The Surprising Lessons 'The Bachelor' Can Teach Business to Business Marketers

Kathryn Nassar is an accomplished campaign strategist at integrated agency, JUST Media, where she focuses on innovative media strategies for brands. Here, Kathryn explores the the lessons marketers can learn from the popular TV series 'The Bachelor'. 

If you watch The Bachelor like I do, you’ve heard the eternal line, 'here for the right reasons,' more times that you could ever wish for, and laughed with your friends at the possibility that anyone goes on a reality TV show set in an LA mansion with free food, booze, and international travel to find love.

Yet the reality of reality love is that 21% of the couples from The Bachelor and The Bachelorette are still together so sure it’s POSSIBLE, but still so so so unlikely. While 21% may have found a partner, 100%* (*not a confirmed fact) have an Instagram - which might be the real reason they’re all there.

In May 2019, twenty previous contestants from The Bachelor and The Bachelorette had over one million followers on Instagram. Hannah Brown, the most recent star of The Bachelorette and now winner of Dancing With The Stars walked away with 2.5 million Instagram followers.

While watching this season of The Bachelor, I was surprised to find parallels between the contestants' journeys and my world of business-to-business marketing. Whether their reason is love or publicity (or both), I’ve dissected the lessons B2B marketers can learn from the massive success of these reality TV show contestants.

VIDEO IS A GREAT MEDIUM TO TELL YOUR BRAND STORY

It’s no accident that every single season of The Bachelor(ette) begins with two (or sometimes three) hours of introductions of every. single. contestant. One by one, they get out of the limo or their choice of alternate transportation with the hopes of impressing the star of the show.

These introductions, while lengthy, give the audience a chance to connect with the contestants early on – to understand their story and why we, the audience, should care about them. We get to understand them better in these three to five minutes than we have from all the pre-premiere social media stalking we’ve all definitely done.

So what’s the lesson here? Video is great for brand storytelling. You can’t rely on the standard IAB banners of the past for prospecting audiences. Take advantage of the opportunity that video platforms provide to communicate why potential customers should care about your brand.

BE FRIENDS WITH THE POPULAR GIRL

Every year we get 40+ new potential influencers from the franchise, and not all of them will make it to the level of influencer that allows them to drop everything and move to LA to pursue some dream or another. Many of the contestants will leave the show and go back to LA alone and on the celebrity D list.

One trick to stay important? Make friends with the popular girls. It’s the ageless brand tenant: brands sell brands. They will leverage their relationships with better known past contestants to launch themselves as influencers. B2B advertisers should remember that good opinion is contagious – if their favorite bachelor contestant is (obviously) Demi Burnett, then Katie Morton can only grow my opinion of her by them being friends.

CONTRIBUTION IS EVERYTHING

Hannah Brown was a controversial choice for bachelorette #867, but darn it if I didn’t yell at all of my friends who thought it should have been Hannah G. or Tasia that they were sadly mistaken.

Why did I care so much? Because during Hannah’s time on The Bachelor, her journey to understand herself was relatable to me. She was genuine in her struggle with making full sentences, following her faith in the weirdest environment ever, and making it through some serious girl drama. During the whole season, she was posting Instagram stories that revealed how awkward it really was for her and her internal monologue. By the end of Colton’s season I was in with Hannah because she let us all join her team. Sure, the other ladies were nice, but were they as open and authentic as Hannah? Absolutely not.

One of the biggest misses for brands is their lack of community management. Building community can catapult your brand from the product that your customers enjoy to the most-needed tool that your customers actually advocate for you. The secret to building a community of people that love you? Authentically contribute to your community. Just ask Hannah, now an ex-bachelorette, the winner of Dancing With The Stars, followed by over 2.5 million Instagram followers, and was just asked to come back and be Bachelorette again

Going into The Bachelor’s finale on March 10th - and indefinitely through your career - I hope this summation of lessons can help amplify your B2B marketing approach. Do you accept this rose?