Zappos randomly surprises their customers with shipping upgrades. Not all the time, but sometimes. The surprise is delightful to the customer and costs Zappos very little. It probably wins them a customer for life more often than not. Not a bad return on investment, especially when that investment is only a few bucks.
We need to stop dumping money into wasteful mass marketing and look for SMALLER ways to be effective.
Not only does an act of kindness like that often win a customer over, it also encourages good will. This causes the happy customer to spread a positive message about you. A little goes a long way. We need to stop dumping money into wasteful mass marketing and look for SMALLER ways to be effective.
One small act of kindness doesn’t cost much, and it has the potential to create an advocate. This is the process of reaching out to just ONE person, who will likely reach out to many others on your behalf. This is leverage at it’s finest. We need more of this in business today. A single advocate for your business offers a far better return on investment than focusing large amounts of time and money trying to get a .1% better conversion from an old, tired marketing piece. Yet this is exactly what businesses do.
Established business owners with thousands of past clients will spend their entire marketing budget trying to reach new customers, and meanwhile they ignore everyone who’s already bought from them. I see this all the time. The people who have already bought from you aren’t old news. They’re your biggest asset. Treat them as such. Spend more time and money here than anywhere else!
This doesn’t have to be overly complicated. The whole point in fact…is that it’s simple, effective and inexpensive. Think of ONE simple thing you can do to surprise your customers or clients this month. Genuinely surprise them with something cool, and watch what happens. You’ll be delighted at the response you get.
One final thought; in order for this to be awesome, it has to be genuinely valuable and cool. Don’t fall into the temptation to send them some branded postcard that says “thank you”. You know the postcard I’m talking about. It says “thank you”, but it REALLY says “hey look at me and how nice I am”. Would your customer ordinarily pay money for it? If so, you’re on the right track.