This week we have featured small business marketing insight gleaned from Seth Godin’s audio book: Small is the New Big. Today is the final entry in that series.
RULE ONE: Smart marketers treat their customers like respected colleagues and admired family members.
Here’s a good standard by which to judge your marketing. What if your family treated you the way you marketed to your customers?
Seth ponders this scenario:
“What if your spouse sold your personal information to anyone who would pay
for it? If your boss promised you miraculous changes and then failed to
deliver? If your co-workers refused to talk to you unless you spent half an
hour on hold first?What if the people you liked and trusted made
promises to you in order to get your attention and cooperation, and then broke those promises whenever they could get away with it?Most of us wouldn’t choose to work with people who disrespect us as much as
marketers do.”
Every time you devise a marketing plan, use the family test. Would you treat your family the way you are about to market to your customers?
Closely observe the advertising you consume today. You won’t find much respect, or behavior that fosters trust. That says a lot about the company doing the advertising. It says they view the customer as a faceless, nameless rube from whom they hope to acquire as much money as possible before the poor sucker knows what’s happening to him.
I like to employ the metaphor of courtship to advertising. Your goal is to foster a long-term relationship with your customer: To get married, or at least go steady for a long time. Use your marketing to court you customers, not to try to get them drunk and back to your apartment.
So make a promise to your customers and keep it. Don’t yell at them, don’t lie to them, don’t try to trick them, and don’t treat them like they’re idiots. You may find that a lovely relationship forms and you’ll attract customers worthy of joining your family.
See Seth’s original blog on the subject here.
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