Graham McGregor: Smile marketing

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Marketing consultant Graham McGregor on why 'Smile Marketing' is worth testing in any business.

In his book "How to win customers and keep them for life" Michael Le Bouef says that every customer really wants two things when they buy any product or service.

The first thing they want is a solution to a problem.

The second thing they want is to feel good.

One simple way to make your customers feel good is to do something that makes them smile whenever they interact in some way with your business.

I call this 'Smile Marketing' and it's very simple to do.

Here's a great example...

An entrepreneur named Derek Sivers started a business called CD Baby to help independent musicians sell their music online a few years ago. Derek sold his business for $22 million ten years later. And a major reason his business became so successful was the simple things he implemented in his business to make his customers feel good.

Here is one of the many 'feel good' strategies that made his customers smile...

Derek looked at his purchase confirmation email and found it said something like 'thank you for your CD purchase it will be sent shortly...'

Derek thought this was a bit boring, so, he sat down and pumped out an email in twenty minutes that he found a bit more fun -

Here is the new email he sent out to confirm a CD purchase to his customers:

Thank you for your order with CD Baby.

Your CDs have been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CDs and polished them to make sure they were in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CDs into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved 'Bon Voyage!' to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Sunday, December 11th.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did. Your picture is on our wall as "Customer of the Year". We're all exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Thank you once again,
Derek Sivers, president, CD Baby

This email, meant only to be a small bit of fun, was so loved and talked about by CD Baby's customers that it attracted over 20,000 mentions online.

Imagine that! Derek spent 20 minutes creating a fun email and over 20,000 customers commented positively about it on the internet.

Smile marketing is very simple to do.

Look at all the ways you interact with customers and potential customers. Then find ways to make people smile and feel good in some of these interactions.

Another way you could do this is to include some funny and tasteful cartoons in your marketing material.

In my 'Unfair Business Advantage Report' I have included 30 funny cartoons from cartoonist Randy Glasbergen. These cartoons make reading my report more fun.

I wrote a 28 page guide called 'Smile Marketing' which explains how any business can use cartoons and humour to make more sales.

Smile Marketing' is available at no charge from my favourite cartoonist Randy Glasbergen.

Action Step:
What can you do to make your customers smile and feel good when they interact with your business? Try doing some of these things and see what happens.

"People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."
Maya Angelou

Graham McGregor is a marketing consultant and the creator of the 396 page 'Unfair Business Advantage Report.' www.theunfairbusinessadvantage.com (This is free and has now been read by business owners from 11 countries.) You can email Graham on graham@twomac.co.nz