Imagine running a subscription service that for years has had the default subscription be monthly. Then you switch it to three years.
Sure, sales from first-timers, habituals and inexperienced folks will increase by 3,500 percent, but at what cost?
Imagine serving a patron a beer at the bar. An expensive one. A big one. And they don’t like it.
Sure you could charge them for it and dump it out in front of them and charge them for another different one, but at what cost?
We can break our hold on integrity for a quick buck, but the cost of doing so (and the inevitable downward spiral that happens when we do) far outweighs the cost of cutting someone slack, of doing the right thing and of having empathy.
Many a marketer and business owner has tried to tell people what to talk about when they talk about the brand.
Time and time again, however, what gets talked about is what the customer wants to talk about.
And, almost always, it’s something the business hadn’t expected to take off in such a way – they were merely being generous or having empathy.
It’s the warm towel on your face when you’re getting your hair washed. It’s the random goonies play card you get in your package. It’s the moment the server took to write down and remember that you’re getting married in a month so she can ask you about it again.
It’s often not about the cheapest price or the best service or the fastest delivery.
While you can’t guarantee what you want will become, as Seth Calls, a purple cow, you can get the heard on what you end up doing will get talked about if you do it generously, with passion, in a way that makes someone feel, in a way that expresses empathy and that no one else is doing.
One’s that think about the story they want to tell no matter where they are telling it.
Especially one’s that think about the best avenues to tell that story.
It’s about the way a major fashion brand approaches direct marketing the same way they approach their blog content. It’s all about clicks and return on that investment. They pay the stamps because they get a return on the stamps to buy more stamps. They pay the blog content, because they get a return on the content to invest in more content.
The way a major chocolate brand approaches their customer service is the same way they approach their packaging. It’s all about sharing the reason for the brand and what people get out of buying it. They put in the training because it helps them tell the story better. They design and redesign and redesign their packaging (and then change it again) because it helps them tell the story better.
The execution might be different, but the reason why they’re doing what they’re doing, the story they’re working to resonate with and the way they’re thinking about the impact they’ll make is the same across the board.
The more ways we think about it, the less likely our brand will succeed.
