In my energetic attack of my super sporty New Year’s resolutions, I broke one of the bones my left foot. I am 31 and this is my first broken bone ever. Nothing like a stylish walking cast to accompany me on the first day of my new job in DC next week, eh?
Look for a thoughtful post pile on to Ben’s marketing clutter post tomorrow. For today, I’m going to kick back with some pain meds and Tivo.
There was a great case study shared by Jeffery Eisenberg yesterday in his post “Should You Cancel All Your Advertising?”. In 2003, Jeff Bezos pulled all of Amazon’s advertising and chose to reinvest those dollars in deferring shipping charges for customers. This shows insight into the top potential objection to shopping online and directly combats it – if I can get the same item for less on Amazon AND not pay shipping, the only remaining reason to shop retail would be if I absolutely had to have something today. By giving shipping back to the customer, Amazon used great customer experience to generate great word of mouth. But, this does not come without a pricetag. In a recent presentation from Amazon’s CFO, forgone shipping revenue was estimated at a whopping $600Million for a single year.
To answer the question Eisenberg poses of whether or not other businesses should cancel their advertising to focus on word of mouth marketing alone, there are a few considerations:
1) Current Customer Experience – Why are people opting for your competition (be it another business or another channel) instead of you? Is that something you could correct by reinvesting marketing dollars?
2) Quality of Customer Stories – When folks do select your business, what kind of conversational capital are you providing them? Is it the kind of story they will want to shout from the mountaintop, tell a select few, or never think about mentioning again.
3) Awareness & Urgency – Does anyone know who you are? If the answer is no, it could take a long time to launch your business with absolutely no advertising. You would be relying on your immediate personal and business connections to get the word out.
If you do have a solid customer base who would be willing to tell your story more often if only you provided them with a better one, the reinvestment of marketing dollars into your customer experience might payoff just as much as Amazon’s did.
5 years ago, I decided that I wanted to look at little different when I got married. This largely stemmed from the fact I am 6 feet tall and sturdy and I knew that wearing any variation on the typical strapless meringue princess dress was not going to work. I grew up in
I was shocked and crushed. I loved this brand so much that I wanted to be wearing one of their gowns on my wedding day and they wouldn’t alter it so I could? I wrote a very upset letter to CEO Kelly Gray, mailed it, and forgot about it as I started brainstorming what I was going to do for Plan B.
I didn’t have to think long because less than 48 hours later, I received a phone call at work from the Vice President of Customer Service. She apologized profusely, gave me her personal mailing address and proceeded to walk the dress through the alterations studio at the
Note: This is the first of the “Brands Worthy of a Weekend” series. These are, quite simply, brands that some find inspiring enough that they would make the personal sacrifice of a weekend to spend time learning about the company and meeting other enthusiasts. St. John Knit is one of my selections – today I’ll cover how they create enthusiasts and tomorrow I’ll share my personal story of fan creation. Please go to the Contact or comment her to share brands that you would deem worthy of a weekend.
This year, St. John Knit is celebrating its 45th anniversary. Kelly Gray, daughter of the founders, former face of the St. John ad campaign (before being replaced by Angelina Jolie), and former CEO of the company, was at Neiman Marcus in Houston greeting the faithful this week. One of the women waiting in line to meet her confessed to owning 200 outfits from various
Product – Despite the wild meanderings of fashion since its founding in 1962, you can identify a
Ownership Experience – While
In my post last week about high end brands such as Kimpton Hotels rewarding customers with unique experiences instead of things, I mentioned my personal choice to give my father a night at Kimpton’s Hotel Monaco property in DC for his birthday. Last night, I called him in his room and heard a new man. He was borderline giddy about how much fun they were having and, let me assure you, my parents are deep and wonderful, but not the giddy type. His quote was “I don’t think I’ve ever done anything to deserve being treated so well!”
With my credit card authorization fax to the hotel, I submitted a note explaining that it was my Dad’s birthday, that I am a Kimpton enthusiast, and that I wanted my parents to understand why I am so passionate about their brand. They were clearly up to the challenge. My father informed me that they upgraded my parents to a 2-room corner King suite, had champagne for them at check in, delivered wine to the room, and generally treated them like VIPs at every turn despite the fact that they had never before spent a night at a Kimpton property. Now, the business side of me understands that that suite would have gone unoccupied anyway (all hotel rates were cut this week in DC because everyone’s in Iowa!) and that it didn’t necessarily cost them extra to do what they did. That being said, I know most hotels would not have taken the time or effort to create this personalized experience.
The actions of the staff of this hotel gives me another great story to tell about why I love Kimpton, and gave my parents not just a great experience, but a story I know they will tell over and over again. To please my parents is the greatest gift that this brand could give me, and I am deeply , deeply appreciative.