“Is everything delightful?” or, why market to your existing customers

June 19, 2009 By

Two quick examples of why it’s great to actively sell to your existing customers:

1. “Is everything delightful?”

The other day I had lunch with a friend at one of my favorite local restaurants, Farm Artisan Foods. We were enjoying a sampling of tapas-like small plates, including a truly delicious salad that included herbed goat cheese, pickled beets, and roasted red peppers. Our server stopped by and asked “Is your salad wonderful?” and all I could do was nod (my mouth was full!).

What a funny question, I thought. Isn’t it a bit presumptious to say something like that? And I was still thinking about it  several tapas later when she did it again: She asked “Is everything delightful?” after we’d gotten everything we’d ordered. We said yes. Because it was true.

My conclusion: It was presumptious, and it was also great marketing. Here’s why:

  • Shows confidence in the product. The folks who run this restaurant seriously know their stuff. The chef makes a big deal about local, sustainable agriculture; the servers know everything about the dishes; the menu is seasonal. She knew full well that the salad was wonderful and the tapas delightful, before she asked. The leading question made it easy to agree. Presumptious, in a good way.
  • Trains customers to think your product is exceptional. Many restaurants have their servers come out at some point during the meal and ask “Is everyone doing OK?” or “How’s the food tonight?” or some similar open-ended question. Most customers respond “OK” or “fine” or occasionally ask for some more ketchup. When I, as a customer, am asked to agree that the food is wonderful and delightful, I actively think about the fact that the food is in fact wonderful and delightful. This interaction just went from a mundane check-in to a celebration of fine dining.
  • Acknowledges that the relationship doesn’t end with the sale. Once I’m in the restaurant and am eating, the sale is made. Why bother spending any more time or energy making me feel good about my food choices, or asking my opinion? There’s probably something sophisticated I could say here about customer retention, but basically it boils down to feeling appreciated as a customer. Not only will I go back to the restaurant, but I’m blogging about the experience two weeks later because my server asked me my opinion of the food in an interesting way.

2. Flowers for Father’s Day?

For Mother’s Day, I ordered flowers for my mom. Actually I ordered a real live plant because she likes them and no flowers would have to die to demonstrate my filial affection, but the ordering process was basically the same.

I wanted to support a local business, so instead of going with a national toll-free florist service, I looked up local florists in Denver, read some reviews, and settled on 5280 Flowers (it’s the Mile High City, get it?). I ordered straight from their website, despite the fact that the pictures aren’t very big and the ordering process isn’t quite as smooth as with an ecommerce giant. The flowering plant was delivered the next day, Mom was thrilled, and I was a satisfied customer.

End of story, right?

Not quite. Last week, six days before Father’s Day, I got an email from 5280 Flowers with “Father’s Day” in the subject line. It was a bit of a clunky email; not exactly perfectly formatted. Also, the first line was somewhat ominous:

“Fathers Day. Do not forget. Sunday June 21.”

But I read the email anyway because I was in the market for a Father’s Day gift. I wanted to send my dad something, but I would never have thought of flowers. I mean, we’re supposed to get our dads ties or mugs or weird electronic gadgets, right? Definitely not flowers, so why would I even consider shopping at a florist?

Well, as it turns out, this local florist also sells gift baskets, ranging from your basic Chiquita Banana fruit-cornucopia to teddy-bear baskets for new moms to … wait for it … barbeque and snack-food themed baskets for dads.

Perfect! So I called them up and ordered a custom basket, because several of their packaged baskets had different things I wanted, and the website had a clear message on every gift basket page telling me that baskets were customizable.

This business got an extra sale from me by showing me (in the right place at the right time) that they could provide more than flowers. They built on a previous interaction (my successful flower purchase) and offered me more. And I snapped it up and was happy to pay them.

Bonus tip: 5280 Flowers has two domain names: 5280Flowers.com and 5280Gourmet.com, so they can market themselves as a gourmet gift-basket shop even to people who would never buy flowers. The sites are interlinked and similar enough that I went back and forth a couple of times without realizing I was doing it. This kind of smart marketing is one reason that I recommend buying multiple domain names (they’re cheap, after all).

These two examples are straight from the leafy canopy of the Small-Business Tree. Yes, they both fall into traditional marketing, but they’re also great reminders that marketing isn’t just something you do to get customers. It’s something you do all the time, even in your interactions with existing customers.

And the florist example is also a great case study in the art of the upsell. They successfully upsold me three times: First, by getting me to shop with them for Father’s Day in the first place. Second, by offering customizable baskets so I had the option of going beyond the prepackaged deals. And third (or maybe this is just a part of the second one), the custom baskets are more expensive than the packaged ones, and I didn’t blink.

For more about respectful and successful upselling, check out the latest product I’ve purchased from Dave Navarro (@rockyourday) and Naomi Dunford (@ittybiz), Upsell 101. They’ll tell you exactly why I fell for the florist email, and how to get your own customers to fall for similar promotions…without being a Sleazy Marketer.

How am I doing with the lessons I’m learning from Upsell 101? Well, I’ll report back after I try some more of Dave and Naomi’s tips.

I’ll let you know how it goes! Happy Father’s Day, everybody!

Filed Under: Real-Life Marketing Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Climbing to the Top of Your Small-Business Tree

December 8, 2008 By

We’ve previously discussed two sections of the small-business tree, the roots (your business life-support systems) and the trunk (your USP and your ideal customer). Now we’ll move up to the leafy canopy and explore the branches.

Branches (and twigs, and leaves) are the most visible part of the tree. When someone else learns about your business, they are seeing the branches (or perhaps one specific branch, or even just one leaf on one branch). So the business term that matches up most closely with “branches” is “marketing.”

Remember, however, that marketing is more than just advertising. I agree with Seth Godin‘s view, which is that everything your business does is marketing. Every interaction with the world, whether it’s with a current customer, a potential customer, an employee, a vendor, or other business owners, is marketing in action.

Some fairly obvious branches of your small-business tree:

  • Your website
  • Your business card
  • Your logo
  • Your advertising
  • Your office or store
  • Your email signature
  • Any profiles you maintain online (such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc.)

And here are some less-obvious ones:

  • The colors and fonts on your website…and whether you make it easy to search
  • The way you answer your business phone, and your voicemail greeting when you don’t answer
  • How you pay your business’s bills, and whether you pay them on time
  • Your privacy policy (is it in English, or legalese?)
  • How often you email your subscribers, and how easy (or hard) you make it to unsubscribe
  • What you call yourself (not just your business name, but your title: Are you the CEO? The Chief Vision Officer? The Headmaster?)

Branches are a great metaphor because they can contain sub-branches, twigs, and leaves. So your website might be one of your business’s main branches, a branch you spend a lot of time and energy maintaining, and each page or post could be called a leaf. The placement of your images and navigation are leaves. The way you link to other sites can be a leaf too.

Some of these leaves, such as sales pages (or, in the brick-and-mortar world, stores), have an obvious function: They are an entry point for outside energy, in the form of money, into your business. But even non-transactional leaves, such as regular blog posts, your “About Us” page, etc. are an entry point for outside energy, in the form of attention, into your business. Yes, setting up the sales page(s) is important. But don’t neglect the branches and leaves that surround them.

Finally, each leaf and branch, no matter how high up in the tree, is connected directly to the roots. In a real tree, a chain of connected cells brings water up from the roots to keep the leaf firm and shiny, and another type of cell has the job of sending sugars (made in the leaf from the sun’s energy) down to the roots for storage.

For a business, this connection is accomplished by constantly asking a simple question:

Is this business leaf congruent with my business roots?

You can evaluate any business decision by connecting with your own roots. Don’t forget that you need to travel through the trunk to get there. Does the leaf you’re contemplating serve your ideal customer? Does it match up with your USP? Will it send energy to your roots, and is it a natural, organic growth from those roots?

Food for thought, eh? Even as I type this post, I’m finding leaves I want to fix and change on this site. Did any of the items in this list inspire you to think differently about your marketing? Tell me with a comment!

Filed Under: Small-Business Tree Tagged With: ,