When somebody gets their new Porsche delivered, that has got to be one very sweet moment (and I am not speaking from experience here). Most Porsche sellers will call or e-mail the customer with a brief, dry message, but one Porsche dealership recently decided to give its customers a surprise. Instead of a phone call or an e-mail, they send the customer a beautiful bouquet of flowers. And the little card attached to the flowers announces that their new car has arrived. The dealership believes that a beautiful moment deserves a beautiful form of communication. I think that’s just brilliant. That´s marketing for the heart. Consumers don´t quickly forget such little symbolic touches.
Too many marketers are still reasoning from their own experience when communicating. Too many marketers reach for the conventional tools when they want to convince a customer. Imagine if a few companies were to invest a small share of their media budget in … flowers. Instead of buying 10 million euros of media space, we make it 9.5 million. One-half of those €500,000 we invest in flowers, the other half is cost savings.
€250,000 in flowers means around 10,000 bouquets. 10,000 times touching a consumer´s heart. Undoubtedly the consumer will recount this moment to his friends, his Facebook friends and his Twitter followers. Ten thousand times the consumer thinks of that brand for perhaps the following ten days. Telecom companies can send flowers when a customer moves house. Insurers upon the birth of a child. Travel organizers when a customer gets back home. Every company has a beautiful moment for giving a consumer a warm feeling.
Which company dares to accept my challenge? Cut your ad budget by 5%. One half you can save, the other half goes to flowers. I´d like to know if it works. My gut says ´yes´. Which company wants to invest in the hearts of its consumers and believes in the power of warm symbols?
In this blog I´m taking flowers as an example. Obviously you can follow the same reasoning with other symbols. If it can cost less, a handwritten postcard would also work well. My pitch is very simple: invest a bit less in the easy, expensive path, and invest in marketing to the heart instead. The bonus is cost savings and a lot of positive conversations.
Who´s willing to take the dare?
We don’t have an ad budget
, but we still want 2 accept your challenge, keep you posted !
Fantastic! Looking fwd to see your creativity in action!
a viking hat for everyone?
Rebel likes and accepts the challenge!
Fantastic!
Danone has recently dared the heartketing challenge. On May 24th and 31th Danone employees, managers and directors included,distributed 30000 products (Danone breakfast & Activia breakfast)at the entrance of supermarkets. It was a great experience for both, consumers and Danone employees. Found out about our moment for giving consumers a warm feeling
http://on.fb.me/10NuRl3 http://on.fb.me/17kNReq
@EnecoBE is in for the challenge! Keep you posted…
I totally believe in heartketing in stead of marketing… Try to launch that @xerius.
Challenge accepted !
Off course we love the challenge. We see each day trough our customers that it’s an enjoyable experience to give. We believe that ‘The Experience of Giving!’ builds and strengthens relationships! Very nice initiative. @igopost_nl
great challenge to transform marketing from a cost to proven profit center and from brand & product management towards customer and customer relation management!
We try to do it for our customers. But also for our employees. Flowers or fruit at special occasions or difficult situations, A personal call or talk by the ceo when something special happened etc… If you want your organization to think like this, we think you have to start with your colleagues. A client feels it immediatedly when an action comes from the heart or from a marketing book.” At least that’s our experience.
Kristien Moelans & Herman Verwimp, NV Mathieu Gijbels
Greta to hear, thanks for your insights!
Question: does Insites Consulting do heartmarketing? If so, how and what?
Hi Marnik,
Thanks for your question. Maybe you missed it that I started my own company, B-Conversational, in September last year, so I don’t know all details of InSites anymore. Kristof De Wulf will be happy to help you, I informed him about your comment. I know that InSites is always interested in surprising customers with small cards, small presents and flowers when their is an occasion. Also, in my opinion, the InSites events have great food and drinks, which is also going to the heart, no?