Courtesy of Rewire Me
I was totally floored by a blog post by Jackie Huba of Church of the Customer.
In her post, Huba recounted how Nordstrom – a beacon of premium customer service in the US – upped the ante by replacing her worn-out loyalty card with a new one sent to her home without any prompting. All it took was for Huba to remark that her card was old and presto! A new card was delivered.
Predators are better in the movies than on the streets (source)
There are two forms of marketing out there.
The first is what I call Predatory Marketing. Almost every company and business selling to a consumer does this to some extent.
Don’t ever assume that your customers are the exact duplicate of you. Chances are, they aren’t.
There are so many reasons why they may be different. Human beings are such complex creatures that entire disciplines like anthropology, sociology and psychology have evolved in desperate bids to understand their behaviours.
Courtesy of cartoonstock.com
There is an age-old saying that you cannot make a leopard change its spots. Or teach an old dog new tricks.
Habits, especially deeply ingrained ones, die hard. Sometimes, they can be so addictive that they not only fail to perish, but linger on. Day after day. Week after week. Year after year.
To succeed in the art and science of marketing, one cannot simply stick to one central approach and hope to wing it come what may. What’s needed instead are a mix of both long-term, medium-term and short-term views. The adoption of these perspectives should vary depending on one’s vantage point.
For a start, one should have a clear long-term vision of the goal and desired end point. What are the overall objectives of one’s marketing efforts? Heightened customer satisfaction? Improved profits? Greater sales turnover? Or stronger brand positioning? Deep in the trenches of marketing skirmishes and battles, one should never forget what the end goal is.
Next, one should look at the medium-term strategies that are needed to accomplish that. What would be the few projects spanning several months to year that should be considered? These could be the development of new products, refurbishing of shop-fronts, training of staff in new areas, organisation of events, or upgrading of service levels.
Courtesy of Hella Bus
Have you wondered why a perceived treat or reward sometimes appear better than they really are? Or experienced the endless wait for a brand new gadget to arrive in the stores, rushing to be the first among your friends to get it? How about the thought of that luscious holiday in Europe, where you can soak in the sights, scents and sounds of culture?
The one thing holding these disparate consumption experiences together is anticipation. An oft-forgotten but oh so powerful emotion which grips everyone of us.
Can you deliver what your customers want – before they even ask? (Designed by Freepik)
Remember the last time you visited a store which offered you a cup of warm tea on a cold day?
How did that make you feel? Warm, welcomed, and ready to reward your hosts, I bet.
