For anyone who has watched The Office (if you haven’t then you need to), you know that Michael Scott is one-of-a-kind. He is always doing things his own way and usually it doesn’t go very well. However, after binge watching the series again (for the 6th time), I realized that Michael Scott can actually provide some valuable marketing tips and insights.
From Prison Mike to Caleb Crawdad, if there is one thing that Michael Scott knows how to do, it’s creating a persona. With Prison Mike, he channels his inner “thug” in order to relate to a new office employee that was a former convict. As Caleb Crawdad, he becomes a Southerner unfamiliar with technology, “I do declare.” Michael tries to think like his personas in order to connect with them. As marketers, it is extremely important to know your persona so that you can create content that will appeal to them. Get started on building the right persona in order to attract the right individuals and generate more valuable leads.
If there is an episode that really shows a classic Michael Scott, it is The Golden Ticket episode. For those who haven’t seen it, Michael becomes Willy Wonka and hides “golden tickets” in paper boxes in order to give customers a 10% discount. However, Michael puts the tickets in five boxes next to each other, which results in the same company getting all the discounts. He did not think his strategy through and did not specify that it was one ticket per customer, as a result losing 50% of the account's income. The most important part of creating a strategy is thinking the entire process through from all angles before execution.
Whether it’s having YouTube come down and tape something for you, like Michael wanted, or sharing something on social media, it is important to know what platform to use when sharing your message. By knowing your personas, you’ll be able to realize what platform it's easiest to engage with them on. Using the best platform for your audience will help you distribute content better and create stronger connections with qualified leads. You can analyze different platforms for different trends in performance in order to see which platform you should use when promoting your message.
As a marketer, you need to be able to adapt to current—and changing—trends. What was popular today might not be popular tomorrow. When Michael was teaching Ryan “The Temp” about business, he told him he needed to “adapt, react, re-adapt and act.” Not only is this good for business, but it's also a helpful approach for marketers: adapting to current trends and reacting to new ones. By staying current and aware of the trends that affect your audience, you can create marketing strategies that they can connect with.
Our last marketing tip from The Office is inspired by Michael’s sidekick, Dwight Schrute. While the office is under his supervision, he creates “Schrute Bucks” as a means to reward and bribe his fellow colleagues. However, no one in the office (with the exception of maybe Angela) has any interest in receiving these Schrute Bucks (especially Stanley). Dwight did not know what was valuable to his audience and wasted time creating Schrute Bucks. In marketing, we must know what is important and valuable to our audience so that we do not encounter the same issue.