delano: I referred them to other people.
[00:12:49] Mariya Delano: Right.
[00:12:50] Mariya Delano: I often connect people to each other.
[00:12:52] Mariya Delano: I'm trying to do more collaborations and featuring people.
[00:12:55] Mariya Delano: Search engine land has been a very good way, actually for me to help people out and to build these relationships because I can quote them.
[00:13:02] Mariya Delano: And everybody likes search engine land.
[00:13:04] Mariya Delano: It's a huge publication.
[00:13:05] Mariya Delano: They think it's really cool to be quoted.
[00:13:07] Mariya Delano: So it's very easy for me to think somebody by thinking, oh, they would be a relevant source here.
[00:13:12] Mariya Delano: They know something about this.
[00:13:13] Mariya Delano: So let me just tap them and ask them if they want to be a source, right?
[00:13:18] Mariya Delano: And then the final piece is feedback, right.
[00:13:20] Mariya Delano: You start getting a lot of feedback on your content, hearing things about your work, and it's listening and actually implementing it sometimes.
[00:13:27] Mariya Delano: And when I do, I often try to thank people directly.
[00:13:30] Mariya Delano: Like, I'll email them, I'll message them, I'll tell them on a call.
[00:13:32] Mariya Delano: By the way, thank you for what you've said.
[00:13:34] Mariya Delano: Right.
[00:13:34] Mariya Delano: I've implemented it.
[00:13:35] Mariya Delano: Here it is.
[00:13:36] Mariya Delano: Here's what I did.
[00:13:37] Mariya Delano: Thank you so much.
[00:13:38] Mariya Delano: Right?
[00:13:38] Mariya Delano: So they feel heard, they feel listened to, they feel cared about.
[00:13:41] Mariya Delano: And it's kind of just this happy flywheel of reciprocity, right?
[00:13:45] Mariya Delano: Yeah.
[00:13:45] Ramli John: And then that goes back to making compelling content because those people are giving you feedback.
[00:13:50] Ramli John: They might ask you questions, they might ask questions that turn into more content, or that questions in the comments can turn into a whole new piece of content.
[00:14:01] Ramli John: Or it's just like you said, a happy flywheel that keeps on giving back, essentially.
[00:14:08] Mariya Delano: And at this point, I've been working on this flywheel for nearly a year because I'd say I very actively started making the flywheel like this around January probably is when I first started being strategic about it in this way.
[00:14:20] Mariya Delano: And now pretty much every piece of content I ever put out was made because of something somebody said, right?
[00:14:28] Mariya Delano: Like there's feedback inherent to every idea I have now.
[00:14:30] Mariya Delano: I'm constantly connecting the dots.
[00:14:32] Mariya Delano: I'm constantly looking for ways to implement it.
[00:14:35] Understanding your audience leads to more engaging and compelling content
[00:14:35] Mariya Delano: And it's so nice because the other topic here is like audience research, right?
[00:14:40] Mariya Delano: So knowing what your audience wants, right?
[00:14:44] Mariya Delano: Who is it that's listening to you, paying attention to your marketing, what do they care about?
[00:14:48] Mariya Delano: What do they want to hear about?
[00:14:49] Mariya Delano: Right?
[00:14:49] Mariya Delano: And when you make content based out of understanding those things and you're speaking directly to them, of course it's more engaging of course it's more compelling.
[00:14:57] Mariya Delano: Of course the results are better.
[00:14:59] Mariya Delano: So at this point, I very rarely make anything that is not built on this just long foundation of understanding my audience and what they want and what they feel and what they care about.
[00:15:10] Ramli John: I mean, that sounds like a perfect segue to the audience research platform, Sparktoro.
[00:15:17] Sparktoro Love Flywheel
[00:15:17] Ramli John: Let's talk about that.
[00:15:18] Ramli John: This is like a perfect example of, you've talked about this flywheel.
[00:15:23] Ramli John: It's a process that business can't start running, but you saw firsthand how it has impacted you.
[00:15:29] Ramli John: As a fan of Sparktoro.
[00:15:33] Ramli John: What does that look like?
[00:15:34] Ramli John: How did this spark toro love flywheel that you're going to share, what does that look like?
[00:15:41] Ramli John: How did that happen?
[00:15:43] Mariya Delano: Yeah.
[00:15:44] Mariya Delano: So, Sparktoro, they got me into their web so deeply and so quickly.
[00:15:50] Mariya Delano: They spun it around and I've been trapped ever since.
[00:15:53] Mariya Delano: And for some reason, I like it.
[00:15:55] Mariya Delano: But I found them.
[00:15:58] Mariya Delano: So I found them at a very good time.
[00:16:00] Mariya Delano: I found them right as I was starting out freelancing, because before that, I worked in house and I tried another company with a few friends.
[00:16:07] Mariya Delano: And then when I decided to fully do things on my own and just do freelancing, see what happens in the marketing world.
[00:16:13] Mariya Delano: One of the first suggestions on that Twitter account that I set up was to follow Rand, Rand Fishkin.
[00:16:19] Mariya Delano: And I did.
[00:16:20] Mariya Delano: I had no idea who he was or what he did, actually.
[00:16:23] Mariya Delano: And I had no idea what Sparktoro was.
[00:16:25] Mariya Delano: And I just saw his posts, like, posting about Sparktoro sometimes, and it's like, okay, this seems like I started reading his blogs, thinking he had good ideas about marketing.
[00:16:34] Mariya Delano: I agreed with them.
[00:16:35] Mariya Delano: So I decided, okay, well, this cool person's talking about this product that he's designed.
[00:16:41] Mariya Delano: I feel like I can trust him.
[00:16:42] Mariya Delano: Let me try this out.
[00:16:43] Mariya Delano: So I signed up for the free plan, and I was so blown away.
[00:16:49] Mariya Delano: I was so blown away that my testimony, I posted about it on Twitter immediately within a day because I was so excited.
[00:16:57] Mariya Delano: And they asked to use it as a testimonial on their homepage.
[00:17:01] Mariya Delano: And it still is.
[00:17:02] Mariya Delano: It was at the top of their older version, and they kept it in the new one.
[00:17:06] Mariya Delano: I don't know if they kept anybody but me.
[00:17:08] Mariya Delano: They might have kept another one, but it's still there.
[00:17:10] Mariya Delano: If you go, let me read it out.
[00:17:12] Mariya Delano: If you go to their homepage, I'm still there.
[00:17:14] Mariya Delano: I'm a bit hidden now because I was featured at the top before, so it's fine.
[00:17:18] Mariya Delano: I get it.
[00:17:19] Mariya Delano: But if you go towards the bottom, there's like this marketing icon gets it.
[00:17:24] Mariya Delano: And there's three quotes there, and I'm the last one.
[00:17:28] Mariya Delano: And the quote is, I genuinely have never seen such quick roi on a business tool in my life.
[00:17:33] Mariya Delano: My clients are over the moon with the reports I've given them based on Sparktoro searches and brief content analysis from those results.
[00:17:39] Mariya Delano: This is a very measured version of what was actually going on, because what actually happened is I had a deliverable to do for a client.
[00:17:45] Mariya Delano: They were asking for content ideas to plan out the blog post series.
[00:17:49] Mariya Delano: I open Sparktoro.
[00:17:51] Mariya Delano: I am in love.
[00:17:52] Mariya Delano: I am over the moon.
[00:17:53] Mariya Delano: I'm like, oh, my God, this is the best thing I've seen ever.
[00:17:56] Mariya Delano: And I take some screenshots, I do a little summary for a client, I send it over to them, and they're immediately like, oh, my God.
[00:18:03] Mariya Delano: We've never seen anything like, this is incredible.
[00:18:05] Mariya Delano: Let's do it.
[00:18:06] Mariya Delano: And everybody's just excited behind the scenes, freaking out.
[00:18:09] Mariya Delano: And then I posted that and somehow it ended up on the site.
[00:18:15] Ramli John: That is so cool.
[00:18:17] Mariya Delano: Yeah.
[00:18:17] Mariya Delano: So putting it into the flywheel terms, right?
[00:18:20] Mariya Delano: They made compelling content.
[00:18:22] Mariya Delano: Right?
[00:18:22] Mariya Delano: So there's Twitter.
[00:18:23] Mariya Delano: Right?
[00:18:23] Mariya Delano: First of all, the posts, which made me seek out more content, and then very compelling blog posts, right?
[00:18:29] Mariya Delano: Then there was finding the fans because they found that tweet that I made.
[00:18:33] Mariya Delano: I don't even remember how they found me.
[00:18:36] Mariya Delano: I had, like, maybe 30 followers at the time.
[00:18:38] Mariya Delano: I didn't know what I was doing.
[00:18:40] Mariya Delano: And yet Rand, with half a million followers, is there being like, can I feature you on our website?
[00:18:46] Mariya Delano: Right?
[00:18:47] Mariya Delano: So that's like, they found me.
[00:18:49] Mariya Delano: They heard what I was saying, they engaged with me and reached back out and at the same time, helped promote me.
[00:18:54] Mariya Delano: Rand skipped, like, four steps of the flywheel all in one interaction here.
[00:18:59] Mariya Delano: And that was, like, my first real interaction with Sparktoro as a company.
[00:19:02] Mariya Delano: So, of course I was done.
[00:19:04] Mariya Delano: I was doomed, right?
[00:19:06] Mariya Delano: Yeah, that's it.
[00:19:07] Mariya Delano: They had me.
[00:19:08] Mariya Delano: They had me.
[00:19:08] Mariya Delano: And from there on, it's just been the same story playing out, right?
[00:19:12] Mariya Delano: Because after that, it was like, oh, wow, not only is this the coolest software I've ever seen that I really like, I also like the people that make it, and they've also talked to me.
[00:19:23] Mariya Delano: Most companies don't talk to me like this.
[00:19:25] Mariya Delano: My face is on their home page now.
[00:19:27] Mariya Delano: I remember thinking, my face is on their homepage, and I've never paid for this tool.
[00:19:32] Mariya Delano: That's weird.
[00:19:32] Mariya Delano: I should probably buy a paid plan.
[00:19:34] Mariya Delano: So then I did, and I never canceled it.
[00:19:37] Mariya Delano: I've never paused the paid plan since.
[00:19:39] Mariya Delano: But that was the initial motivation.
[00:19:40] Mariya Delano: It was almost, they're too nice to me.
[00:19:43] Mariya Delano: I feel weird.
[00:19:44] Mariya Delano: They're promoting the testimonial I wrote for them, and I'm on their free plan.
[00:19:49] Mariya Delano: I should probably upgrade.
[00:19:51] Ramli John: That's so funny.
[00:19:52] Ramli John: You were a fan before you were a paying customer, which is great.
[00:19:58] Ramli John: You brought more people into their sphere, probably because of that.
[00:20:01] Mariya Delano: Exactly, yeah.
[00:20:03] Mariya Delano: And then it's continued.
[00:20:05] Mariya Delano: Right?
[00:20:05] Mariya Delano: I mean, it's a two year story at this point, because a year ago was when I actually started really talking to them as people.
[00:20:11] Mariya Delano: And before that, it was nearly a year of interacting as a fan and online, like on Twitter, LinkedIn, comment sections, going to their webinars.
[00:20:19] Mariya Delano: So I just got deeper and deeper involved with them just over time, because I really liked the software, but it was also very interesting.
[00:20:27] The Power of Fan Driven Marketing: Interview with Mariya Delano from Kalyna Marketing
[00:20:27] Mariya Delano: And so I kept reading their blogs to figure out more about how to think about the software and also learning more about marketing that I would then apply in the tool.
[00:20:35] Mariya Delano: And then I started engaging with them more on social, going to their webinars and events, and just.
[00:20:41] Mariya Delano: They would interact with me a lot.
[00:20:43] Mariya Delano: They'd reply to know, they'd thank me for things I would say about their tool or recommend it.
[00:20:49] Mariya Delano: They started knowing my name.
[00:20:50] Mariya Delano: I remember very distinctly in August, I think of last year, I joined a webinar that was like an online conference by another company, and Amanda was one of the presenters.
[00:21:00] Mariya Delano: And I tuned in to see her talk.
[00:21:02] Mariya Delano: And I go into the chat and I just say, like, hi, in the chat.
[00:21:05] Mariya Delano: And then Amanda looks up and goes, oh, my God, maria's here.
[00:21:08] Mariya Delano: Hi, Mariya.
[00:21:09] Mariya Delano: And I'm like, she knows me.
[00:21:11] Mariya Delano: Wait, how does she remember me?
[00:21:13] Mariya Delano: Right?
[00:21:13] Mariya Delano: And so you just develop this bond, almost, right, with the people that run a company.
[00:21:18] Mariya Delano: And that gets you more interested in the tool, because I very distinctly would choose to learn more about the software, like, more and more, and try to use it more and figure out how to use it better, because I like the people.
[00:21:30] Mariya Delano: Right.
[00:21:31] Mariya Delano: And so now I'm on the highest paid plan I have been for a while.
[00:21:34] Mariya Delano: I'm like a power user.
[00:21:35] Mariya Delano: I know every feature.
[00:21:35] Mariya Delano: I've reported a bazillion bugs to Casey, but that didn't happen immediately.
[00:21:41] Ramli John: Yeah, that makes sense.
[00:21:43] Ramli John: And then you ended up writing, what is it, a 23,000?
[00:21:47] Ramli John: What is that, like a love letter?
[00:21:48] Ramli John: Almost.
[00:21:49] Mariya Delano: It's a 23,000 plus series of five guides.
[00:21:54] Ramli John: Right.
[00:21:55] Mariya Delano: The introduction is the love letter to Sparktoro.
[00:21:58] Mariya Delano: Part one is how I use Sparktoro for content marketing work.
[00:22:01] Mariya Delano: Because I used to just do content marketing and very directly, a lot of writing now, we've expanded a lot beyond that, but initially that was all we did.
[00:22:09] Mariya Delano: So it was that part two was kind of based on a lot of questions I had heard from people at that point, which was like a bunch of use cases for Sparktoro.
[00:22:18] Mariya Delano: Like, how can you use this tool?
[00:22:19] Mariya Delano: And it's just a huge list of ways to use it and why.
[00:22:23] Mariya Delano: Then there is part three, which is the manifesto for why Sparktoro over other marketing tools, and how Sparktoro makes you think about marketing.
[00:22:32] Mariya Delano: And then part four is documentation.
[00:22:34] Mariya Delano: So every feature, it's a full feature reference for the whole product?
[00:22:38] Mariya Delano: Yeah.
[00:22:39] Mariya Delano: And I've made like hours of videos as well.
[00:22:43] Ramli John: I love how this fan driven flywheel has resulted in not just you becoming a power user on the highest paid plan, you've created content, you've really testimonials, like social proof.
[00:22:58] Ramli John: And this is exactly like you're living proof of the power of fandriven marketing strategy.
[00:23:03] Mariya Delano: Essentially, the story my career right now as a public figure in any shape or form in marketing, is built on my relationship with Sparktoro.
[00:23:13] Mariya Delano: If it wasn't for Rand and Amanda, I think it would have taken me a lot longer, right?
[00:23:17] Mariya Delano: Like, somebody else might have come along, there might have been a different way in.
[00:23:21] Mariya Delano: But the way things panned out is Rand got me my audience, like, full on.
[00:23:25] Mariya Delano: I'm not joking.
[00:23:27] Mariya Delano: My newsletter, the one that everybody loves so much now, right?
[00:23:32] Mariya Delano: The very first issue I published in January and barely sent it to anybody.
[00:23:36] Mariya Delano: I just posted it on Mastodon that I had like, I think 100 followers back then.
[00:23:41] Mariya Delano: And then suddenly I'm seeing views and subscribers and I'm getting spam and notifications that I just got like 50 subscribers.
[00:23:48] Mariya Delano: I'm like, what the heck happened?
[00:23:50] Mariya Delano: And then I check and Rand read it and posted it on both Mastodon and Twitter to 500,000 people.
[00:23:59] Mariya Delano: My first ever newsletter, right?
[00:24:01] Mariya Delano: And it's like, oh, wow.
[00:24:03] Mariya Delano: So that thing had 1000 views in a week.
[00:24:06] Mariya Delano: I just started.
[00:24:07] Mariya Delano: And that was just this rocket boost, right, that I would have never expected that most people can never get.
[00:24:14] Mariya Delano: And I mean, that was a huge moment.
[00:24:16] Mariya Delano: And then after that, there's been a lot of other co promotion that happened.
[00:24:19] Mariya Delano: And at this point, it's kind of funny.
[00:24:21] Mariya Delano: So much of my network is also Rand's network.
[00:24:24] Mariya Delano: It's like if you, you can just pick a random person who follows me and most likely they will know him or they came from, right?
[00:24:33] Mariya Delano: And it's.
[00:24:34] Mariya Delano: It's honestly kind of incredible.
[00:24:36] Mariya Delano: And I wish more brands understood that you can do something like this for somebody.
[00:24:40] Mariya Delano: Because Sparktoro freaking changed my life, right?
[00:24:43] Mariya Delano: They changed my life.
[00:24:43] Mariya Delano: They set me on a career trajectory I would have never imagined.
[00:24:46] Mariya Delano: I owe so much to them and I'm so loyal now, right?
[00:24:49] Mariya Delano: Of course I'm not going to cancel my subscription.
[00:24:52] Mariya Delano: Of course I'm happy to promote them.
[00:24:54] Mariya Delano: Of course I'm going to love their tool even more.
[00:24:56] Mariya Delano: I love not just the tool but the company, right?
[00:24:59] Mariya Delano: And that means that we are embedded a lot, right?
[00:25:03] Mariya Delano: And I promote them and I want to promote them and I'm happy to because they've done so much for me, right?
[00:25:10] Mariya Delano: I would say yeah, I am living proof in many, many ways of how powerful this could become.
[00:25:14] Kalyna Marketing: Unlocking the Power of Marketing Frameworks
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