29 Aug Marketing begins at home
When you invite someone over to your house for the first time, you make an effort. You might tidy up, you might sweep the yard, you might cook your special dish, you might get the best silverware out, or you might dress a little smarter than usual, whatever you do, you make an effort because you know that first impressions count.
Deeper still, you know that people are judging you and your home during that first visit. For better or worse, they are judging. This raw, human, emotional exchange is marketing at its purest; one person judging the experience your brand is presenting in order to evaluate whether or not to return, to spend more time with you, to invest more emotional energy in learning about you, and what you have to say.
Consider this: For which do you invest more emotion and more actual effort?
The act of inviting someone over to your house or the act of providing them an enjoyable experience when they come over?
For the majority of us, I bet it’s the latter. Typically, we don’t think twice about the inviting part but spend an awful amount of time & effort in the experience we provide when people accept our invitation. So why is it then that the marketing community behaves in exactly the opposite way?!
Marketers spend nearly all of their precious time and money on the invitation. Persuading, cajoling, incentivising, dramatising and emotionally connecting with people in order to get them to visit their house (their store or website). Yet very little time delivering a memorable experience when they arrive at the door.
The brands that are connecting today are those that offer meaningful experiences at their house: in-store, on-site or throughout every touchpoint. The brands that listen. The brands that excite. The brands that deliver. Ultimately, the brands that focus on the experience not the invitation and communicate from the inside-out.
Think about your business. Are you over-investing on the invitation and under-investing on the experience?