I recently had my birthday.
Birthdays have legal implications particularly around the age of 18 or 21: it bestows the rights of voting, alcohol and tobacco purchase, the ability to gamble and so on.
Birthdays also have cultural significance, particularly in the West.
Birthdays are occasions when a person celebrates the yearly anniversary of their birth often through a party with gifts.
I’m not a big fan of birthdays, mainly because it doesn’t take much effort to stay alive in the West, so I find being congratulated on it a bit strange.
But, I want to focus on the “celebrate” and “gifting” part of birthdays.
In the West, we usually give presents to the person whose birthday it is.
For my birthday, I suggested the cliché “no presents, just your presence will suffice.”
I’d much prefer experiences than tangibles.
A service provider I am a customer of emailed me on my birthday wishing me a Happy Birthday via the use of an electronic birthday card video.
I like the sentiment, however as a business, they could have done so much better and created a great experience with me.
I mention great experience with me, not just because I prefer experiences than tangibles, but because brands are built on experiences and interactions:
A brand is the real-time, sum total experience, perception and related story that prospects and customers create about something or someone that exists in someone else’s mind.
The problem with their approach was that it was a standard, un-customized electronic birthday card video.
In a time technology like this is easy, cheap and accessible, they could have at least customized it with my name.
Even bulk email communication is customized with people’s salutation, despite it being obvious that it’s only customized by an algorithm.
The real problem is that most electronic mediums, especially email is saturated, so much so, that it’s hard to stand out any more.
Peoples inboxes are full.
And as such, the priority order of methods for communicating with potential customers should be as follows:
- In person;
- Snail mail;
- Email; and
- Phone.
Let’s explore the reasons for this order…
When you meet someone in person, it makes the interaction real.
It legitimizes you.
Humans are social creatures, and no other method can replicate talking to a real person live.
The best way to meet in person with people is at an industry event.
The next best is snail mail.
Yes, through the post.
Firstly, email is a crowded channel and will likely get lost so try other first.
If they are a busy person, they will get 100 or more email a day, and most of them will be deleted or not read.
Do not make it hard on yourself to get their attention.
You can find postal addresses on the organizations website.
If a postal address is not published on their website, look up their postal address by searching their website domain on Whois.com.
Whois.com stores the registered users of an Internet domain.
Most people who receive snail mail get letters.
The most important point is to post them something beyond a letter; a parcel usually works well.
By sending a parcel, you will get their attention, and they will open it first.
Think about the experience they will have if they receive a parcel they do not recall ordering: “Oh a parcel, I did not order anything, who could this be from, I will open it first.”
It is a surprise.
Of course, they will drop off the other mail and open it.
The third way is Email, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Messaging and so on.
Again, this channel is crowded and finding these addresses is hard because people do not like to give them out because they get spammed.
Nonetheless, if the other two options fail, go to the organization contacts page on their website you researched earlier.
If no email address is listed for the person you want.
You can guess their email address by looking at the structure of other email addresses on their website.
A better way is to use LinkedIn – in the search bar and type the organization name.
Click on the company logo, and it will display all organizations that use LinkedIn.
Find the person you would like to contact, and see if you have any mutual connections.
Make sure your privacy settings are turned on so this person you are researching cannot see you have searched for them.
The final way is via phone.
You need to be really good at cold calling to be able to get someone to listen to you and not blow you off because calls interrupt busy people.
I will not be focusing on this method in this training.
Whether it is in person, via snail mail, email or phone, your initial contact should not be directly asking for a job.
This all should make logical sense to you, but you may be wondering how you scale this effort if you have hundreds or thousands of potential customers…
Whether it is un-customized or via email, doesn’t matter.
What I’m saying is, do something that stands out!
Electronic greeting card is free.
And it has no value.
This service provider provides me with digital products.
Digital products are highly scalable in cost.
Instead, they should have given me a free part of their digital products.
Giving me a free week, for example, of their service would have cost them virtually nothing and added a lot more value than the “gift” they gave me.
I’m going to tell you how to build a positive brand experience via reciprocity for your customers on their birthday.
Reciprocity is discussed in Robert Cialdini’s book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.
Reciprocity is the psychological principle that states that people are more inclined to return free support received.
In the context of marketing and sales, the returned free support is in the form of payment for products, services or solutions.
It is important to note that your business is not a charity, freebie’s given to a potential client on their birthday is not just about giving value away for free to build reciprocity with prospects with no catch at all.
The catch is that you hope they will remember the great brand experience and purchase from you later on.
So how do you leverage a customer’s birthday as a business?
First, don’t try to sell.
EVER.
Although I said you hope they will remember the great brand experience and purchase from you later on, now is not the time.
Instead, give a gift of value.
Here are some guidelines for that gift:
- It should be scalable;
- It should build reciprocity and thus return-on-investment;
- It should be related to your core product, service or solution; and
- It should be related to how birthdays are celebrated.
I still believe the best example of a business which leveraged a customer’s birthday for more customers was what I did as an event promoter for nightclubs.
Here was the birthday gift and offer: we provided a $50 free drink coupon on someone’s birthday for them and 7 friends to use.
This worked out to be 8 drinks in total or 1 drink per person.
Why was this effective?
It was:
- A scalable gift as whole alcohol is cheap;
- Built reciprocity and thus return-on-investment incentivising them to bring friends (from the same target demographic) at zero acquisition cost to the business from a recommended/trusted 3rd party, experiencing the venue, priming them for repeat custom particularly to stay and buy more once they were used;
- Related to the core product, service or solution of the business which was serving alcoholic drinks; and
- Related to birthday celebrations as people celebrate birthdays with alcohol.
So based on this, what could you do for your customers on their birthday that builds a positive brand experience via reciprocity?