Persona Based Marketing, With Chris Lovell

In an effort to move beyond features like speed, CL Tel has begun discussing its broadband based on what their service can do for specific customer profiles of personas like gamers, remote workers and families.

Special: Recorded LIVE at NTCA

Creators & Guests

Host

Andy Johns

Vice President of Marketing

What is The StoryConnect Podcast?

StoryConnect features interviews with marketers, communicators, CEOs and other leaders at cooperative and independent broadband companies, electric cooperatives and municipal power providers. The goal of the podcast is to help listeners discover ideas to shape their stories and connect with their customers. It is produced by Pioneer Utility Resources.

Intro:
A production of Pioneer Utility Resources.

StoryConnect, helping communicators discover ideas to shape
their stories and connect with their customers.

Andy Johns:
How can you tell your stories differently to different personas?

That's what we'll be talking about on this episode of
StoryConnect: The Podcast.

My name is Andy Johns, your host with Pioneer, and I'm joined on
this episode by Chris Lovell, who is the chief operating officer

at CL Tel in Iowa.

Chris, thanks so much for joining me.

Chris Lovell:
Thanks, Andy. I appreciate it.

Andy Johns:
We are here at the epicenter of rural broadband this week at the
RTIME Conference, NTCA's RTIME Conference here in Tampa.

Chris was nice enough to stop by our booth to talk about persona
marketing and how the approach is a little bit different there.

Now, this is a topic that you spoke on at the Calix Conference
last fall.

Tell us a little bit about what you mean when you say persona
based marketing.

Chris Lovell:
Totally. So yeah, I had the opportunity to to speak a little bit
about how we present lifestyle type of packages.

Essentially, that's what the persona based marketing is, is
describing products and services from a lifestyle perspective.

So instead of just speed and price, it's focusing on things like
having, you know, a small family, telecommuting,

you know, being a gamer or, you know, one that's called, "I have
teenagers." That's one of the bundles that we have.

And so –

Andy Johns:
God bless those people.

Chris Lovell:
You're right.

Andy Johns:
I'm headed that way.

Chris Lovell:
Yep. Totally.

So yeah, it's just resonating more so on the level of what people
use your service for as opposed to the technical

specifics, because who really cares at the end of the day for
the majority of consumers.

Andy Johns:
And I think that's something that has been kind of in the air for
quite a while is something I'm hearing more and more about.

But but, you know, the idea that don't sell them necessarily the
specifications.

Don't sell them the features. Sell them the benefits is
something I know I've talked about for for a long time, but the

idea of kind of finding those personas.

Are you all using any data?

I know the Calix Cloud and some other tools can help you
identify some of those folks.

Are you kind of finding them and targeting them, or are you
putting the messages out there and letting them find it?

A little bit of both?

Chris Lovell:
A little bit of both, I would say.

So, we do use Calix Engagement Cloud, and it's a very powerful
tool, and that helps inform a lot of the decisions we make.

But some of this is also just kind of a fun thing.

Like the "I have teenagers," one, for example, or "bare bones,"
trying to speak to what it just, you know, would resonate for

one of us, if we're in one of those phases of life.

Combo, I would say.

Andy Johns:
Yeah, and what are some of the different things, you know, when
you say it's beyond just speed.

What are some of the different things that make the packages
different that may make it appeal to somebody, you know, work

from home person or a gamer.

I mean, they all need a fast, reliable connection, but what are
some of the other things that kind of draw them in or add to

those packages you're talking about?

Chris Lovell:
Totally. So, we offer the CommandIQ app to all of our customers
for free.

That's the standard version.

But then, of course, there's what we call Experience &
Protection+, which is a combination of the

ExperienceIQ and ProtectIQ.

We offer both of those things together.

So that's an additional add on that a family or a telecommuter
somebody who wants to add some additional, you know,

functionality could do.

Bark is another thing that we offer.

It's great for small families.

We include that with that small family bundle or package, and
yeah.

And then just tailoring the speed as well, you know, again, not
about speed and price, but that's an important consideration.

And so making sure that the family who has a bunch of teenagers
has fast enough speed is important.

Andy Johns:
I think it was during the pandemic that we really saw a shift.

You know, some of the numbers from Pew and some of the other
research groups out there, that's when it got to be where speed

and price weren't the only thing people, you know, weren't the
number one deciders anymore for folks.

Do you think that's really kind of what tipped the scales?

This is something that's been coming for a while, but I think it
really got accelerated in the pandemic.

Chris Lovell:
Definitely. I agree. 100%.

I mean, we all go from our distributed lives to hunkering down
at home.

The internet becomes even more of a necessity.

And some of the other – just I think one big thing is, is it
seems like some of our customer service reps, as they're

talking with customers about what plan is appropriate for them.

They think, well, they don't need all of that speed all of the
time.

What the pandemic, I think showed is that you're right.

You probably don't need all that speed all of the time.

But when you need it, you want to have it.

And so you got to subscribe to the appropriate tier to make sure
that your experience is never, you know, you never lose out on a

Zoom call or freeze up in a inopportune time.

Andy Johns:
You touched on two things there that I want to unpack a little
bit.

You talked about the customer service reps.

So taking this approach, a persona based approach, is something
that has got to go beyond just the marketing department.

How are you communicating that, or how is the rest of the
organization buying in or where along the process are you guys to

get folks kind of bought in on looking at things that way,
whatever department they're in?

Chris Lovell:
Totally. It's a process, for sure.

You know, anytime you change the way that you do things, it just
takes takes some time.

But our customer service reps are honestly, they they are
probably one of, if not the most important teams,

in the company.

And, you know, we do kind of follow a hybrid approach.

So we mentioned this persona based advertising.

That's what we want to lead with.

But speed and price to some point is, is still an important
consideration.

I think that you need to win on speed.

You need to be close on price.

Those are kind of table stakes.

Andy Johns:
Sure, sure.

Chris Lovell:
No amount of, you know, packaging or additional value adds I
think will be able to make up for that.

But as long as you have those bases covered, that's really where
you differentiate.

And so, it's just a matter of training the CSRs to say, "Hey,
what is it that you like to do at home online?

Do you stream Netflix?

Do you work from home?" You know, "Are you going back to
school?" You know, what are some of the ways that you use the

internet? And then, tailoring the messaging and tailoring the
package for that.

I will say that, you know, we still do lay out our service
offerings on our website.

So we have kind of, if you imagine our website, you can go to
the residential internet page, and that's where it will lay out

a good, better, best approach.

So we call it fast, really fast and ridiculously fast.

So we do present it from a speed perspective there.

But our bundle page is not focused on that.

It's focused on, again, the persona based advertising, or
persona based marketing.

And yeah, so it's a combo, I think, of those two approaches.

Andy Johns:
And I found that folks, CSRs or the reps, whoever it is, when
they are, once they get past thinking about it as

selling.

Chris Lovell:
Yep.

Andy Johns:
And get it more than analogy that I've used before is fitting.

Like at a shoe store, just like you're saying, if somebody comes
in, they're going to say, "I want to buy shoes." The shoe, you

know, the person at the store is not going to find them the
cheapest shoes they that got and here you go.

They're going to say, what are you doing with the shoes?

Are you dancing? Are you hiking?

Are you playing football? Because those are all very different
kinds of shoes.

And it's been interesting to see the companies that are doing
well are the folks that can get their CSRs, their kind of front

line folks to think, you know, more down that line than just
about selling.

Because, you know, along those lines when you're talking about
experience is really what it comes down to.

And how many times have have either of us heard somebody say,
"Oh, your internet sucks" when really their signed up for the

wrong package?

So when you're talking about the persona based marketing, one of
the big things, one of the big reasons I wanted to have you on,

is not just for the sales side, but that long term relationship,
that long term experience is really benefited by this as well.

Chris Lovell:
100%, totally.

And it just, it reminds me this is a way for us to live out our
core values.

One of our core values is customer empathy, right?

Putting yourself in the customer's shoes, truly understanding
what it would feel like from their perspective and saying, "Hey,

what would I need? What would I want?

What would make my life better from a connectivity perspective?"
And yeah, it's an opportunity to meet real people's

needs, make their lives better and ultimately gain, you know,
loyalty and long term relationships with them.

Andy Johns:
Like you said, this is a little bit of a change, a little bit
and, you know, a little bit of change of approach.

And all of us as humans have different kind of tolerances for
how much we like change.

Last question for you.

What advice would you have for another company who's out there?

Maybe they're listening, and they're thinking, "This sounds
good.

How do I go about starting this?" Where where would you say they
start, or what advice would you have for them?

Chris Lovell:
You know, there are resources out there that are very helpful.

I will point to Calix.

They've been instrumental from day one.

Again, like you mentioned, this has been a drum that's being
beaten for several years.

This is not like a new topic, but they do have some teams that
are very helpful in putting

together this persona based marketing and, um, and rolling that
out, I would say to use the resources that are available,

people like Calix and others.

But just think of it as an opportunity to kind of take the next
step in the – if you think of a graph, you

know, long term growth kind of up and to the right, and then all
of a sudden it starts to taper out.

This is an opportunity to give it that supercharge and start
back up, in the upward trajectory again.

That's actually how we improve revenue in many cases.

We don't, least on the internet side, we don't impose price
increases.

Andy Johns:
Right.

Chris Lovell:
We do for video certainly, pass through all of our cost
increases.

But when we roll out a new service offering on the internet
side, we just say,

this is what the price is going to be.

It's not going to change.

At some point in a few years down the line, it'll be time to
iterate and rethink what it looks like.

This is an opportunity for people to do that.

You can, you know, move your speed tiers up in conjunction with
this persona based marketing and kind of shift

the distribution of your customers.

You can either do it automatically, or you could reach out to
them and say, "Hey, would you like to try our new tier, our new

package, our new persona?" Yeah.

Andy Johns:
And I think I know I said that was the last question, but you
touched on something important there.

I think, a lot of the folks, and there's more and more that I'm
hearing, folks that are saying, "Hey, we're built out, and we're

landlocked. We can't necessarily expand in new areas, and we're
100% fiber or close to it." There's only after decades

of, you know, always more people to connect fiber.

They're kind of, like you said, hitting that plateau on the
line.

And is that kind of what you're speaking to?

Is that, you know, once somebody is 100% fiber or built out
everywhere they're going to build for the foreseeable future,

this is a way to get that line moving back up after it's kind of
plateaued.

Sounds like.

Chris Lovell:
Totally, definitely.

Andy Johns:
I didn't mean to put words in your mouth, but that sound kind of
like what you were talking.

Chris Lovell:
Without a doubt.

And I mean, if you think about it, I mean, from a very basic
level, the way that you drive growth is by expanding your

customer base. So acquiring more customers and then making each
one of them more profitable.

Andy Johns:
More valuable. Yeah.

Chris Lovell:
Right. And, I mean, it's probably an underlooked component, I
think sometimes, but

speed upgrades are almost entirely margin.

And, the great thing about them is that they're a win-win for
the company and for the customer.

They improve the customer's experience.

They improve, you know, the company's profitability.

And especially if you tie that with, you know, a video rate
increase, customer is unhappy.

It's like, oh, man, this is so expensive.

You can say, I know it's expensive.

Why don't you drop that cable, sign up for YouTube TV or, you
know, Hulu Live, try the next fastest speed for

three months at no extra charge.

And then if you want to keep it, it's just ten bucks more a
month or whatever after that.

And we found that to be really effective.

Again, it's a win-win.

Customer saves money on their on their cable TV bill.

They have a better internet experience, and they become more
profitable.

Andy Johns:
And all the programing out there, for sure.

Well, thanks for the bonus question there.

I appreciate that. He is Chris Lovell.

He is the chief operating officer at CL Tel in Iowa.

Chris, thanks for joining me.

Chris Lovell:
Appreciate it. Andy,

Andy Johns:
I'm your host, Andy Johns.

And until we talk again, keep telling your story.

Outro:
StoryConnect is produced by Pioneer Utility Resources, a
communications cooperative that is built to share your story.

StoryConnect is engineered by Lucas Smith of Lucky Sound Studio.