Aug 29 2007
Small Acts of Kindness
Anyone who manages or is an employee in a marketing department faces the constant demands of driving revenue. After celebrating a successful campaign you will hear the comment, “that’s great, but what have you done for me today?” There is a constant debate concerning short term gains and long term strategies. Unless you are blessed by leadership that always places priority on long-term strategies, the short term tactics always seem to win out. This can result marketing campaigns that hurt, rather than help the long-term viability of your business. A good example of this is squeezing in the extra email campaign. The tactic goes something like this: lets take our best campaign and do it better. The result may be something like this: let’s give ‘em free shipping and scream it louder.
With this in mind, it’s no wonder that successful email and banner advertising is facing diminishing returns. We have taken this viable form of advertising and ruined it for all. The cacophony of obnoxious screaming has caused users to completely ignore these forms of advertising. The only reason they still survive is because these programs are so cheap that substantial returns on investment are still possible. It won’t last long.
This brings me to the title of this article: Small Acts of Kindness. Here in Minnesota, we have recently have been deluged with rain (as well as the entire Midwest). My neighbor Brad has a sump pump in his house with a drainpipe mounted a few feet above ground that was eroding the ground underneath. The pumped water was flowing right back into the foundation. I took two minutes to go into my garage, grab some PVC pipe and mount it to move the flow of water away from the house. Two days later, Brad came bearing gifts. The generosity they extended (bottle of premium gin, case of premium beer and a great bottle of wine) was worth about $80. It was a very nice gesture for my two minutes of action.
I’ll leave you with a tactic that is a small act of kindness. The next time you plan to give away a widget for a purchase of $150 or more in an email campaign, do something different. Just give it way with no strings attached. Include it as a package insert and say “thank you for being our customer”. This may not give you extra revenue tomorrow, but it may give you 10 times the revenue over the coming months.
There is also another twist on this topic on Seth Godin’s Blog where he asks “If you didn’t want anything in return, nothing at all, what’s the most generous thing you could do for your best customer, your best friend, your most important prospect?”.
