Episode 51: Focus on the Person, with Tara-Nicholle Nelson

Tara-Nicholle Nelson is the Founder and CEO of Transformational Consumer Insights, Inc., a data, insight, and strategy firm. TCI helps brands understand, reach, and engage Transformational Consumers: a hyper-growth segment of consumers that view all of life as a series of campaigns to change their behavior in order to live healthier, wealthier, wiser lives.

Formerly, Tara was the first and only VP, Marketing for MyFitnessPal, now part of Under Armour Connected Fitness. Over 160 million people worldwide use Under Armour Connected Fitness apps to get an around-the-clock view of their food and fitness activities.

In Tara’s first year on the job, MyFitnessPal grew from 45 million to 100 million users, drove a 22 percent increase in user engagement, and went from raising an $18 million Series A to the acquisition by Under Armour for $475 million.

Tara created the Transformational Consumer Insights framework in 2012, and has continued to develop it throughout a career of working with the biggest brands in consumer tech to reach and engage hundreds of millions of consumers by helping them make the difficult behavior changes they struggle with as they aspire to live healthier, wealthier, and wiser lives.

Tara’s exuberant belief that business can be a powerful, transformational force for humanity and her team’s deep expertise in predictive data science, neuropsychology, behavioral economics, content marketing, brand, and digital strategy powers TCI’s approach and offerings.

Tara has developed and executed integrated marketing, content, PR and social media strategies that achieved the traffic, brand, PR, niche marketing, business development and revenue objectives of behavior-focused digital companies like HGTV, Eventbrite, ING Direct, Chegg, Lookout Mobile Security, ModCloth, and real estate search engine Trulia.com.

Tara holds a Master’s degree in Psychology and a Juris Doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley. Tara is the Board President of City Slicker Farms, a non-profit community farming and food security organization in West Oakland.  

“Part of the reason most B2B marketing is terrible is that people think they’re marketing to a company, but that’s not a thing. Every single person who is going to place the order is a human being.” - Tara-Nicholle Nelson 

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

• Why you need to focus more on the people that you’re marketing to instead of the product that you are marketing
• Transformational consumers: what you need to know about marketing to these influential consumers
• Why consumer disengagement is a human problem, not a digital problem
• Why you can’t do B2B marketing without focusing on the humans placing the order
• Why you need to spend enough time on the customers you already have
• Why all of the teams in your company need to align on one goal
• Why you should negotiate to be able to achieve your marketing efforts cheaper
• Why you need to focus on the message, not the medium

Ways to contact Tara:

• Website: transformationalconsumer.com
• Twitter: @taranicholle
• Book: "The Transformational Consumer: Fuel a Lifelong Love Affair with Your Customers by Helping Them Get Healthier, Wealthier, and Wiser"
• City Slicker Farms: www.cityslickerfarms.org