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Category: Word of Mouth

Turning Your Customers Into Fans

I’ve just posted a new Freebie on my website based on the presentation I gave in January at the IDEX Show.

It’s called Turning Your Customers Into Fans.

If you want to grow your business, you can use traditional marketing and advertising. But everyone knows that Word-of-Mouth is the strongest form of persuasion. And you’ll get far more WOM if your customers aren’t just customers, but are stark raving fans, evangelists for you.

Knowing how to turn them into fans, and how to empower that evangelism is now available for you free of charge. Check it out.

Cheers!

-Phil

Are You Saying Something Remarkable? (Would You Like to?)

What do your ads say?

Wait, let me rephrase that.

What do your ads say that is truly worth remembering?

I know what you say about your advertising.

“We’ve tried that and it didn’t work.”
“We don’t have that in our budget.”
“We only believe in word-of-mouth.”
“We only do ‘event-advertising’.”
“We had to cut advertising because of the economy.”

The reason your ads didn’t work is because they weren’t remarkable. No one heard them, let alone remembered them.

A 1978 Yankelovich study showed that the average American received 2,000 advertising messages a day. In a revised study in 2008 that number is now 5,000. Without a remarkable, memorable message, you’ll never stand out in a crowd of 5,000.

Chances are, you have a remarkable, memorable message. You just haven’t been telling it.

You’ve been saying your name over and over under the false belief that just repeating your name thousands of times will give it top-of-mind salience. But what if people don’t know what your name means? Or worse yet, they have a negative association with that name, or an indifferent one?

There are ways to make your marketing stand out, to make it memorable. And it all starts with the message. Finding your truly remarkable, memorable message is the single most important element of your success in advertising. Yet, it is the most common mistake.

As you worry over demographics, reach, circulation, viewership, listenership; who is hearing or seeing your ad, you neglect to think about what you are telling them. As you worry about cost-per-ad, cost-per-click, cost-per-inch, cost-per-viewer; you neglect the cost of not saying anything worth remembering.

The result? Blah, blah, blah. Don’t you think that with 5,000 ad messages a day we learn to filter out the vast majority of it? If it isn’t interesting, we aren’t paying attention. If it isn’t remarkable, we aren’t remembering.

The message is king. A remarkable, memorable message works well no matter what medium you use to deliver it. A remarkable, memorable message works well no matter how many people hear or see it. A remarkable, memorable message can even buy you that coveted word-of-mouth.

I still have customers talking about our Men’s Bathroom radio ad even though it hasn’t been on the air for over 10 months!

Here’s the hard part. Finding your message means digging deep into the heart of your business, brushing away all the secondary messages until you find the one core thing worth saying. It means uncovering the real you inside your business, the unvarnished and genuine you. And it means having the guts to tell the world about the real you.

Do you have the guts?

Good! Here’s the first step. Go to Freebies on my website and download the ebook Understanding Your Brand. Follow those directions. When you get done, send me your results. I’ll help you find something worth saying.

I know there’s a message in there. Together we can pull it out and make your marketing truly remarkable.

More on Word of Mouth

It’s pretty much a universally accepted truth. Word-of-Mouth is the best form of advertising. And most people add… “and best of all, it’s free!”

Really?

If you remember from an earlier post, Roy Williams said that word-of-mouth (WOM) comes from 3 things:

  • Over-the-top Design
  • Over-the-top Performance
  • Over-the-top Generosity

These all cost money. You either spent money on the design, on the hiring & training a superior staff, or on the stuff you gave away.

One thing that surprised me was that Roy didn’t mention the WOM you can get from Over-the-top Advertising. Last August I ran a radio ad that said:

I couldn’t believe it. they were taking customers into the men’s bathroom. Yes, my staff was taking men and women young and old into our men’s bathroom. And they were coming out laughing and giggling. Oh yeah, and buying, too. I guess when you have a product this cool you just have to show it of whenever and wherever you can. The men’s bathroom… gotta love it. Toy House in downtown Jackson. We’re here to make you smile. (Listen to the ad)

The ad aired for one month and hasn’t been on the airwaves since. But when it first came out the response was incredible. One local DJ discussed it on the air with the local newspaper rep, wondering just what the product might be. Everywhere I went someone asked what was in the men’s bathroom. People even came up to my wife asking about the ad. And earlier today – seven months after the ad was off the air – we had a customer ask about what was in the men’s bathroom. She said she and her family had discussed it over Christmas speculating on what the product might be. She was wrong, but delighted, because she liked what it was well enough to buy one.

Yes, you can create WOM with your ads. Here’s another example I just love.

One of the sponsors of Greg O’Conner’s “The Nooner” sports talk show is a store called Bras That Fit. Yes, a store that sells bras to women is a sponsor of a daily sports talk show primarily listened to by men. Some old-school marketers are rolling in their graves. Those who lived (and died) by the mantra that you have to reach the right people must think this store owner is out of her mind. You can’t sell bras on a men’s sports talk show. Or can you?

Her message is quite simple…

“Hey guys, are you tired of hearing your wife complain about her bra? Send her to Bras That Fit…”

So let me ask you a question. Which would be more effective, a woman hearing a radio ad or a woman complaining about her bra, to which her husband replies, “Hey, why don’t you go to this store I heard about on Greenwood?”

Reaching the Right People is just one of the myths I’m going to bust at an upcoming workshop on How Ads Work. Part 1 takes place Wednesday, April 15th at 7:30am at Jackson Coffee Co., with Part 2 on May 20th. Best of all, it’s absolutely free!

And while you’re there, I’ll teach you how to design ads that get people talking about your business. Think of this as my Over-the-top Generosity to the business community. Spread the word and I’ll see you there.

-Phil

Flowers For My Lady

Another man gave flowers to my wife. Should I be angry? Jealous? Should I hunt him down? Threaten him?

I wanted to send him a thank you note.

The perp who gave my wife flowers runs the body shop across the street. Al Mackey of Mackey’s Body Shop. And no, he’s not a perp. He’s a smart businessman. He knows something about customer service.

Body shop work is not high on the list of things on which we want to spend our money. No one thinks to themselves, “Wow, maybe Thursday I’ll go body shop shopping.” Nope, a trip to the body shop means something or someone caused a dent or scratch in your car and you’ve got to shell out money to get it fixed or make a claim on your insurance which means you’ll still be paying for it over the next three years in higher premiums.

Al knows this. Al knows that no one is really happy to see him, especially when the bill is due. And he knows that a little kindness and a little TLC goes a long way in easing the pain. My wife handed him a check for $2350 and he handed her a bouquet of flowers. Guess what she was talking about all day?

For the price of a bouquet of flowers, a mere pittance in a $2000 plus transaction, Al bought my wife’s loyalty, or at least a huge chunk of word-of-mouth and positive feelings.

And for that I applaud him as a master of Customer Service and Marketing. He identified a way to win a customer’s heart in an uncomfortable transaction and earn some word-of-mouth advertising on the side.

Thanks Al! It’s a great lesson for every business. Make the most uncomfortable transactions pleasantly memorable. Do that and I can guarantee it will get people talking about you.

By the way, did anyone notice how Customer Service and Marketing are so closely linked? Me, too.

-Phil

What Are They Talking About?

When people talk about your business what are they saying? Do you know? More importantly, are people even talking about your business?

Have you given them something to talk about?

Roy H. Williams, aka Wizard of Ads, mentioned three ways at a recent conference to help you get WOM (word-of-mouth) from your customers.

First, you could choose to be over-the-top excellent in Design. Your store layout, merchandising, decorating, facade and mood could be so unique and outstanding that people talk about it for days and weeks afterward. Have you ever seen the Ferris Wheel at the Times Square Toys R Us? That’s over-the-top Design. Does your business have a cool and unique characteristic? Do you flaunt it? I saw a program on the Travel Channel of the 20 coolest public bathrooms. It was totally intriguing. My grandfather always had the idea of building a carousel on the front of the store with half the ride inside, half outside. Kids could get on the carousel and enter the store that way. Imagine what kind of WOM that would generate (and yes, I’m still considering it).

Second, you could choose to have over-the-top excellent Performance by your staff. I’m not talking about “excellent customer service”. Everyone says they have that. And, frankly, customers aren’t impressed by people who are just friendly & knowledgeable. They expect that. In fact, the only WOM you get from excellent customer service is when you don’t supply it. And that’s WOM you could do without.

What I’m talking about is a performance so rare that it’s exciting, extraordinary and unique. Customer service that is so over-the-top it becomes an experience. And it has to be an every day, all the time experience. If you’ve ever been to Pike’s Place Fish Market you know what I’m talking about – and what customers are talking about. The throwing of fish, the yelling, laughing, playing, the customer involvement. What can you do every day to make your customer’s experience more memorable?

The third, and most intriguing way Roy described was Generosity. What are you giving your customers to make them talk about you? A jeweler who replaces watch batteries for free, a restaurant who gives out free desserts to dinner guests, a hotel that has free curling irons, cell phone chargers, or web connections. Those are just some examples of generosity. But here’s the clincher. To get WOM from your generosity you have to do it, but not advertise it.

Imagine you go out to eat and see a sumptuous dessert menu on the table. You know you want one, but aren’t sure if you want to fork over the dough for an extra you don’t need. But then your waiter says, “How about a dessert tonight? It’s on me.” How could you resist? And won’t you be talking about that meal to your friends? Pretty soon, you’ll be saying, “Hey, let’s go to so-and-so’s. The last three times I was there the waiter gave us a free dessert.”

For the cost of some flour and sugar, a restaurant that does this could buy a lot of WOM, and a lot of loyalty. (And that flour & sugar could probably already be fixed into the cost of the meal.)

Word of Mouth is the best form of advertising – always has been, always will be. But you have to give someone something to talk about. Start looking at your Design, Performance and Generosity and see if you can find something worth a conversation. Then maximize it to the extreme and watch the talk begin.

-Phil

Big Yellow Taxi

“They paved paradise and put up a parking lot…”

There are some songs that no matter who covers them, no matter where I am at the time, no matter what’s on my mind, I stop and listen.

“Big Yellow Taxi” by Joni Mitchell is one of those songs. From Joni’s lilting voice to Amy Grant’s smooth vocals, to the Counting Crow’s more gravelly sound, I just love listening to that song.

I’ve tried to play it myself but could never do it justice.

It is one of those songs that transcends generations, too. The line in the refrain is all too familiar. Sing along with me…

“Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone…”

Okay, a little off key, but the point is made. Many times we don’t know what we’ve got until we no longer have it. I had two moments like that recently.

While reading a trade magazine I came across a reference of a new book on branding. The book was right up my alley. I checked it out online and found multiple sites selling it. I was about to order it online but my Buy Local button kicked in. So I started to shoot an email over to Nomad Bookhouse to see if they had it before realizing they were gone, closed. I miss them.

At the same time, my wife and boys were visiting Fun 4 All Kids, a big inflatable playground where we have celebrated both boy’s birthdays. It was their last visit. As you read this, F4AK has closed.

One of our friends made the comment, “If I had known they were in trouble, maybe I would have stopped by more often.”

I heard the same things said about Nomad.

The point I want to make is this…

What are we waiting for? If there is a store, restaurant, or hangout that you particularly like, what are you doing to ensure it’s success? If there is a business you would hate to see go away, have you told your friends about it? Have you touted their virtues, sung their praises, shouted their benefits to the world?

Seth Godin, one of my favorite bloggers, said that we too often keep our favorite stores to ourselves, maybe fearful that if too many people know about it, it won’t be special anymore. (Read his blog on the subject here http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/11/dont-know-what.html) But how special are they if they’re gone?

In today’s economic climate, when traditional advertising is less and less effective, the one tried and true, always works, form of advertising is word-of-mouth.

Don’t let any more of your favorite places go away. Start talking about them now before they’re in trouble. As my friend, Bridget can attest, the outpouring of wonderful sentiments was incredible when she announced the closing of Nomad. Just think what might have happened if that outpouring of sentiment happened three or six months earlier, and not just to her but to everyone you know?

Make it your New Years Resolution to sing the praises of your favorite stores ten times more this year than last. You might be surprised how much impact and influence you can have.

Happy New Year!

-Phil