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The top 5 books every marketer should read

Jay Baer’s Youtility (Click here to buy on Amazon*) offers a new approach that cuts through the clutter: marketing that is truly, inherently useful. If you sell something, you make a customer today, but if you genuinely help someone, you create a customer for life.

Drawing from real examples of companies who are practicing Youtility as well as his experience helping more than seven hundred brands improve their marketing strategy, Baer provides a groundbreaking plan for using information and helpfulness to transform the relationship between companies and customers.

Content Rules (click to buy it on Amazon*) by Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman. Blogs, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and other platforms are giving everyone a “voice,” including organizations and their customers.

So how do you create the stories, videos, and blog posts that cultivate fans, arouse passion for your products or services, and ignite your business? Content Rules equips you for online success as a one-stop source on the art and science of developing content that people care about.

Keeping up with the Quants (Click to buy on Amazon*) by Thomas Davenport. Not normally my type of book but when in Rome…. welcome to the age of data. No matter your interests, your industry, or the type of organization you work for —your world is awash with data.

As a successful manager today, you must be able to make sense of all this information. You need to be conversant with analytical terminology and methods and able to work with quantitative information. This book promises to become your “quantitative literacy” guide—helping you develop the analytical skills you need right now in order to summarize data, find the meaning in it, and extract its value.

Harry Beckwith‘s Selling the Invisible. (Click here to buy on Amazon*) It may be almost 15 years old, but it’s still right on the money and a brilliant read.

In Selling the Invisible, Beckwith argues that what consumers are primarily interested in today are not features, but relationships. Even companies who think that they sell only tangible products should rethink their approach to product development and marketing and sales.

Beckwith provides an excellent forum for thinking differently about the nature of services and how they can be effectively marketed. If you’re at all involved in marketing or sales, then Selling the Invisible is definitely worth a look.

Joe Calloway’s Becoming a Category of One (Click to buy on Amazon*) reveals how extraordinary companies do what they do so well and gives you the tools and ideas to help your business emulate their success. Packed with real case studies and personal reflections from successful business leaders, it helps you apply the best practices of the best companies to set yourself apart from your competitors and turn your business into a market leader.

Whether you run a multinational corporation or a two-person start-up company, the lessons you’ll find here apply to any business.

And because I believe there’s always another great book to discover…a bonus book or two.

Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational (click here to buy on Amazon*) draws on psychology and economics, behavioral economics can show us why cautious people make poor decisions about sex when aroused, why patients get greater relief from a more expensive drug over its cheaper counterpart and why honest people may steal office supplies or communal food, but not money.

According to Ariely, our understanding of economics, now based on the assumption of a rational subject, should, in fact, be based on our systematic, unsurprising irrationality. Ariely argues that greater understanding of previously ignored or misunderstood forces (emotions, relativity and social norms) that influence our economic behavior brings a variety of opportunities for reexamining individual motivation and consumer choice, as well as economic and educational policy.

And…not specifically a book for marketers — a book for leaders. This is one of my all time favorites. Steve Farber’s Radical Leap Re-energized. (Click here to buy on Amazon*) The Radical Leap Re-Energized is an expansion and revitalization of The Radical Leap, which was named as one of the 100 Best Business Books of All Time by Covert and Sattersten.

It’s a novel told in Steve Farber’s humorous, poignant, and original voice that takes the reader on a deep exploration of the qualities and practices of real, or Extreme Leadership, and how to apply them in daily life. Part One, The Radical Leap, explores the leadership elements of Love, Energy, Audacity, and Proof; Part Two, The Radical Edge, takes the discussion deeper into innovation, personal clarity and guidelines for changing the world. It sets a new standard for what it means to really lead in today’s business world and beyond.

Now get reading!

*All of these are affiliate links.

4 tips for writing a strong case study

September 20, 2013

Everyone loves a good story. And there’s a reason why Aesop and others opted to teach their life lessons through stories that have been told and re-told for many years.

Case Studies are the marketing version of Aesop’s Fables. Stories told to make a point or teach a lesson that demonstrates the value of your product or service. So how do create a good case study?

CS Tip #1: Structure it like a story. Make sure there’s a logical flow. Explain the problem (identify the villain). Introduce your company/product (bring in the hero). Describe how the challenge was overcome (tell of the battle). Sum it up (give it a happy ending).

CS Tip #2: Include lots of details. Don’t just say, “We were losing customers.” Give specifics. Our sales were down over 42%. Be sure to give details in describing both the problem and the solution. If your client isn’t willing to let you use their company’s name and information, choose a different example. This isn’t the place to be generic or vague. Your credibility goes hand in hand with the level of disclosure.

CS Tip #3: Use quotes to give your case study its authenticity. Be careful not to dumb them down so they sound generic.

CS Tip #4: Make sure everyone signs off on it before it goes public. The power of a case study is that it reveals an actual problem and its solution. Some businesses may be reticent to air their dirty laundry. Before you pitch your case study to a reporter or post it on your website, get everyone’s blessing.

Case studies are incredibly compelling when done right. If you’re lucky, you’ll tell a story that people will tell over and over.

Use social media to drive traffic to your business’ website

September 14, 2013

Social media is an ever-increasing facet of everyday business. Companies large (Starbucks) and small (your local car shop) are using social media to expand their exposure and reach a broad base of prospective consumers.

B2B marketers are now spending 30% of their budgets on social media programs, trying to reach, among others, the 21 million+ Twitter users (per eMarketer). There are big audiences on social media for your company, and using some strategies are more effective than others.

Here are five strategies you can employ to promote your business website through social media.

Engage Directly with Consumers

To generate online conversations, businesses can engage customers and fans with photos, links and more from their blog or website. That conversation can lead to new product insights and customer service issues.

Maintain and Develop Visibility Among Your Consumer Base

Be visible with social media. Post links, pictures and video clips on social networks for your current and prospective customers. Your steady use of social media can help keep your business relevant and known, while gradually expanding exposure.

Target specialty audiences online with a microsite, which refers traffic to your main website. Create SEO marketing materials for direct sales through your primary domain via a website like MyHosting VPS hosting.

Generate Sales Referrals Through Social Media Platforms

Provide links to products or other pages that are likely to prompt consumers to make a purchase. The links you use, and the way you present them through your social media profiles, will have an impact on your business’ performance. Helpful tip: send tweets on your company’s various white papers, articles and case studies to encourage consumer interest in your company.

Data Collection and Analysis to Improve Operations Efficiency

When it comes to data, social media is a gold mine. Data analysis informs you of the size of your social media following, its growth rate and levels of engagement. You can also track total referrals to determine which social networks are most effective in generating new business. Look at these numbers for the percentage of referrals that lead to sales.

Use Feedback to Guide Future Efforts

As you gain insights from comments and data analysis, your internal teams should start to identify areas for improvement. Then you can implement solutions in your day-to-day operations.

By establishing a basic social media marketing approach, you can set yourself on the course to increased revenue and a much greater return on the investment into your website.

What does this pricing strategy say to you?

September 9, 2013

How thoughtful are you about your company’s pricing strategy? Let me give you an example.

We use an on-line vendor to provide extranet services for our clients. We’ve been with them for over five years. We recently discovered a better, cheaper solution. It wasn’t the cheaper that sold us. It was the ease of use for our clients.

But cheaper doesn’t hurt. And this was cheaper by a couple hundred dollars a month.

When I contacted the old vendor to cancel our service, guess what their immediate response was.

“We can match their price.”

What? So you’ve been overcharging me for years? Or you magically just had a price reduction to the very dollar amount of my new vendor and you were about to call and tell me about it?

Talk about leaving a bad taste in my mouth.

Dropping your price to keep a customer is never a good strategy. It can only make you and the client both feel taken advantage of and in the end, no one wins.

Your pricing strategy is one of the key components of your marketing message. It speaks about things far beyond your cost. It communicates value, customer attentiveness and how you view the relationship, both short and long term. It’s not something you should just stumble into. And it’s not something you should damage by mishandling a situation, like our old vendor did.

There’s an interesting couple articles over at Marketing Tips from the Trenches about how to think through a pricing strategy and how to test it. Worth a read.

Promote Yourself

September 5, 2013

When I first heard the title of Dan Schawbel‘s new book — Promote Yourself (The actual full title is Promote Yourself: The New Rules for Career Success) I thought, uh oh…another how to use social media to get in the spotlight book. But knowing Dan, I should have known better.

Instead of a re-tread on an already tired topic, Dan’s very fresh message is “Hey Millennial — the future is yours if you want it — but don’t think it’s going to get handed to you.” He then outlines how these young professionals need to take charge of their career and make sure “the future has your name on it.”

He encourages his readers (and honestly while his advice is aimed at those born between 1982 – 1993, it’s perfectly applicable to professionals of all ages) to rely on a mix of technical, interpersonal and social media skills. He suggests, and I believe he’s correct, that it’s the hard skills that will get you the job but the soft or interpersonal skills that will get you the promotion.

He says “Hard skills are what will help you navigate the technical elements of your job, but it’s soft skills that will enable you to move ahead.”

Keep in mind that in today’s corporate world, company culture and company ethics are getting more and more important. Skills like being a good communicator, trustworthy and empathetic matter. Especially when sizing up candidates for a possible promotion. When everyone you’re competing with has the same hard skills are you do — how are you going to stand out?

Dan offers up six rules of self promotion that everyone should jot down:

Make yourself worth being talked about
Be well-known for one specific thing
Take responsibility
Find ways to expand your role
Make others look good – especially your manager
Get some evangelists

I am hardly a millennial. And I’ve been in the workplace for a very long time and at this point, I’m the only one who can promote me. But Dan’s book had some great reminders for me too. Whether you’re 20 or been on the job for 20 years — this is a worthwhile read. (click here to buy the book on Amazon*)

As I always try to do — I asked Dan my book author questions and here’s what he had to say:

If you had to describe the content of your book in a single sentence (no run ons) what would it be?

A book that pushes people to be accountable for their own careers and take charge of their lives.

What one book that you’ve read do you wish you could claim as your own?

Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success by Adam M. Grant.

In your opinion, what is the one trait that all uber successful business people possess?

They are willing to put the effort every single day in order to turn their dreams into reality.

What’s the biggest business mistake you’ve ever made and what did you learn from it?

The biggest mistake I’ve made was that I rushed into trying to get a second book deal after the first one came out. I learned that I need to be more patient and to not only think bigger, but take the time to make something even more successful before I jump into a new project.

Why did you have to write this book? What truth or insight was missing from the human consciousness — that you’ve now answered?

The question I answered in this book is “how do I get ahead at work?” When I started writing it, the idea was it would contain the feedback that employees didn’t receive at work, straight from the managers who have the power to promote them or not.

After someone is done reading your book — what do you hope they do as a result?

I hope they take at least one recommendation in the book and act on it. It would be great to see a revival of work ethic out there and for more people to take risks in their careers.

*Affiliate link

Useful = today’s marketing secret

September 3, 2013

Youtility, how being useful is today's marketing secret Let’s look at the reality:

Fragmented media choices
Permission-based media on the rise
Ability to filter, skip, ignore irrelevant advertising
Nothing beats word of mouth
A jaded, cynical consumer
Consumers tuning out, taking over and talking loudly about brands

That mountain of challenges is what faces marketers every single day. So how in the world do we earn their attention, their dollars and even tougher — their loyalty?

Author, consultant and tequila loving Jay Baer believes he has the answer and outlines it in his book Youtility: Why Smart Marketing is about Help Not Hype.* (I have 9 copies to give away — read to the end to find out how you can win!)

Jay’s premise is simple enough. If brands focus on being helpful, consumers will be drawn to them and when they’re ready to buy, that brand will have already earned the consumer’s trust — so they’re more likely to also give you their money.

Jay calls this friend-of-mine awareness (as opposed to top of mind awareness) and argues that in a congested, time starved world – if you want to keep earning market share, you need this level of connection with both customers and prospects.

The book is packed with stories, examples and very pragmatic ideas that any business — big, small, consumer or business focused — can implement. It’s one of my favorites for 2013 — and a book you should definitely read. (Click here to order it from Amazon*)

I asked Jay a few questions about the book. Here’s what he had to say:

If you had to describe the content of your book in a single sentence (no run ons) what would it be?

If you sell something, you make a customer today. If you help someone, you can create a customer for life.

What one book that you’ve read do you wish you could claim as your own?

Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd by YoungMe Moon, and anything by Bill Bryson.

In your opinion, what is the one trait that all uber successful business people possess?

A true understanding of customer needs.

What’s the biggest business mistake you’ve ever made and what did you learn from it?

I botched a 1031 real estate exchange eight years ago, costing myself a ton of money. I learned to trust experts that you hire, but always follow up.

Why did you have to write this book? What truth or insight was missing from the human consciousness — that you’ve now answered?

2 reasons. I wrote their book as a reaction to the landslide of punditry that prescribes “make your company amazing” as a strategic approach. Also, I wanted to give people a thoughtful scaffolding for why and how they should be creating content.

After someone is done reading your book — what do you hope they do as a result?

First, begin to understand how your company can insert itself gracefully into the lives of customers and prospects by being useful. Second (or maybe first), tell 3 friends to buy the book!

Okay — the book is awesome and you should read it. And 9 of you will get to read it for free. Winning a copy is simple. Leave a comment on this post and I’ll use the randomizer at random.org to pick the lucky readers!

*affiliate link

Why would I pick you?

September 1, 2013

brand_redmarble_opt We have to remember that every day, both our existing customers and potential customers are looking at us and wondering “why would I pick you?”

Marketing 101 is that you need to understand how you’re different from your competitors. It is perfectly logical — if you cannot differentiate yourself in terms of what you sell, how you sell it or why you sell it — the only differentiator left is price.

Maybe it boils down to this.

Would you rather invest the time and brain equity into figuring out (from the consumer’s point of view) how you are different or would you rather just have to be the cheapest?

Either choice is a good one. It’s really all about your business’ strategy. After all, Walmart seems to be doing okay with the cheapest route. But let’s say that you don’t want to commit yourself to a perpetual price war. Then what?

Then you need to go back to really understanding how you’re different (for the love of all that is holy, please do not say — it’s our people or we care more) and what sub-set of potential customers is in perfect alignment with that distinction.

Did you twitch a little at the phrase “sub-set of potential customers?” This is one of the main reasons why I think companies don’t discover and honor their brand better. They want everyone’s money — not just the right people’s money. I’ll dig into that later this week. For now, let’s stay focused on the discovering how you’re different.

We have a branding process that we walk clients through and I’m proud to say that many of our clients will tell you that it completely changed the way they did business. It’s one of our favorite things to do at McLellan Marketing Group.

But…for you do it yourselfers — start by really taking some time and answering these questions, but remember, the answer can never be the product or service you sell:

Beyond profitability, what is the mission of your company?
If your company were to leave a legacy, what would it be?
How does your organization make the world a better place?
If firm disappeared tomorrow, what would be missed most of all?
What is the single most-important aspect of your company?
With regard to your organization, what do you feel passionate about?
What business is your company in?
What business is your company not in?
Which three adjectives best describe your organization?
Who (customer) would love your company the most?
How do you prioritize your customers? If you had to allocate 100 points between the different customers segments or types (in terms of importance), how would you do so?
What customer need does your product/service fulfill? Why does your target customer need or want you sell?
What emotion(s) do you most closely associate with your product or service?
How will your organization change your industry?
How will your company change the world?

And some fun ones to twist your brain around:

If your company was a shape, what would it be?
If your organization was a texture, what would it be?
If your firm was a mood or feeling, what would it be?
If company was something from nature, what would it be?

If you’re really brave — pull together some of your best customers and see how they answer these questions. Or, schedule a team retreat and walk through them with your employees.

If you actually take the time to really dig into each of these questions until you’ve come up with answers that resonate and aren’t the first or a trite response — I think you’ll be surprised at how it changes the way you look at your business, what potential customers you approach and how you describe yourself.

Are you brave enough to tackle these questions?

Case Study: How Google Fails to Measure Mobile Marketing

August 31, 2013

Drew’s note: Here’s a fascinating guest post from the folks at ContactPoint.

We are not a mobile marketing company, but for testing purposes, we recently started conducting some click-to-call campaigns for some of our call tracking clients. We wanted to determine two things from these tests:

How many calls do click-to-call campaigns actually produce
What is the ‘quality’ of the calls that come from click-to-call campaigns (i.e. how good are the leads)
How many clients eventually purchase due to click-to-call campaigns

One very interesting test was with a Holiday Inn Express in Utah. Let me explain what we did and why it was interesting.

But first, let’s discuss what click-to-call mobile marketing is and how it works.

Mobile Click-To-Call?

Mobile click-to-call ads are ads that appear with a ‘tap-able’ phone number. You see the phone number in the ad and you tap it with your thumb (or any other appendage) and you can call the business immediately. The most common way to serve these ads is via Google Adwords. These ads appear after a Google search. Again, there is a phone number within in the ad itself. Google then charges the advertiser on a pay-per-call basis (each time the phone number is tapped) rather than on a pay-per-click basis.

This gives Google a way to monetize phone calls via mobile. And it gives advertisers a way to generate phone calls.

The Test: Background

When you set up Click-to-Call in Google Adwords (Google calls them call extensions) you have to input a phone number you would like to use in the ad. Most businesses simply use their regular phone number. But you can use any phone number including phone numbers that from call tracking providers. The calls are still auto-routed to your business.

The Test

We began the test in June 2012. We used local phone numbers provided via our SaaS, LogMyCalls, as the call extension number within Google Adwords. Thus we were able to extract call analytics from each call.

Holiday Inn Express – Logan, Utah – June 2012

Results
- Spend – $332
- Calls Generated – Google charged us for 60 calls generated via click-to-call. This means that 60 people tapped the phone number in the ad. Google bills for all of these taps because it believes they are actual phone calls. (Note: Most mobile marketers are stuck with this information and this information only).
- Calls Completed – Only 29 calls (48.3%) were actually completed and made it to the hotel. The rest were abandoned before the phone even rang. (Note: The only way we knew this is because we used a call tracking phone number to measure call analytics).
- Qualified Leads – Only 9 calls (15%) were actually looking for a hotel room. The rest were merely wrong numbers, confused or had a question about booking a future room. They were not qualified, sales-ready leads. (Note: Again the only we knew this is because we used a call tracking phone number and call analytics).
- Closed Deals – And 6 ended in a room reservation (10%).

Implications of the Test

If we had relied just on the information Google Adwords provided, our CPL, CPA and CPC would have been grossly inaccurate.
This has huge, huge implications for optimization, future spend, and of course assumptions about ad channels.
Mobile Marketing is Very, Very Effective – Even though only 10% of the phone calls resulted in room reservations, the marketing spend was still effective. Those 6 calls generated over $600 in revenue. The spend was only $324.

Bio: J ason Wells is the CEO of ContactPoint. Their new product, LogMyCalls, represents the next generation of intelligent call tracking and marketing automation. Prior, Jason served as the Senior Vice President of Sony Pictures, where he led the creation and international expansion of Sony’s international mobile business line from London.

Jason holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

We have to earn our audience’s attention

August 9, 2013

Listen Vs. Ignore - Toggle Switch We have to earn our audience’s attention. Let’s see how you’re doing at that.

If you own or run a business, I’d like to you take this little quiz.

Would you ignore your business phone 30% of the time it rings?
If a customer was standing in a crowd of your best customers and complaining loudly, would you ignore them?
If you had the chance to have the attention of your best customers and your best prospects for about 3 minutes uninterrupted, would you talk incessantly about yourself?

I have to believe that all of you passed this quiz by answered “good golly no!” to all three questions. After all you hustle like crazy to capture the attention of your customers and potential customers, right? Only a fool would squander the opportunity once they earned it.

And yet…that is exactly what’s happening online every day.

30% of customer questions and comments on Facebook, Twitter and company blogs go unanswered.
71% of complaints on Twitter are ignored.
89% of corporate blogs only talk about themselves, their products, promotions and awards.

No wonder so many business people say that they can’t measure any ROI on their social media efforts. If anything, their ROI should come up as a negative number!

Too many businesses believe that social media networks are simply places they need to put a placeholder in. Like a flag that says, “Look, we exist here too” and then go to some autopilot shout into the abyss mentality. The core idea behind Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+ or any of the other networks out there is connection.

Real, human connection.

It’s why people share photos, stories of their day and get fired up about politics, religion and what their kid’s school is up to. And into that very personal and very meaningful conversation – most brands just blunder in and shout that they are having a sale.

Ugh.

Businesses spend thousands (and some millions) of dollars putting on elaborate dog and pony shows, with the hopes of capturing someone’s attention for a millisecond. So the assumption would be that they would actually value the attention, once they’d earned it.

But the truth is, most businesses think of social media as the newest necessary evil. They can’t get out of their own way enough to see the potential in it or that they need to approach it with humanity for it to work.

So what would that humanity look like?

Real interactions: When someone talks to you, it’s polite to reply in a reasonable amount of time. If you can’t monitor and react to a social media stream – don’t be there. Every social media tool out there has a way for you to be notified if you’ve actually started or were mentioned in a conversation.

Conversation, not monologue: No one enjoys being talked at. Your goal should be to spark conversation, not spit out rhetoric. Conversations are started when we care about the other person and ask questions, offer helpful information and listen to what they need from us.

Consistency: Just like all of our other relationships – we grow connections partially because of frequent exposures. You can’t get to know someone very well if you only communicate once or twice a year. It’s better to be fewer places but be in the places you’ve chosen more often. Don’t spread yourself too thin.

Having a heart: If you don’t actually care – then don’t be there. If you genuinely care about your customers and what’s going on with them, then show that by asking questions, reaching out and being very human.

You can create an amazing referral source and client base with your online presence or you can alienate those who already have you on their radar screen. All it takes is a little humanity to make it work.

Building a great brand means going the extra mile

August 1, 2013

My Briggs & Riley bag

Want a great brand? Building a great brand means going the extra mile. Let me give you an example.

I travel a lot so I decided it was time to invest in a suitcase that could take the beating that 100+ flights a year dishes out without having to be replaced every year. So after doing more research than a suitcase purchase should require, I spent a ridiculous amount of money on a Briggs & Riley suitcase.

Keep in mind, I’m usually a run to Target and buy a bag kind of guy. So this was a big money decision for me.

I made the investment because the bag is guaranteed for life. Here’s how they talk about their guarantee:

If your Briggs & Riley bag is ever broken or damaged, even if it was caused by an airline, we will repair it free of charge – Simple as that! Here’s how the Briggs & Riley Simple as that® guarantee works:

A. Simple bag repairs – you can send or bring your bag to a local Authorized Repair Center. No repair number is needed. Please note that you are responsible for any freight charges incurred when shipping your bag to an authorized repair center.

B. Badly damaged bags – we recommend sending them directly to Briggs & Riley at one of our Official Company Repair Centers.

Our ‘Simple as That®’ guarantee will cover the repair of all functional aspects of your Briggs & Riley bag for life.

In my mind, that meant:

It would last a really, really long time before anything broke, ripped or didn’t work
It would be easy to get it fixed, if I ever had to
These people really care about their customers

I love the bag. It’s easy to pack an entire week’s worth of stuff into, if I need to. Shirts and sports coats travel well and come out pretty wrinkle free. So I’m happy.

photo[2]_opt Fast forward to 10 months after the purchase. The bag has a rip in it.

So I go to the B&R website and complete a form. It’s relatively painless (who knew a suitcase could have a serial number?) and I submit it. Unfortunately, because there were no authorized repair centers in my area, I had to send my bag back to Briggs & Riley.

The email telling me this gave me all the information I needed but didn’t express any sentiment or apology for the fact that I was going to be inconvenienced.

I had to take the bag to a UPS store because really — who has a box big enough for a large suitcase laying around. By the time I bought the box and paid for the shipping, it was close to $100. Lovely.

photo_opt Then, I waited. And waited. I didn’t hear anything from Briggs & Riley. It had been a few weeks and I was just about to reach out to them via their website when voila, my repaired suitcase arrived with this card that outlines what got fixed. And that’s it.

So let’s review.

Briggs & Riley makes expensive and well crafted bags
They guarantee the bag for life and will repair the bag for free
They make it simple to get the bag repaired
They honored their promise — fixed my bag and sent it back to me

So they follow all the best business practices. They make a quality product and charge a premium for it. They back their product with a rock solid guarantee and then they honored that guarantee.

They did it all right. And yet….they screwed it up at every turn. They had so many opportunities to build a bond and their brand and they whizzed by every one of them.

When someone pays a ridiculous amount of money for something you sell — they want to be reassured that they made a good call. they want to be your fan. Let me say that again — they want to be your fan. But you have to extend the invitation and make the effort.

If I was the Director of Marketing for Briggs & Riley, here’s what I would do different:

When someone buys one of our bags and registers it (with the serial # etc) I would send them a hand signed thank you note from the CEO/President, welcoming them into the B&R family and inviting them to join our customer exclusive club
Our club would offer travel tips for the seasoned road warrior, packing tips etc.
Every holiday season, we’d send a small gift (like B&R luggage tags) to the members of our club.
If someone came to our website to report a damaged bag, we’d have them fill out the form but the email confirmation/reply would outline what they should expect, in terms of time frame etc. It would also offer a sincere apology that they have to be inconvenienced by not having their bag.
We’d have a suitcase loaner program. No one spends that kind of money on a suitcase unless they travel a lot. We’d offer to ship them a clean, used bag to use while theirs is in our shop. All they’d have to do is pay to ship it back. (I doubt very many people would accept this offer…but the gesture matters)
When their bag arrived at our repair center, we’d notify them that it had arrived and give them an estimated date for the return of their bag.
Sometime during the repair timeframe, we’d send them a funny video about their bag recovering from its surgery and as soon as it was released…it was headed back home.
In the box with the returned bag, we’d send them a thank you note from the repair team, thanking them for their confidence in Briggs & Riley and apologizing again for the hassle.
In 30 days after the bag was returned — they’d get a letter from us, asking if the bag is now performing to Briggs & Riley standards.

Most of those ideas wouldn’t cost very much money. But each one would get one step closer to creating a brand zealot — someone who raves about their bag and convinces other people to buy one too.

Building a brand doesn’t have to cost a fortune. It’s about doing what’s right and then asking yourself — what else could we or should we do? And then doing it. That’s how you create a love affair with your customers.

Don’t rest on your great product. In today’s hyper competitive world, you have to do a lot better than that.

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