By Daria Steigman, founder of Steigman Communications, LLC and author of the Independent Thinking Blog.
Stan Phelps has a message for business owners: stop spending so much time on acquiring new customers and spend more of it wowing the ones you have.
In a terrific new book, What’s Your Purple Goldfish, the author posits that in a sea of sameness the best way to achieve brand differentiation is to focus the bulk of your marketing efforts (and budget) on your customers— and not your prospects. His approach is a concept called lagniappe:
“Lagniappe is a Creole word meaning ‘the gift’ or ‘to give more.” A marketing lagniappe, i.e., a purple goldfish, is any time a business purposely goes above and beyond to provide a little something extra. It’s a marketing investment back into your customer base. It’s that unexpected surprise that’s thrown in for good measure to achieve product differentiation, drive retention and promote word of mouth.”
It is not a baker’s dozen, because we expect 13 bagels in our bag. But the 14th bagel just might be a purple goldfish. (more…)