How a bag of chips changed my marketing perspective
Back in the day, I was a young, up-and-coming marketing executive within a large loyalty marketing firm. As a 20-something girl in a largely boy’s club world, I’ll admit that sometimes it was an uphill battle of trying to establish myself as an intelligent contributor while learning the ropes of business.
The advantage that I had in that day was attention to detail. Because I was an underdog in many ways - easy to be dismissed among seasoned professionals, I was always trying hard to impress and to be taken seriously. And that made me attentive. Now there’s a point where attentiveness can exhaust us and undermine our own efforts — not getting bogged down in details and forgetting our larger goals — but in this particular case it worked, especially as some of the more experienced marketers had dropped their attentiveness - some becoming comfortable in their roles to the point where they missed some key things.
The company was working on acquiring the business of one of the largest auto-makers in Canada. There had been a meeting scheduled between their team and ours, at our offices. A flurry of activity as we all prepared for that critical meet up; printing the proposals, prepping the audio/visual equipment, ordering coffee and and snacks. I walked into the boardroom as one of the senior executives was in the room. He had taken a basket of snacks that had been prepared and was placing it on the main boardroom table. Among the snack items were small bags of chips (I’d even say that choice of food was questionable for the meeting - noisy, messy!) But there was a bigger, glaring problem that no one had noticed all morning:
The chips bags had a contest promotion on the front of the bag, to win a car by….not the automaker coming in for the meeting, but their largest competitor! The other automaker’s logo and branding was prominent on the packaging.
I immediately brought it up to the senior executive, who hadn’t noticed. Needless to say, all of the bags of chips were removed.
I wonder how that meeting would have gone if I hadn’t noticed this small detail. Once could say that it’s trivial and maybe no one else would have noticed either, but in a critical meeting where the organization was trying to sign this significant client, every detail should be attended to. At the very least, not to subject the potential clients to a competitor, right where they sat!
The lesson is that details matter and that attentiveness to little things can add up to big rewards. We often think that marketing is the big dog and pony show to impress clients, where we don’t realize that one off-putting detail can jeopardize any big fireworks.
Remember a name when out in the community. Remember a client preference, like how they take their coffee or their favourite snack, if they happen to mention it (you can take these kinds of notes in your client relationship management software). When you prepare documentation and invoices, check spelling, grammar and amounts. When re-purposing email communications, ensure you didn’t leave mistakenly another client’s name. Make sure that there isn’t an empty roll of toilet paper in your studio washroom prior to a client session.
Coupled with paying attention that no detail is off, add details or touches to the experience. A small client gift. Using their name often. Thanking them often. Being prompt in communications. Having coffee and and snacks available at your studio (but maybe, no chips - greasy fingers!!). When these 2 things work in harmony - no errors in the details and added detailed touch points, you are crafting a powerful brand experience. How the client would perceive this would be, as an example, that the booking process is smooth and seamless (no errors in the details that stop them), and that their needs are cared for (a thoughtful gift or bonus, a note on their birthday, etc). That positive brand experience translates into happy and satisfied clients who then refer, share and tag and give testimonials, and these first hand results can be more significant in boosting bookings than many other marketing techniques we may be doing.
We are prone to overlooking things and making mistakes when we rush, feel overwhelmed, or feel unsure. All of a sudden we feel behind in advertising holiday sessions and next thing we know, we’re slapping an ad together with a ton of grammatical errors. Or, we’re exhausted from editing and we sync some photos not realizing that one had a clone stamp applied that now appears in some delivered client images (admit it, we’ve all done this!!) When feeling this way, step away and breathe, and return with fresh eyes to scan for problems.
I suggest the 3-step detail rule. Check things 3 times before they leave your business:
When you first create something, review it immediately such as a client questionnaire.
After a period of leaving that thing and returning to it.
Just after you’ve sent/ delivered: Sometimes the act of actually completing a task removes a level of stress. At that moment of relief to have the thing off of your plate, you may have more clarity. Review the task one more time because it’s possible to recover something if you’ve caught it early. A published gallery can have an image quickly swapped, an email could either be retrieved if unread, or at least an immediate follow up with a correction can be sent.