Taylor Swift: B2B Marketing Lessons on Brand Voice with Meghan Barr, VP of Brand, Content & Communications at ZoomInfo

Nailing down your brand voice is tough. Especially when you’re writing content for videos, blogs, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok…we could go on forever. 

Because a strong brand voice helps you stand out, drives brand affinity, and improves conversion rates. But where do you even start? What tone do you use? How wordy or concise should you be? We have answers for you. 

We’re tuning in to the Queen of brand voice today: Taylor Swift. Along with VP of Brand, Content and Communications at ZoomInfo, Meghan Barr, we’re exploring how Taylor Swift listens to her audience, how she defines her writing style, and how that changes with each reinvention. So grab your glitter pen and take notes on this episode of Remarkable.

About our guest, Meghan Barr

Meghan Barr is VP of Brand, Content and Communications at ZoomInfo. She joined ZoomInfo in January 2021 as Senior Director of Content and Communications. 

After nearly two decades as an award-winning journalist at The Associated Press and The Boston Globe, Meghan joined the tech world at ZoomInfo, a software company that is modernizing how businesses go to market.

During her journalism career, Meghan covered some of the biggest breaking news stories in the world, including Occupy Wall Street, Superstorm Sandy, and the Boston Marathon bombings. As a reporter based in several Midwestern cities and, later, New York City, she broke news about serial killers, witnessed a death row execution by lethal injection, followed politicians on the 2008 presidential campaign trail, drove through flooded roadways, chased ambulances and tornadoes, climbed to the top of the World Trade Center on a rickety ladder, interviewed famous athletes, and generally had a lot of amazing adventures. Over the years, her areas of expertise included crime, income inequality, transportation, and tourism. She also became one of the AP's trained video journalists capable of shooting and producing my own video reports streamed globally to clients for AP Television News.

As an editor, Meghan directed metro news coverage on Boston.com for several years before becoming an editor at The Boston Globe Magazine, where she commissioned and edited longform narrative features and adapted excerpts from forthcoming works of nonfiction.

Meghan is passionate about telling impactful stories that resonate. She’s also dedicated to helping working parents succeed in a world where the odds are stacked against them, particularly for working mothers. At the Globe, she was part of a fierce committee of women who successfully lobbied for a better family leave policy. At ZoomInfo, she launched a caregivers employee resource group to help support and advocate for employees who care for children or elderly relatives.

About ZoomInfo

ZoomInfo (NASDAQ: ZI) is a leader in modern go-to-market software, data, and intelligence for more than 30,000 companies worldwide. ZoomInfo’s revenue operating system, RevOS, empowers business-to-business sales, marketing, operations, and recruiting professionals to hit their number by pairing best-in-class technology with unrivaled data coverage, accuracy, and depth of company and contact information. With integrations embedded into workflows and technology stacks, including the leading CRM, Sales Engagement, Marketing Automation, and Talent Management applications, ZoomInfo drives more predictable, accelerated, and sustainable growth for its customers. ZoomInfo emphasizes GDPR and CCPA compliance. In addition to creating the industry’s first proactive notice program, the company is a registered data broker with the states of California and Vermont.

About Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift is a singer and songwriter and all-around music industry phenomenon who is currently on her much-talked-about Eras Tour. She was originally known for country music but is overall considered a pop artist. She has collected Grammys, American Music Awards, Billboard Music Awards, and more #1 albums than any other woman ever. She has a strong, defined personal brand that fans tap into, namely the red lipstick, wearing the number 13, and wearing friendship bracelets. She’s also a strong advocate for artist’s rights. 

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Taylor Swift:

• Decide who you are as a company. What are your values? What’s your mission? How would you describe your company? Answer these questions first, and that will inform your brand voice. Meghan says, “Which brand archetype are you? You can be the hero. You can be a helper. It’s an important question of like, ‘Who do you want to be as a company? Who do you want to be as a brand? What are you all about, basically?’
• Lurk on your audience. Tune into their social media to find out what matters to them. Then create content that plays to your audience’s values. Taylor Swift calls her approach “Tay-lurking.” She investigates what fans are doing and saying on social media, and that’s how she understands what they care about. She then builds it into content. This way, she gives fans what they want (another concert, hidden Easter eggs, etc.).
• Put effort into building your community. Community doesn’t build itself; it depends on give and take. (Emphasis on the “give” part). The energy and attention that you invest in your community comes right back to you in the form of brand affinity. Taylor Swift is constantly engaging with her fans, whether it’s at her concerts and giving away her black fedora to a special fan, on social media, or at meet and greets. She gives the impression of being very accessible, and that she “gets” her fans. So put some effort into building that emotional connection and reap the benefits.
• Reinvent your brand to renew audience interest. As your company grows and develops, refresh your brand to reflect the change. Taylor Swift has reinvented (aka rebranded) herself many times, from country music to pop, album to album. Each has had a different feel and look. Even the name of her tour - The Eras Tour - plays to this. She has grown and changed through each era, each album. And her fans have grown with her, gaining momentum. Taylor Swift even uses different voices in her songs. At the 2022 Nashville Songwriters Association International annual ceremony, she said she has three styles of lyrics: quill lyrics, fountain pen lyrics, and gel pen lyrics. The important part is that Taylor Swift is the one writing them. And it’s her personal brand fans are attached to. She already made a psychological bond with them, and they are always looking out for new content from her. So keep your branding feeling fresh, including your brand voice, so your audience stays invested.

Quotes

*“The Tay-lurking thing is her listening. Like every good marketer, she spends time with the customers. She's out there listening to what her fans want and responding to that stuff. That's how she can layer in all these little hidden messages and hidden secrets and know that people are going to find them because she's probably reading how much people love that stuff.” - Ian Faison

*”She's investing the time in her fans that they are investing in her. She’s feeding the frenzy of her fans, of the community. You have to invest in your audience. You have to listen to them and actually put the work in.” - Meghan Barr

*”One of the big marketing takeaways from Taylor Swift in the totality of her career is her acknowledgement that ‘I know my fans better than you know them.’ She knows what she’s making and who it's for. And if you don't like it, it's not for you.” - Ian Faison

*"You can't be everything for everyone. You have to pick a lane, you have to decide what you're doing and commit to it.” - Meghan Barr

*”If you don't know your audience, you're going to fail. You have to know who they are, what they think about, what they're worried about, what they're stressing about… you have to really put in that time and effort. Because otherwise you can't get inside their heads. You can't figure out what's going to resonate with them." - Meghan Barr

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Meghan Barr, VP of Brand, Content and Communications at ZoomInfo

[1:33] Why are we covering Taylor Swift?

[2:52] What does Meghan do at ZoomInfo?

[4:07] Learn more about Taylor Swift

[9:49] Why is Taylor Swift remarkable?

[13:09] Why authenticity is more important today, after the advent of AI in marketing

[24:14] More marketing takeaways from Taylor Swift

[38:45] Learn about the modern go-to-market index

Links

Listen to Taylor Swift

Connect with Meghan on LinkedIn

Learn more about ZoomInfo

Read the AdWeek article on ZoomInfo’s collaboration with Colossus

Check out ZoomInfo’s go-to-market plays

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at