Jay Baer, Youtility, and great memories from our CASACADEMY

On May 30, CASACOM hosted the charismatic hype-free digital strategist Jay Baer. An internationally known blogger and speaker, Jay chose Montreal for the Canadian launch of his second book Youtility: Why Smart Marketing is About Help Not Hype. For the occasion, our team had the pleasure of welcoming 200 clients, partners and friends for a CASACADEMY event at Montréal’s Excentris theatre to hear Jay’s inspiring, persuasive and pragmatic presentation.

Here are some of our key insights from the event:

The difference between helping and selling is just two letters.
For Jay Baer, businesses must redefine their marketing methods. To develop more meaningful relationships with their various audiences, organizations must become useful to them. “If you sell something, you make a customer today. Help someone and you make a customer for life,” he says.

Marketing is harder than ever.

Today, and more than ever, the market is fragmented, consumer confidence has diminished, the line between private and professional life is blurred, and information sources have exploded. The result? Competition is tougher than ever and it comes from everywhere, particularly our friends and family. To play their cards right, businesses need to offer ideas so useful that their clients will be ready to pay for them.

Among the examples that Jay cited are the @HiltonSuggests Twitter account, IKEA’s distribution of moving boxes in Montréal around July 1st, the “Nos aliments, vos questions” campaign, and CASACOM’s own Michaels Arts and Crafts campaign.

In Youtility, Jay Baer offers six concrete ways to create Youtility. Businesses must identify their clients’ needs; find the way to respond to these needs by making themselves useful; promote their initiatives effectively; make this approach a cross-disciplinary skill; and, finally, establish criteria for evaluation and measurement.

Youtility at CASACOM
At CASACOM, we love to make ourselves useful to our clients. Our very own CASACADEMY is a great illustration because it allows our clients to learn and progress. Another example which the Greniers d’Or highlighted with two awards last January: our Citybook for Montreal and Toronto, which we offered to our clients for the holidays. This was a very useful tool for our clients who are always looking for a restaurant or hotel.

The concept of Youtility is truly within everyone’s reach. A good starting point for getting there is to implement a fundamental principle of our work: become sincerely interested in others.

Find out what you’ve missed and the interview with Jay on our YouTube channel.