Resonance Before Reach
The magic of niche influence.
Last week, I attended a virtual book launch party. My friend and former business coach, Kelly Campbell, recently birthed her beautiful book, Heal To Lead, and she invited me to share a few words about the impact our work had on my career and life. Before the attendees were let into the Zoom, a few of us were chatting and getting acquainted. One of the other guest speakers asked how the launch was going so far. "Saw your Instagram pic with your books at Barnes & Noble – that must've been such a surreal moment!"
Kelly smiled. “It’s all an illusion.”
She sort of laughed in a lighthearted way, but her response wasn’t just a humble deflection. She went on to say that while that moment was cool, and there have been other magical moments during the go to market process, there’s also a lot of ‘smoke and mirrors’ that create an illusion of a larger-than-life brand launch.
“If the aim was for Heal To Lead to become a NYTimes bestseller or hit #1 on Amazon in its first week, there are agencies who can help make that happen,” she said. Sure, it would cost a small fortune to manufacture that kind of instant relevance, but that’s the game many find themselves playing. Kelly isn’t one of them.
One thing that’s important to mention about Kelly: she’s no stranger to the inner workings of the marketing and advertising machine. She started, scaled and sold her own marketing agency, and then went on to help other agency owners, including me, scale theirs. Now, she’s a highly sought after trauma-informed leadership coach, keynote speaker, podcast host, and has been a contributing writer to Forbes, Fast Company and Entrepreneur.
She’s a master marketeer who knows how to build a brand and cultivate an audience. She understands that making things appear bigger than they are is what marketers, advertisers and brand builders do. She gets that there’s an element of theater to it all of it - the story, the spectacle, the cast of characters that each play their role. There’s smart strategy behind it, too. The timing, the cadence, the teasing and the big reveal. This is brand, baby! Let’s put on a show!
No doubt Kelly understands the game. She’s played it and won many times over. But she’s interested in something more now.
“This isn’t a trend. This is evergreen,” she said about her book, and the weight of her written words. “I can share sales numbers, but I’d rather talk about the emails I’m getting from people telling me that the book changed their life.”
What she’s after isn’t just reach, but resonance.
Resonance Before Reach
Like most founders, Kelly is starting from ground zero. Yes, she has a large network and probably a pretty substantial email subscriber list. But this is her first book, and it’s not a light summer read. This book is written for those who are actively doing the deep work to free themselves from the chains of past trauma to become more conscious leaders. The point is, it’s not going to resonate with everyone (though I’d argue that everyone would benefit from it).
Like any brand, this book must find its audience and establish itself as a credible, trustworthy resource that adds value to others’ lives. These early days of community building may feel slow-going, but it’s essential to the foundation upon which the entire brand universe is built.
Before there is reach, there must be resonance.
The best explanation of this is Jon Davids’ Axis of Influence.
The Y Axis is how much reach you have.
The X Axis is how known, liked, and trusted (KLT) you are.
The lower left is where most of us start. Hopefully it’s a short-lived stay in this square, but founders should take full advantage of their relative anonymity while they have it. This is when they can test ideas and make some mistakes without high stakes.
Some founders come out of the gate gunning for that top left square. They want reach on day one. Never mind that they don’t have a single repeat purchase yet and haven’t learned anything meaningful about their customer, they’re ready to go big. In Davids’ book, Marketing Superpowers, he considers this the danger zone. These are the one-hit wonders who enjoy their 15 minutes of fame and then fizzle out. Why? Because they were more interested in reach than resonance. They were after the conversion, not the connection.
Where the Magic Happens
The bottom right quadrant is where the magic happens. This is the sweet spot where brands build credibility and trust. This is where conversations lead to connections that build community. This is where brand universes are experienced first and where cult status is achieved. It’s also where a brand can steadily scale while maintaining control.
This is the land of niche influence, and I would suggest that as attention, traffic, and commerce become increasingly distributed, this is where the long game is won.
Many of my all time favorite brands have planted their flag in the ‘niche influence’ quadrant (Perfumehead, Josh Rosebrook, Flamingo Estate, Agent Nateur, In Fiore, Another Tomorrow, to name a few.) They are deeply customer-centric brands known for quality, originality, and authenticity. They control their brand narrative and own the customer relationship.
Eventually, the brands that cultivate community and create meaningful products and experiences from this place are able to rise up to the top right quadrant, but it often requires a(nother) round of fundraising or an acquisition. At this growth stage, they face new challenges, particularly staying deeply resonant as they expand their reach.
The art of brand building and the theater of go to market is in my DNA. I love the process, the performance, and putting on a good show. But if it’s all spectacle and no substance, it’s a flop.
Perhaps a better metric of success is work that is personally resonant and (sub)culturally relevant. Products and experiences that create cult-like community. And a brand that leaves a lasting impact.
Are you as interested as I am in niche influence and cult-like community building? Let me know in the comments below if this is a topic you’d like for me to write more about.
This is incredibly interesting to me from a selfish perspective — I am working slowly to migrate from the lower left into the lower right prior to putting my fashion essay collection into the world. I just spoke to a successful beauty founder yesterday about how I am always going to be niche, given my work (my writing's larger mission to change the narrative of aging and to publish these fashion-centric tales of love, loss and finding my authentic self as told through what I wore), and her response was perfect. "Small can be powerful when it's the right audience." I will get there but love having your axis diagram to remind me that the right quadrant is not only acceptable but a phenomenal place to be.
such good writing! loved your commentary on how the job of the marketer is to make brands seem bigger than they are. so true.