Have you seen the latest JetBlue commercial design? You know, the one with the great use of the analogy using pigeons? And perhaps the best value proposition examples in a commercial I have ever seen.
Quite clever isn’t it, and likely one you will remember and maybe even talk about, right?
Ever written an advertisement, or thought about it? I’ve done marketing for my clients in small businesses for the past 6+ years. Along the way, I’ve learned a few things about making advertising look professional even on a tight budget.
It is a simple concept. People don’t read ads, they read what interests them. So if you are going to generate content marketing campaign designs, you are going to have to create an interesting copy. And, oh, by the way, it must be more interesting than the millions of other advertisements out there. Now that is a daunting task, isn’t it?
The true measure of successful advertising design is having customers remember and talk about the message.
Many small businesses don’t have a lot of time or resources to create ads professionally made. But that may be because they make it too complex.
Remember in marketing or advertising, you need to create information that your customers find interesting, entertaining, and worth talking about and remembering.
Does a commercial have the power to encourage the right sort of conversations? That is the objective, isn’t it? Let’s explore why this is so important.
According to Nielsen, there are 27,000,000 pieces of content are shared each day.
Statistic Brain says that our average attention span has dropped from 12 seconds in 2000 to 8 seconds. That is one second less than a goldfish!
We check our phones 150 times per day. We check our email up to 30 times an hour. In addition, the amount of information in the world continues to double every 18 months.
All this available information and data is creating a battle for customer attention between brands, publishers, and marketers. That is everyone who creates marketing content.
But more importantly, it’s forcing businesses to think more and more as creative designers. These are designs where they utilize visual analogies to help carry their messages.
Advertising is a key component of your marketing campaign. Campaigns for awareness or consumer education of your value. So your value propositions are a critical element.
If everyone is creating content, how does a business break through the noise? How do we reach our customers in a way that engages them?
And, oh by the way, it must be more interesting than the millions of other advertisements out there. Now that is a daunting task, isn’t it? JetBlue marketing has sought to overcome this dilemma with a powerful analogy to capture your attention.
If you would like to see this brilliant new ad campaign called “Air on the Side of Humanity”, you can check it out here.
Let me explain why I believe this commercial is so successful:
A visual analogy.
Value proposition examples … create a visual analogy
JetBlue ingeniously use pigeons as a transposed metaphor for frequent flyers. Airline passengers who are challenged by business travel and crowded flights.
Believe me, I can relate. The spot shows these crowded skies full of pigeons. This is all the while as an off-camera narrator says “the reality of flying is not very pretty”.
That is an awesome overstatement. It’s a royal headache and a major inconvenience.
Here is a short 3-minute video that will refresh this subject:
They show crowded jostled pigeons on a building ledge lined up single file facing the camera.
As this occurs, the narrator says, “They pack you in there. You hardly have any space for yourself. Hey, I’m a big guy and I need some room to breathe”.
The narrator continues talking about the future situation being bleak. Meanwhile, the camera focuses on a man’s legs sitting on a park bench throwing crumbs to pigeons on the sidewalk.
With humor, the narrator says, “They throw you crumbs and act as if it’s a 5 course meal”.
Next, they show a lonely pigeon on a busy pedestrian sidewalk as people walk around ignoring the confused bird.
Here the narrator says, “I feel completely ignored”.
Then the narrator asks the question, “There’s gotta be a way to fly with a little respect, you know?”
Value proposition examples … connect the dots
Making powerful motivational messages to your target audience, as in this ad, can be very effective. I certainly agree for this ad. It does a great job in getting the viewer to relate to the issue in their own life and to inspire.
So simple that the reader will quickly grasp the motivation. Keep in mind that the analogy is far more valuable than words.
This ad make the desired call to action a part of the story.
A good emotional story provides very good connection between the issue and the company promoting their message. The ad does explain the action in the story for the audience.
And it allows each member of the audience to interpret the story as he or she understands the action and the emotion.
This is why people find good stories so appealing. It is why they find advertising that simply conveys information boring.
Experiences that trigger our emotions are saved and consolidated in lasting memory. Why is that?
Because the emotions generated by the experiences signal our brains that they are important to remember. They create a good reason for you to want to back the JetBlue message, yes?
Message
At the end of the commercial, they cut to a different voiceover announcer who says,
“Enjoy JetBlue’s award-winning service, free unlimited snacks and the most legroom in coach.”
An awesome way to engage customers, isn’t it?
What I love about this engagement approach is that it takes a customer experience perspective. A perspective that no doubt was derived through deep customer insights.
As a frequent flyer myself, I was able to relate to the spot on multiple levels. I can just imagine what the creative brainstorming design session must’ve looked like.
It probably went something like this. Let’s find a metaphor for flying. Like pigeons. Lets put them in crowded lines and jostled frustrating situations
Lets show crowded skies of birds flapping their wings. Demonstrate the food is not very good.
Throw some crumbs on the street for the pigeons. And show how nobody cares about the passenger by showing the birds on a crowded sidewalk alone being ignored.
Then ask the question, there has to be a better way. The answer from JetBlue is simple and effective.
Marketing always has been and always will be about telling stories… stories that influence behavior and convince people to act on value.
Make sure your social media content tells a story and that your story is compelling and relevant–especially your headlines and the value propositions.
Air on the side of humanity! Here is where they simply spell out their 3 point value propositions:
Award-winning customer service
Free unlimited snacks
Most legroom in coach
Simple and easy. And brilliant.
The bottom line
It is a simple concept. People don’t read ads, they read what interests or entertains them. So if you are going to generate advertising and design, you are going to have to create an interesting copy.
JetBlue marketing has sought to overcome this dilemma with an entertaining commercial as its power of persuasion.
If you remember one thing from this article, remember this:
Marketing or advertising, you need to create information that your customers find interesting. Information that you make worth talking about and remembering.
And stand for things that potential customers value.
We believe this JetBlue ad is interesting, entertaining, and stands for things viewers can stand behind. We believe it is persuasive and certainly creates the right kind of conversation.
What do you think?
Heard enough? I rest my case.
So what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only the next step. And that next step is completely up to you.
It’s up to you to keep improving your innovation and creativity in ad designs. Lessons are all around you. In many situations, your competitor may be providing the ideas and or inspiration. But the key is in knowing that it is within you already.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new lessons.
When things go wrong, what’s most important is your next step.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your innovation design?
Do you have a lesson about making your innovation better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.
More reading on brands and branding from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on Facebook, Twitter, Quora, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
Have you noticed how important customer service and customer experience have become to your marketing? Particularly with your ability to influence customers to talk about your business? Customer service intangibles are at the heart of these important influencers.
And the next generation customer service rules will only heighten this transition.
How often, as a customer, do you experience WOW customer service. The type of experiences that you normally can’t imagine? Average or less customer service seems like the norm in many industries.
Here is an interesting story I’d like to share:
Once upon a time, a very strong woodcutter asked for a job with a timber merchant, and he got it. The pay was really good, and so were the work conditions. For that reason, the woodcutter was determined to do his best. His boss gave him an ax and showed him the area where he was supposed to work.
The first day, the woodcutter brought in 18 trees, and of course, his boss congratulated him. Motivated by his boss’s words, the woodcutter tried harder the next day, but he could only bring in 15 trees. On the third day, he tried even harder, but he could only bring in 10 trees. Day after day he was bringing in fewer and fewer trees.
The woodcutter thought he was losing his strength, and he went to the boss and apologized, saying that he couldn’t understand what was going on. His boss then asked, “When was the last time you sharpened your ax?” Appalled by the question, the woodcutter harshly replied, “Sharpen my ax? I have no time to do that. I’ve been busy cutting trees.”
So I pose this question to you: Are you too busy chopping trees on the front line and not allocating the time needed to sharpen your marketingskills? What is that costing you and your business? Furthermore, how much time would it really take to keep your marketing ax sharp?
In some, it’s so common that when we provide great service, we yield customers who feel like they’ve won the lottery.
Even if it is only for a moment. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Customer service intangibles are not rocket science.
The ultimate goal of all the points I list below is this: eliminate the fluff from your marketing strategy. Focus only on the things that work.
Many organizations have big challenges that can be obstacles to providing great customer service. But so do many other companies that find ways to provide the wow attention-getter.
They choose to overcome their challenges and they take care of their customers very well. They pay particular attention to customer service intangibles.
And they make a point to do it consistently.
We often get a questions and comments on customer service intangibles from clients and people commenting on our blog. Many relate to customer service actions that are reminders of what we already know (but we occasionally forget).
These are the bid enablers of customer service. They usually won’t create WOW service on their own, but their absence is noted by customers. Without them makes excellent customer service just good or less.
As we work with companies to help them in improving customer service, some things stand out. These are things a lot of small businesses don’t do consistently.
Yet if they did they’d find the quality of their customer service would improve significantly. Their customer loyalty would also increase.
Here are ten intangibles to pay attention to for improving the customer service you are providing. I know many companies already do some or all of these things. And for those that do, it shows.
They are the organizations people rave about. They are the service superstars.
We all know not every customer request is easy or possible to fulfill. But rather than tell them “no”, try to find other ways to help them get what they want.
Always focus on finding a solution. And, when you do this, customers will come back more often. Why is that? It is because they know you you’ll do everything you can to help them.
Attentiveness
When a customer is telling you his issue, give them your complete attention. Customers consistently tell us they hate dealing with employees who don’t listen or pay attention.
When you begin talking with a customer, stop whatever else you are doing and focus on them. Don’t multi-task. Don’t half-listen. Write down what they are telling you and get specifics from them.
Make appropriate eye contact, listen, nod, and show them you are paying attention. Then confirm that you understand.
Using tact?
Tact
You may not be the owner, but you should care like you’re the owner. Not all owners or executives make great leaders, but the ones that are should be emulated.
Watch how they take pride in how they deal with customers and employees. Watch their tact. Then copy them. Act and care like you are the owner.
When talking with a new customer, give them your full name and get theirs right away. This makes your conversation more personal. It will enable you to better connect with your customer.
It also tells your customer you’re willing to be accountable for helping them. This is because if you don’t, they know who you are.
Don’t forget to say, “Thank you!” It would be remiss of me not to remind you to show appreciation.
Understanding
Remember this; little details can often create big experiences. Pay attention to and fully understand all the details.
Figure out the details that your customers enjoy and make them a routine part of doing business with you.
Sensitivity
Use language that demonstrates you think in terms of customer centric. Put customer needs ahead of your own.
Design your processes and policies with your customer in mind. Here is an example often overlooked. Always update phone messages to be customer centric.
Think creatively when solving customer issues. See your customer as someone who needs your help.
But to deliver WOW service, remember your customers are there because they want and need YOUR help.
And remember how good it feels to help someone in need! Always go the extra mile.
Flow
No one knows what your customers want better than your customers. If you ask them with genuine interest, they will tell you.
So ask them and heed their advice. Go with their flow.
Customer service intangibles … satisfaction
Focus on what you can do, not what you can’t. Always follow up and follow through to increase customer satisfaction.
One of the biggest complaints people have is they never hear back from sales or service employees. Someone promises to do something and it never happens. A huge NO-NO.
An easy way to thrill your customers is to simply do what you say you will. Whatever you promise, do it promptly, thoroughly and accurately.
Then do a little more. It thrills them every time!
Knowledge
Use language that demonstrates you think in terms of customer-centric. Put customer needs ahead of your own.
From the beginning, there have always been gamed accounts in the influencer world. But the dramatic new emphasis on celebrity over authority signals a permanent shift in how we must view and measure content creators.
With big money forging celebrities instead of authorities, we will probably see fewer experts and more entertainers in this generation.
Undoubtedly, the big influencer money will pressure more young people into making poor decisions to fake numbers that will hurt them in the long term.
Brands simply must look beyond the audience and engagement numbers. Vetting talent will be much harder. There has to be a focus on advocacy and meaningful engagement.
Design your processes and policies with your customer in mind.
Attitude
Be sure and set aside time to look at the big picture which controls your attitude. Things are never constant or ever as they seem. Your big picture analysis is essential in helping you adapt to change.
To illustrate how simple things in customer service can happen without much notice, we like to use the following example.
We occasionally visited Kentucky Fried Chicken for lunch until a disappointment with a KFC takeout order of soggy, unappetizing chicken and fries.
We called the restaurant chain’s toll-free number to complain but was told that complaints should be directed to the specific location’s manager.
One call is worth the effort for us, but not two. This is especially if the company shows a lack of interest in the first call. We found it easier, given these two incidents, to find a new place for lunch.
KFC lost a customer without even knowing it had happened. You can bet your customers make “silent” decisions like this on a regular basis.
So make it easy for them to complain. Don’t rely on feedback forms. Ask customers for direct, face-to-face opinions. Do it regularly and have them know whom they can complain to, if anything goes wrong.
The bottom line
What your customer perceives about your company is what determines whether they will stay with you. And their perception is built one contact at a time.
Even one bad experience can taint their perception of you. So make sure every contact they have is a great one.
Create customer evangelists by caring about your customers and showing them everything you do.
Need some help in building better customer trust from your customer experiences? Creative ideas to help grow your customer relationships?
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas to make your customer experiences better.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.
More reading on customer service and customer experience from our Library:
Influence Consumer Behavior Through Personalization Strategies
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on Facebook, Twitter, Quora, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
Be in touch with your customers. It is the only way to gain meaningful insights. Does your business focus on customer complaints and the problems behind them? Customer complaints are an incredibly important part of remarkable customer retention strategies and therefore the overall service experience you deliver. Here we will discuss ways to take full advantage of the information in customer complaints. But first, an important question for you.
Have you ever turned a customer complaint into a future opportunity, or better yet, a customer advocate? It can be really rewarding, yes? Oftentimes, a negative experience that a customer has with your business can be salvaged and turned into an opportunity to win them over for life.
But handled poorly, and you could lose customers for life. This is such an important element of customer service that we use it as a critical element of our customer service workshops. We use it to show the power we all have to give our customers a memorable experience.
Great businesses are never built through excessive reverence of a storied past. In an age of disruption, the only viable strategy is to adapt.
Let me share a story with you:
There is an interesting story about how Pablo Picasso, the famous Spanish artist, developed the ability to produce remarkable work in just minutes.
As the story goes, Picasso was walking through the market one day when a woman spotted him. She stopped the artist, pulled out a piece of paper, and said, “Mr. Picasso, I am a fan of your work. Please, could you do a little drawing for me?”
Picasso smiled and quickly drew a small, but beautiful piece of art on the paper. Then, he handed the paper back to her saying, “That will be one million dollars.”
“But Mr. Picasso,” the woman said. “It only took you thirty seconds to draw this little masterpiece.”
“My good woman,” Picasso said, “It took me thirty years to draw that masterpiece in thirty seconds.”
Picasso isn’t the only brilliant creative who worked for decades to master his craft. His journey is typical of many creative geniuses. Even people of considerable talent rarely produce incredible work before decades of practice.
The ultimate goal of all the points I list below is this: eliminate the fluff from your marketing strategy and focus only on the things that work.
Related: Should a Business Send Customers to Competitors?
Here are some simple recommendations I use in the workshop to help people handle customer complaints. If you and your staff follow these rules, you can turn unhappy customers into loyal cheerleaders for your business.
Customer retention strategies … listen completely
Give them your complete attention. Don’t multi-task. Don’t half- listen. Write down what they are telling you and get specifics from them. Then confirm that you understand. Focus only on them.
Deal directly and don’t hand them off
Please hold while we transfer you. Your call is very important to us.
Don’t you hate this response? While you’ll experience less of this problem when handling support via email, it’s still important to get people to the right employee quickly.
Never miss an opportunity to briefly explain to a customer why this transfer will be to their benefit. It’s hard to get any customer happy or excited about being transferred, but consider the two choices you have:
You are getting transferred. “Well, this stinks!”
You will be transferred to our ____ specialist who can better answer your question. “Well … okay, then!”
Without this relevant insertion, customers won’t know that you are actually trying to do the right thing.
Don’t be too formal
Customers want to be treated with respect, but if you stop treating customers like regular people and start talking like a corporate stiff then they won’t interpret the interaction as genuine.
Research suggests that personalization is powerful when interacting with anyone, but especially with your customers.
Remember that you’re not speaking to the Queen of England, so refer to your “chat” with a customer rather than your “correspondence” with them. Remember to speak as if you were talking with an acquaintance. A little familiarity can go a long way toward getting customers on your side.
Customer retention strategies.
Letthem vent
Don’t interrupt. Don’t explain, defend or justify. They don’t care why the problem occurred and they don’t want your side of the story. They are angry and they want to vent, so let them.
Apologize and mean it
This is often hard, especially if you did not cause the problem. When you apologize in this situation you are not necessarily taking blame for causing the problem. You are apologizing for the customer having a bad experience. Put yourself in their shoes. Be sincere.
Complete your complaint understanding
There is a fine line between simply following up after handling a complaint and inadvertently inviting customers to complain even more.
Let’s look at the following two responses:
“Is there anything else wrong?”
“How else can I help you today?”
Asking a customer, who just complained, a leading, negative question such as #1 will lead to compounding the complaint and a mistake to avoid.
Conversely, inquiring how you may be able to further assist a customer lets them know that you are willing to stick it out if they have any other issues to address.
Be quick in response
We often discuss some pretty strong cases for spending more time with your customers, but you saw the data above … complaints are a slightly different beast that greatly degrade when slowly responded to. Work to close issues as quickly as possible. Benefits increase from complaints being resolved quickly.
A customer leaving a feature request won’t sweat the fact that it took you a day to get back to them. However, unhappy customers want resolution yesterday, so you need to make responding to them a priority.
In almost every other instance I would encourage you to slow down your service, but in this case you need to make moves to right the wrong as soon as possible!
Ask them how you can make things right. Then do more.
To illustrate how this happens, we like to use the following example. We occasionally visit Kentucky Fried Chicken for lunch until a disappointment with a KFC takeout order of soggy, unappetizing chicken and fries. We called the restaurant chain’s toll-free number to complain, but was told that complaints should be directed to the specific location’s manager. One call is worth the effort for us, but not two … especially if the company shows a lack of interest in the first call. We find it easier, given these two incidents, to find a new place for lunch.
KFC lost a customer without even knowing it had happened. You can bet your customers make “silent” decisions like this on a regular basis …so make it easy for them to complain. Don’t rely on feedback forms. Ask customers for direct, face-to-face opinions. Do it regularly and have them know whom they can complain to, if anything goes wrong. The image above is real and a great way to let customers know you are paying attention and care.
Too many employees either have no response to complaints or a generic, stock response, like taking money off the bill. But that risks making the customer even more angry if that’s not what they want done. In fact you might even offend someone by offering them a discount.
A better strategy is to ask them what they want. Most people don’t want much. They usually just want you to listen. But whatever they say, always do it and more. For example, if they ask for their meal free your response might be:
“Mr. Smith, of course your meal tonight is on the house. But I’d also like to buy you and your family dinner the next time you join us. Would that be okay?
Customer retention examples.
Assure them you’ll fix the problem
Because you listened and you confirmed their complaint, you know why they are upset. Take the next step and assure them you will take action to make sure it does not happen again. Otherwise, why would they come back? (You need to fix the problem too.)
Thankthem
Without direct customer feedback, we have no idea if we are delivering the experience our customers want. When they tell us we have failed, they are offering priceless information on how we can improve our business. They are telling us what we need to do to keep customers coming back.
So thank them for their help. It’s a rare customer who will take the time and effort to offer feedback. Thanking them will go a long way toward winning them back.
Revolutions such as this can be more than interesting, they can be instructive. The key concepts of receptivity, network structure, transmission vectors, and instantaneous phase transition are just as important for innovation diffusion (or brand marketing, for that matter) as they are for political action.
Perhaps even more important is what does not play a role. Chasing haphazardly after random followers, seeking the support of influentials (they are usually more of a symptom than a cause) and other gimmicks usually do more harm than good.
The bottom line
If your employees handle every customer complaint using these steps, you’ll keep 99% of them coming back. You’ll have a healthier business because it keeps getting better. And we all know happy, loyal customers are the foundation of a healthy, sustainable business.
Winning customers back with exceptional service is an important aspect of your business that you should focus on, but when customers already have one foot out the door let the parting be as frictionless as possible.
Customers aren’t necessarily done with you for good just because they cancel their account once, so don’t hassle them as they exit. Remind them what they’ll be missing by simply being sincerely helpful.
Need some help in building better customer service for your customers? Have you noticed the growing importance of the service you provide? Creative ideas to help enhance your word of mouth marketing?
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas for your service to customers.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.
Check out these additional articles on customer insights from our library:
Should a Business Send Customers to Competitors?
An Actionable Approach to Target Market Segmentation
Maya Angelou once said: People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. What do you feel is the most important factor in establishing personalized relationship building? How you make customer relationship marketing the most important factor is key.
Hands down the most important factor, in our opinion. Like making new friends. Assure customers that you are who you say you are is the foundation. It is becoming the most important element of social commerce.
“I knew that if I failed I wouldn’t regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not trying.”
For some reason, many of us have been conditioned to be more afraid of failure than we are of inaction. However, failure, in addition to being inherently valuable as a learning process, contains within it the chance of success. And no matter how small that chance is, it’s better than the chances of success when we choose not to even try.
Have you noticed the growth in interactive marketing? How about personalized customer engagement? Lots going on in this field.
But what exactly is interactive marketing? The main ingredient of interactive marketing is being social. At its core, it focuses less on an immediate sale and more on building a relationship. Building relationships with customers by engaging them in conversation.
Customers are the lifeblood of any business, which is why companies often focus a lot of their efforts on continuously acquiring new customers. However, they fail to realize that what matters is not so much how many new customers you acquire but how many loyal customers you keep. It is also harder to acquire new customers than to retain old ones, which means that businesses must shift their focus to customer retention instead.
With the proliferation of social media and mobile phone use, opportunities have surfaced that make interactive marketing easier than ever.
So how are well-known companies putting it to use, and more importantly, how can you? Let’s take a closer look:
Jack Daniels and customer relationship marketing.
Customer relationship marketing … Jack Daniels wants your stories
Stories of intrigue, passion, and maybe a few chairs and tables flying. That’s what great bar tales are made of. Sensing that everyone loves a good story, whiskey manufacturer Jack Daniels invited users to share their wackiest, most unbelievable bar story. They then bundled them into a campaign it called “The Few & Far Between”
Some of the stories involve Jack Daniels, like the “200 Shot Salute”, wherein a well-liked bartender’s remains were cremated and added to shots. These shots were then consumed (knowingly) by patrons at his bar. Others don’t involve Jack at all, but are still funny and worth sharing. The brand doesn’t place itself at the center, but rather hovering in the background, but still noticeable and still in the back of consumers’ minds.
Key takeaway
You don’t have to put your product or service in the spotlight. With interactive content, simply inviting users to share a story from your particular industry can be enough to reinforce your own brand. What stories are your users waiting to tell?
Yoplait shows support to save lives
Every year, Yoplait yogurt donates 10 cents per specially marked pink yogurt lid mailed back to them, to the Susan G. Komen breast cancer foundation. Yoplait’s parent company, General Mills, is estimated to have donated between $35-50 million dollars since the movement started in 1997.
That adds up to hundreds of millions of lids sent in by customers, all for a great cause supported by them all.
Key takeaway
Support a cause that gets your customers involved too. If it is a national cause, then center activities on your local ones.
People are more likely to recommend your product or service to their friends if they can interact with it (i.e. mailing in lids) or even do so on a social basis (like or share) and see the impact of their action.
Related post: Social Media Platforms … The Magic Every Content Marketer Needs
Customer relationship marketing … Coca-Cola and social marketing
Coke’s wildly popular “Share a Coke with…” campaign replaced their iconic logo with popular names and invited consumers to share a coke with their friends.
The hashtag campaign #shareacoke on Instagram generated over 340,000 posts and enjoyed a 96% positive (or neutral) customer reception. That is the kind of numbers any brand dreams about.
Key Takeaway
Sharing a Coke with someone isn’t just about enjoying a drink. To Coke and its customers, it’s about capturing a moment in time and building a friendship. That something all social commerce wants to do.
And while you may not be a giant corporation, you can still add a personalized touch through brand incentives.
Much of the viral marketing that happened 2 summers ago surrounded the Ice Bucket Challenge, designed to raise money for ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease).
As a result of the ice bucket challenge, the ALS Association was able to raise over $79 million dollars while also spreading awareness and gaining exposure for this little-understood disease.
Of course, one of the biggest pulls were the celebrities who participated – tagging each other to see who would be next.
The virality of tagging pals to participate and video their reaction is what made the challenge so memorable for so many. Plus, it started in the hottest part of the year, so it was natural that people didn’t mind “cooling off for a cause”.
Key takeaway
Of course, you don’t need a major celebrity’s endorsement to start your own viral sharing challenge. Think about something simple, fun and do-able by just about anyone.
Whether or not they’ll have the same incredible success that the ALS Association saw remains to be seen, but the seeds of promotion have a chance. You’ll never know until you try.
The bottom line
The great thing about interactive content is how quickly it can spread, and how the concentration is on the customer and their response, rather than the brand and its benefits.
Creating such challenges, stories and relationships often involve little other than a great idea and a receptive audience. The direction is up to you.
What are some of the great examples of interactive marketing you have noticed? Have you used it in your own business?
Share your experiences and perspective with us below in the comments and let us know how it has helped you forge even stronger relationships with customers.
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
The customer never buys what you think you sell. Great quote from Peter Drucker. Have you ever stayed at a Ritz Carlton hotel? Attracted by the Ritz-Carlton marketing strategy?
Do you agree with Peter Drucker in thinking that the Ritz-Carlton doesn’t know what its difference-maker is? More importantly did you decide to stay with this hotel chain because of its difference maker? Not sure? Maybe you will be more certain after you read this article.
Marketing strategy and the Ritz Carlton?
When choosing to learn from other companies’ marketing strategies, it is always helpful to choose one of the unique approaches to marketing.
It’s been nearly half a century since Philip Kotler first published his Principles of Marketing, which has defined the practice of millions of professionals worldwide ever since. It’s no stretch to say that before Kotler, there were no true marketing professionals.
What made Kotler different than what came before is that he took insights from other fields, such as economics, social science, and analytics, and applied them to the marketing arena. Although that may seem basic now, it was groundbreaking then.
Today technology is transforming marketing once again. Although up to this point, most of the impact has been tactical, over the next decade or so there will be a major strategic transformation. This, of course, will be a much harder task because we will not only have to change what we do but how we think.
Marketing, at its best, is about the future. Unfortunately, we spend most of our time stuck in the past. We research what already happened and extrapolate forward to produce a plan. It’s not that we’re lazy, we simply know a whole lot more about the past than the present or the future.
We already know that marketing is becoming more social, local, and mobile, just as we know that big data and new interfaces such as touch, voice, and gesture are becoming increasingly more important. What comes next?
Meet Ritz-Carlton. They have been successfully executing their marketing plan since the early days of their existence. Their strategies have played a significant role in their growth.
An introduction to Ritz-Carlton is perhaps unnecessary. But we’ll give a little refresher just in case. The Ritz is a big brand name for luxury hotels and resorts all over the world.
With 77 locations in major cities and 25 resorts in countries worldwide, they are featured on Zagat Top Survey Lists for dining, hotel, and services. They represent the top brand in the Marriott International list of brands.
What are their secrets to marketing strategy success? It’s pretty simple. It is it’s exceptional customer service and unparalleled hotel experiences. Their goal is to create customers for life.
Here’s how they strive to achieve this lofty goal, with some great examples.
Brand identity at marketing core
The heart of the Ritz-Carlton marketing strategy is their brand. The brand is built into and reflected by its tag line. It is ‘memories by the Ritz-Carlton’. The brand image is the number one factor that drives business.
Since brand image is so important, it’s crucial for you to cut through the clutter and differentiate your brand. Make a difference as an organization that is truly relevant to consumer needs.
If you want to improve the public image of your brand, then what better way is there to do so than by defining it yourself? The Ritz-Carlton does this by telling stories about the hotel through its online content strategy.
Their Stories that Stay with You page elaborates on ways in which their employees and the greater hotel have gone out of their way to ensure a great stay for guests.
The Ritz-Carlton is excellent at not only framing their stories, but in behaving in such a way. That is by providing great customer service at every level. That is where their that great stories happen.
Ritz-Carlton marketing strategy … understand the value of every employee
If you’ve ever held a job where you didn’t feel appreciated, you understand how frustrating it can be. Well, the Ritz-Carlton avoids this pitfall by valuing every employee.
By empowering the employee, the hotel creates a staff that is passionate about the hotel, its services, and its success. Furthermore, happier employees mean happier guests.
In fact, the Ritz-Carlton has empowered employees so much that they have the ability to spend up to $2,000 to ensure guests have an enjoyable stay without seeking permission from management. Wow, now that is impressive, isn’t it?
In Robert Cialdini’s famous book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, he notes that:
The impressive aspect of reciprocation with its accompanying sense of obligation is its pervasiveness in human culture.
It is so widespread that, after intensive study, Alvin Gouldner (1960), along with other sociologists, reported that all human societies subscribe to the rule.
The point is straight forward: Reciprocity is likely something that has evolved in the human brain in order to keep a majority of transactions “fair”.
We often feel obligated to return favors, even if they are unasked for.
This is the ultimate reason why great customer service has such a fantastic value to the marketing objectives.
The research points to this being a universal truth in social interaction and reciprocity.
Small surprises that feel like they were “just for you” can spawn some incredibly strong goodwill from the receiver.
Go the extra mile
Here is a great example of how this hotel staff goes the extra mile for its customers.
A family with three young children arrived at the hotel for a business/leisure weekend. On the last night of their stay, they dined in the hotel’s signature restaurant.
Upon closing of the restaurant, the server attendant found a small stuffed animal tucked underneath a seat cushion. The server immediately recognized that the stuffed animal belonged to one of the young children who had dined at the restaurant earlier that evening.
It was too late to return the stuffed animal then, so they planned a fun way to present the toy the next day. They grabbed the community camera behind the front desk and positioned the stuffed animal to look like it was dining in the restaurant, playing the piano and cooking in the kitchen.
At each location, they captured the moment on camera, and then made a storyline to go with each photo. They then printed all the photos and created a book of “animal adventures” for the young guest.
The picture book and stuffed animal made its way to the guest’s door at 9 a.m. the next morning. The young boy was jumping out of his skin with excitement when he saw his lost companion.
His mother responded, “The Ritz-Carlton always goes that extra mile. This is exactly why my family will only travel to your hotels.”
Ritz-Carlton employees are trained to anticipate the unexpressed wishes of their guests. Frequently the receptionist called early departing quests to ask, ‘We see that you are scheduled to leave very early tomorrow. Can we leave a pot of fresh, hot coffee outside your door?’”
This sort of planning helps employees remember key touch-points with customers. This will in turn aids their ability to provide exceptional service more consistently.
Related post: Social Media Campaigns to Stimulate Learning
Be prepared
One lesson that you might not expect to find, however, is how proactive Ritz-Carlton employees are in planning for mistakes and accidents. Since complaining customers are unavoidable in totality, Ritz-Carlton always focuses on being prepare and ‘planning ahead’.
One of my favorite examples is their practice of “resetting a customer’s internal clock” when the service is taking too long in delivering food orders.
Here is an example. A customer and his wife were staying at the Ritz-Carlton and having dinner at the hotel restaurant. Just when they were about to ask about their order, the waiter appeared and gave them a tomato and mozzarella appetizer.
Notice how this tactic works: With a relatively small gift, the staff can reset the internal clock with a customer by establishing a new time reference point.
While it’s not as the entrée early delivery, it’s certainly better than a waiter returning to a table multiple times to say ‘I’m sorry’.
Perform the unexpected
Here is a great example of doing the totally unexpected. In this case well beyond what was anticipated.
Because of their son’s food allergies, a family vacationing at the Ritz-Carlton, in Bali, was always careful to bring their own supply of specialized eggs and milk.
In this particular instance, however, the food was ruined en route. The Ritz-Carlton manager couldn’t find any of the special items in town, but his executive chef recalled that a store in Singapore sold them.
The chef contacted his mother-in-law, who lived there, and had her purchase the items, then fly to Bali (about 2.5 hours) to deliver them.
The bottom line
Marketing always has been and always will be about telling stories… stories that influence behavior and convince people to act.
Make sure your content tells a story and that your story is compelling and relevant–especially your headlines.
“The value of an idea lies in the using of it.”
Do you have an idea that will change the world? Well, it’s not worth anything unless you can turn that idea into a reality. So take the plunge and see just how far that idea can take you. Or, you can sit around trading advice over the internet.
Wow, talk about unexpected service. Have you ever received an unexpected service from a business that you would share? Do you have any comments or questions to add below?
So what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only the next step. And that next step is completely up to you. But believe in the effectiveness of word of mouth marketing created by remarkable customer service. And put it to good use.
It’s up to you to keep improving your creative marketing strategies. Lessons are all around you. In this case, your competitor may be providing the ideas and or inspiration. But the key is in knowing that it is within you already.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new lessons.
When things go wrong, what’s most important is your next step.
Try. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy improving your marketing, branding, and advertising?
Do you have a lesson about making your marketing strategy better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.
More reading on marketing strategy from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
In fast food, big brands like McDonald’s and Burger King spend considerable investment on national campaigns, constantly broadcasting their messages to consumers. Not Chipotle’s non-traditional marketing strategy.
Chipotle, in contrast, works with a much smaller budget, barely advertises on TV, and does most of its work in-house. And yet they are seeing much better growth, at least in the last few quarters.
It’s been nearly half a century since Philip Kotler first published his Principles of Marketing, which has defined the practice of millions of professionals worldwide ever since. It’s no stretch to say that before Kotler, there were no true marketing professionals.
What made Kotler different than what came before is that he took insights from other fields, such as economics, social science, and analytics, and applied them to the marketing arena. Although that may seem basic now, it was groundbreaking then.
Today technology is transforming marketing once again. Although up to this point, most of the impact has been tactical, over the next decade or so there will be a major strategic transformation. This, of course, will be a much harder task because we will not only have to change what we do but how we think.
“The value of an idea lies in the using of it.”
Do you have an idea that will change the world? Well, it’s not worth anything unless you can turn that idea into a reality. So take the plunge and see just how far that idea can take you. Or, you can sit around trading advice over the internet.
The choice is yours.
Marketing, at its best, is about the future. Unfortunately, we spend most of our time stuck in the past. We research what already happened and extrapolate forward to produce a plan. It’s not that we’re lazy, we simply know a whole lot more about the past than the present or the future.
We already know that marketing is becoming more social, local, and mobile, just as we know that big data and new interfaces such as touch, voice, and gesture are becoming increasingly more important.
How’s that possible?
It comes down to their specific marketing strategy.
There was a recent AdAge report documenting the non-traditional elements of Chipotle’s CMO and his team.
Its strategy was to win over millennials by solidifying its reputation for freshness. It also sought to offer a healthier fare than its competitors.
Traditional media.
The brand also gained reputation by shying away from traditional media. Why you ask?
Because younger audiences feel like it’s less authentic and less easy to connect with.
Chipotle’s marketing strategy TV ad
Even Chipotle’s first national TV ad wasn’t traditional by any means. It featured Willie Nelson telling a two-minute animated story of a farmer whose business grows massive.
Eventually, Willie’s conscience convinces him to revert to more humane, sustainable operations.
Non-traditional marketing … grassroots level
It’s working at a more grassroots level to build support too, like with its Cultivate food and music festival and its Farm Team loyalty program. All are focused on humane food sourcing and organic farming.
The bottom line
The lessons we can take away from the Chipotle marketing strategy?
Know which customers you want to target, study their characteristics, likes, and dislikes, and build your strategy around these.
So, guess what? Chipotle’s strategy, while different than their larger competitors, is not so unconventional, is it?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your marketing, branding, and advertising?
Do you have a lesson about making your marketing strategy better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.
More reading on marketing strategy from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
Have you ever heard the remark that age is relevant onlyif you are a cheese? All of my career it seemed I was one of the youngest guys in the room. Then, overnight, I looked around and was shocked to discover I was the oldest guy in the room. Working on my third career, I don’t know why that should have been a surprise to me.
It was though … a reality check. But why? Who knows, especially since I have no fear about the value I bring and my ability to keep delivering relevance in a young person’s world going through rapid change. Luckily the feeling did not last long.
Marketing, at its best, is about the future. Unfortunately, we spend most of our time stuck in the past. We research what already happened and extrapolate forward to produce a plan. It’s not that we’re lazy, we simply know a whole lot more about the past than the present or the future.
We already know that marketing is becoming more social, local, and mobile, just as we know that big data and new interfaces such as touch, voice, and gesture are becoming increasingly more important. What comes next?
Here are my top 5 tips on how I focus on keeping ‘one step ahead’ of the cheese:
Look around mentoring minds.
Do not rest on past successes …
There is nothing more dangerous to life success than a great last result, is there? We are ‘only as good as our next result’. Stay paranoid.
Age is relevant … make yourself a project
Hairdressing icon Vidal Sassoon was famous for having said: “The only place you’ll find success coming before work is in a dictionary.” We have to work on ourselves. Put pressure on ourselves. Critique our days. Give back to society. Be our own very best coaches and cheering squads. All of this applies as much for our personal lives as for our business lives.
Related post: Lessons Learned in LIfe … Class Contiues Daily
Are you a mentoring minds reader?
Continue to add to your connections and be a continuous learner …
Woody Allen said: “85% of the secret of success is just turning up.” Turn up to events. Make that phone call. Read that book. Do that training. Have the courage to ask that question. Make the effort. Stay connected to what’s happening around you.
Age is relevant … is a priority ‘ninja’
Getting more of the important things done every day. Be obsessed with getting priorities rights, on what’s really important, every day, and make sure you spend the majority of your day on these priorities.
Creative minds online … embrace change
Darwin said it was not the strongest of the species that survived, but the ablest to adapt to change. There will be more change in the next five years than we’ve seen in the past 50. Get excited by change. Be part of the most movements that you can. Help shake things up.
The bottom line
“I knew that if I failed I wouldn’t regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not trying.”
For some reason, many of us have been conditioned to be more afraid of failure than we are of inaction. However, failure, in addition to being inherently valuable as a learning process, contains within it the chance of success. And no matter how small that chance is, it’s better than the chances of success when we choose not to even try.
We’ve got one shot at our lives.
Work hard on yourself to stay relevant if you want the chance to avoid being the cheese.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to innovate your social media strategy?
Do you have a lesson about making your advertising better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.
More reading on mentoring from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Brands are verbs, what they do matters much more than what they say. So it is no surprise that we do a lot of research on brands that employ excellent differentiation strategies.
Today’s winning brands aren’t playing it safe. They never say “that’s how we’ve always done it”. They know their brands are more than just a sleek logo or a cool website.
Here is an excellent short video to refresh the topic for you:
The brands that crush their competition are those whose understanding that strategic differentiation goes much deeper. They go deeper than pretty visuals and responsive code. Differentiated branding is layered, sculpted, and tested.
To create a layered, brilliant, and competition-killing brand, three things must align.
Understanding and differentiating from your competition
Combined, these elements create brand magic.
Marketing, at its best, is about the future. Unfortunately, we spend most of our time stuck in the past. We research what already happened and extrapolate forward to produce a plan. It’s not that we’re lazy, we simply know a whole lot more about the past than the present or the future.
We already know that marketing is becoming more social, local, and mobile, just as we know that big data and new interfaces such as touch, voice, and gesture are becoming increasingly more important. What comes next?
To see these three things in action, keep on reading.
Below I’ve highlighted some brilliant companies that our research shows are great at differentiating themselves from their competition.
Differentiation strategy … Lego
It may seem now like a foregone conclusion that The Lego Movie would be a huge hit, but anyone who’s seen a great book, comic or toy turns into a terrible movie knows better.
Before this, the sentence “It was a 90-minute infomercial and it was awesome” could never have been written. But the marketing for the movie was a master class in branded content. It helped it become a global hit, with elaborate the behind-the-scenes videos and teasers.
Dove conducted a study and “found that three-quarters of dads say they are responsible for their child’s emotional well-being. On the flip side, only 20 percent of dads see this role reflected in media.”
These findings provided a backbone for its Dove Men+Care #RealStrength campaign that features dads as important parts of their children’s lives.
Creating a viral megahit twice with the same brand isn’t easy. However, Unilever has shown it can happen with Dove—albeit with plenty of work and strategy.
Unilever had its first monster hit in the Dove “Real Beauty” campaign with “Evolution” in 2005 from Ogilvy & Mather, Toronto.
Nearly eight years later, “Real Beauty Sketches” from Ogilvy Brazil took less than a month to eclipse the reach and impact of its predecessor.
Another great example of user-generated content, Starbucks’ White Cup Contest launched in April 2014.
Here customers across the country were asked to doodle on their Starbucks cups and submit pictures as entries. The winning entry would be the template for a new limited edition Starbucks cup.
Nearly 4,000 customers submitted entries in a three-week span. The contest was a great way for Starbucks to earn publicity and prove that it strongly valued customer feedback.
In addition, Starbucks’ new “#sipface” campaign has made a huge splash in the Instagram world. Launched to promote the new Frappuccino Happy Hour menu.
The campaign encouraged fans to post creative pictures of their “#sipface” on Instagram which were curated and displayed on Frappuccino.com.
Starbucks has been ranked the “fifth-largest brand on Facebook with 34 million fans,” and has over 3.6 million followers on Twitter.
Effective Differentiation … Tourism Queensland
In its quest to find new ways to draw tourists to the Queensland Islands, Tourism Queensland launched its “Best Job in the World” promotion, which proved to be a remarkably effective campaign.
Over 34,000 people from over 200 countries submitted videos to win a six-month caretaker job that paid $150,000 AUD in one of the most beautiful tourist destinations in the world, while countless others enhanced their understanding of Queensland as a vacation option.
To help boost top-of-mind awareness, Coca-Cola created the “Share a Coke” campaign. In this campaign, the company produced Coke bottles with customers’ names on the labels.
They handed them out throughout different cities, in order to increase its exposure on Twitter. Customers were then asked to share the pictures of their personalized coke bottle on Twitter and other social media platforms.
Coca-Cola first launched the campaign in Australia but expanded it to the United States, the United Kingdom, and other regions across the world.
Effective Differentiation … hole Foods
Whole Foods goes beyond being a grocery store, doesn’t it? They’re also content generators and thought leaders.
They use their site to offer a whole new experience for customers offline and online.
While many brands only share content they themselves create, Whole Foods and its Dark Rye Magazine do an impressive job of establishing engagement by reposting a plethora of material from followers.
This has allowed Dark Rye to go beyond the mundane recipe guide to become a blog designed with the clear goal of sharing inspirational works of art. This is true whether they feature food or not.
Competitive differentiation examples … WestJet
Corporate philanthropy can do true good in the world. It can more than pay for itself when done right.
WestJet’s “Christmas Miracle” video proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt.
There is also little doubt that the video went a long way toward building and developing employee morale.
This is another element to creating a successful brand that more companies should give some attention to.
Anyone unsure of the true success of this video should know that a 2014 version was created. This time, WestJet brought Christmas joy to the underprivileged in the Dominican Republic.
By leveraging enough of what worked for the company last year and adding new twists, it continues to draw viewers, grow its brand, and actually do something good for someone else.
Effective business differentiation … Ben and Jerry’s
Ben & Jerry’s uses its ice cream products creatively to express their core values around giving back to society. Their cause is Ben & Jerry’s Foundation.
The Mission of this Foundation is to make the world a better place. They do this by empowering Ben & Jerry’s employees to use available resources to support and encourage outside organizations that are doing good work.
This work includes efforts towards eliminating the underlying causes of environmental and social problems.
Awesomeness is the way we describe Zillow’s differentiation.
They are unlike any other realty brand in the marketplace. Their marketing is simple and genuine emotion.
The bottom line
“The value of an idea lies in the using of it.”
Do you have an idea that will change the world? Well, it’s not worth anything unless you can turn that idea into a reality. So take the plunge and see just how far that idea can take you. Or, you can sit around trading advice over the internet.
Both the power of persuasion and excellence is certainly important to successful differentiation, aren’t they?
These companies certainly have figured this out. Simple, yet interesting. Not selling. What do you think?
Need some help in capturing more customers with your value propositions? Creative ideas to help the differentiation from your competitors?
The choice is yours.
Excellent differentiation strategies.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.
More reading on brands and branding from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
When choosing to learn from others, it is always helpful to choose first-movers like Whole Foods Market. They have been successfully executing Whole Foods Market’s social media marketing campaigns for over 5 years, and their strategy has played a significant role in their growth.
It is a simple concept. People don’t read ads, they read what interests them. So if you are going to generate content marketing campaign designs, you are going to have to create an interesting copy. And, oh, by the way, it must be more interesting than the millions of other advertisements out there. Now that is a daunting task, isn’t it?
If you’re not familiar with Whole Foods Market, it’s a leading natural and organic food store with nearly 300 locations in North America and the United Kingdom.
Their social media strategy is built around their company website and 6 additional social platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, their blog, and recent additions of Foursquare and Pinterest.
Their Twitter accounts are used primarily as a customer service tool … responding to individual customer questions and requests. They have several niche Twitter accounts for such special topics as wine and cheese, as well as accounts for most of the local stores.
Related material: 13 Remarkable Visual Content Marketing Examples
Their Facebook and blog platforms allow them to promote more of their product information, health, recipes, and cooking tip content … engaging as well as educating their customers. They also use both platforms to build their brand image. An example of this is an upcoming special film series “Do Something Reel Film Festival”.
This extensive 6-month series was a celebration of people who understand that small ideas can create big change. The festival’s objectives are to connect the brand with food and environmental issues and to inspire people to make a difference.
Can you change? Of course, you can. Everybody changes every day. But how versatile, agile, and quickly can you adapt yourself and your organization to stay relevant in today’s society?
Organizations are always evolving. What’s different now, is that we set a new speed record of change on a daily basis. Technology gives us unprecedented possibilities. And this sea of opportunities is pushing the traditional bureaucratic, controlled and hierarchical organization into an identity crisis.
There are six key reasons Whole Foods change and social media strategy is a successful difference-maker for their marketing campaign:
Whole Foods, while a large, international company, puts priority on the local component of its strategy. There is a community manager assigned at every store, who manages their customer engagement through multiple platform accounts. They focus on being where the customers are.
They maintain very loose control from corporate headquarters. They assist and collaborate, but the local stores maintain lots of freedom of initiative.
All of the efforts are continually focused on improving relevancy of customer engagement. They are not afraid to experiment to see what works and what doesn’t.
Each social media platform has its primary objectives – with some flexibility and adaptability maintained.
The strategy sets a goal of linking and loose integration of all the platform efforts.
They believe in letting customer engagement and conversation occur as naturally as possible. They listen, observe and apply new ideas from what they learn.
The bottom line
Our world is in flux. There is no part of the consumer experience that is untouched. Digital technology is disrupting the marketplace, while changes in our understanding of the psychology of decision-making have overturned centuries of conventional wisdom. Even a brief summary such as this one can make the challenges seem overwhelming.
So what to do? First, start somewhere. It can be one place or the other, but at least start. The change will be unfolding for years and everyone else is as confused as you are.
There are many ideas that you can take away from Whole Foods Social Media Strategy.
Need some help in capturing more customers from your social media marketing or advertising? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with your customers?
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to innovating your social media strategy?
Do you have a lesson about making your advertising better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.
More reading on social media platforms from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
Do you make continuous improvement a focus of your marketing strategy? Most of the best marketing strategies we study and follow certainly do, and that is an awesome way to do marketing. Yes, the innovative Disney marketing strategy is making their business better and better all the while.
And their growth is all about their marketing strategy. Of course, if you are a family with children or grandchildren you certainly know this.
Too often we obsess about using digital techniques to DRAG customers to our website or social media accounts. But it’s so much easier to show up where they already have an established community — in real life or on the web — and just be a helpful, friendly human being in that environment.
Have you noticed? It is hard not to notice, isn’t it?
Let’s examine the reasons their marketing strategy is so effective:
Marketing, at its best, is about the future. Unfortunately, we spend most of our time stuck in the past. We research what already happened and extrapolate forward to produce a plan. It’s not that we’re lazy, we simply know a whole lot more about the past than the present or the future.
Here is an interesting story about how Pablo Picasso, the famous Spanish artist, developed the ability to produce remarkable work in just minutes.
As the story goes, Picasso was walking through the market one day when a woman spotted him.
She stopped the artist, pulled out a piece of paper, and said, “Mr. Picasso, I am a fan of your work. Please, could you do a little drawing for me?”
Picasso smiled and quickly drew a small, but beautiful piece of art on the paper. Then, he handed the paper back to her saying, “That will be one million dollars.”
“But Mr. Picasso,” the woman said. “It only took you thirty seconds to draw this little masterpiece.”
“My good woman,” Picasso said, “It took me thirty years to draw that masterpiece in thirty seconds.” [1]
Picasso isn’t the only brilliant creative who worked for decades to master his craft. His journey is typical of many creative geniuses. Even people of considerable talent rarely produce incredible work before decades of practice.
We already know that marketing is becoming more social, local, and mobile, just as we know that big data and new interfaces such as touch, voice, and gesture are becoming increasingly more important. What comes next?
Some excellent examples are shown here.
Brand identity
Youthful, magical, fun, and family-oriented, and true to the brand.
While establishing a differentiated meaning for a brand is tough, perhaps the greater challenge facing marketers today is the growing number of places consumers touch a brand. It’s become incredibly more complicated to execute a brand promise. This is what we call bringing the brand to life. Consumers are interacting with brands in myriad new ways, but brand organizations have to move much faster, with greater agility and responsiveness to consumer actions and reactions, which can be at warp-speed in this rapidly changing environment.
The heart of Disney’s marketing strategy is their brand. The brand is built into and reflected by its tag line … the happiest place on earth. They clearly understand that their brand is not about them. Rather it is about how the potential client community sees them, feels about them, and talks about them. They realize that their brand represents their current and future relationships. Their goal is to deliver emotional connection to their services. And they are doing it very well.
Build excitement: Let’s face it; Disney is not a low cost vacation. By providing custom touch points filled with useful and exciting content, unique to each families’ post-purchase, Disney is helping to build excitement. It works, and it’s brilliant.
Personalize: All customers are unique, have different needs, especially in travel. Since this is not a one-size-fits-all world, what everyone needs is different from just about every other person. Disney knew that and deliver a book that is unique for each family. They send a book that was specific to their hotel and reservation details … all the information needed in a custom 15-page book. It works, and it’s brilliant.
Times have changed since Walt Disney’s days but his marketing ideas are still amazing. Let’s take a look at a few of Disney tactics:
Continuous promotion – If there was one thing Walt Disney did well it was promoting his business. And he did so continuously. He made sure he kept his organization in your mind. When it came time to think of going on vacation, to a movie or any of a number of other things Disney always came to mind.
Build lifetime value – Go to a Disney attraction today and find people who have been coming back for decades and many times at that. Disney keeps their customers so happy that they keep coming back, again and again.
Web site
The Disney web sites are the physical center of this firm’s marketing. Their designs are very user friendly, yet contain the means to integrate all the strategy elements we discuss today. They encompass several ways to allow two way client engagements, including live chat, email and telephone.
Again little to no selling, as they let their products do the marketing. Their strategy reflects the belief that pushy sales pitches turn customers off, but personally relevant and interactive engagement switches them on. You can’t help but notice that all the material is put into the language of the client community.
Innovative Disney marketing … it’s the stories
The story is king – Walt knew that the story was the real reason people enjoyed his attractions. Even today, every Disney feature has a story behind it. People relate to these stories. It’s just part of the human condition. They are great at engaging people on a human level. Their stories abound at every turn.
Customer immersion
Always something new: Disney fans keep coming back because there’s always more to see. Disney’s motto isn’t “Lots of Rides”—it’s “The Happiest Place on Earth”. And Disney maintains constant interest by making sure there’s always something else to notice.
Interesting, interactive queueing areas for the rides.
Sporadic “spontaneous” performances by Mary Poppins or Alice and the Mad Hatter at various times of day.
Rides like the Jungle Cruise that are strikingly different at night.
Holiday theming. Different fireworks displays. “Limited-time only” eatables.
In the experience
Continuous theming: If you take away the theming, there’s nothing particularly special about Disneyland’s rides. Tame roller coasters, generic log flumes, perfectly ordinary carousels—off-the-shelf mid-range rides you could go on at any theme park. In fact, several nearby parks have far more extreme and exciting rides.
The thing is, Disney’s theming isn’t just slapping a few cartoon animals on the sides of rides. It’s all about the unique experience, complete and, in its own way, classy.
Engage customers directly: Disney was often seen walking around Disneyland talking to visitors. At other times he’d go to see a Disney movie and get people’s reaction to the picture. This was one of the ways Walt did his market research. You can follow this model also. Don’t always use a marketing research firm or some kind of online research tool, such as Google Analytics. While these are very worthwhile, there’s no substitute for interaction with customers. Get views about your products and services straight from the people who use them.
Details and more details: Enter any Disney property and you will see attention to detail everywhere. You know that something special is ready to happen. This is a key element of any content marketing campaign. Even the street signs on Disney properties pay attention to detail. They are rabbit ears with arrows on them. The company could have used normal street signs but where’s the magic in that?
Adapting to change
Disney parks are in a state of continual change with new entertainment. A very progressive company that keeps up to speed on consumer trends and needs. Certainly always eager to adapt their parks expertise to new areas. And certainly always looking to try new things, including marketing.
Can you change? Of course, you can. Everybody changes every day. But how versatile, agile, and quickly can you adapt yourself and your organization to stay relevant in today’s society?
Organizations are always evolving. What’s different now, is that we set a new speed record of change on a daily basis. Technology gives us unprecedented possibilities. And this sea of opportunities is pushing the traditional bureaucratic, controlled and hierarchical organization into an identity crisis.
Social media
Disney utilize all the main social media channels/platforms to engage potential clients. All channels are used to engage and share all their material in a conversational manner. They always looking to engage and learn and serve customers.
Short and sweet messages
80-90% of Disney marketing messages are short and to the point. As we said previously, many topics are used to produce many messages so as not to over saturate the market with the same messages.
Integrating the elements
All of these strategy elements complement the firm’s brand and messages. The integrating elements? The brand and the client educational element. The key is to have a central theme to the brand. In Disney’s case, the themes are all built around a family focus, fun, dreams, and happiness. Integration of all elements is the most important part of the strategy.
Walt Disney was a genius in many ways. His technological prowess is storied but it was his marketing genius that set him apart from everyone else.
Use a little of Walt’s business insight in your content marketing campaign and enjoy renewed and continuous business success.
Here’s the thing, the Disney dream isn’t just a new way of marketing, and it’s really a new way of running a business. They certainly understand this concept well and are using social marketing to rapidly promote their business.
Need some help in capturing more customers from your marketing strategies? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with potential customers?
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your marketing, branding, and advertising?
Do you have a lesson about making your marketing strategy better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.
More reading on marketing strategy from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
