How can you make sure you keep your customers happier for longer?

For months I've been telling you that people don't buy products, they buy experiences. But what if you sell a product? How do you ensure that your product delivers a great experience?

Products that no longer spark joy

I've been watching Marie Kondo's Netflix show, called Tidying Up. And as I watch people discard products that no longer spark joy in their lives, I've been wondering how we, as marketers, can do a better job of keeping people happier with the products they buy for longer.

I took some time out recently to go to some garage sales in Palm Springs to find out what are the three or four most popular high-ticket items that people are selling.

In amongst the clothes, random pieces of artwork, magazines and books, the three things that jumped out to me as the high-ticket items being resold were:

Kitchen appliances – think waffle irons, lots of waffle irons.
Exercise equipment – lots of bikes and...

In this week’s video I demonstrate this by flying 11,000 miles to show you exactly what experiential marketing looks like.

Let me introduce you to some people… Joe Nathan and Sanjay Gill and his wife, Mirabai Winford.

Now, here's what they have in common.

One, they're Australians.

Two, they all target new parents. More specifically, first-time parents and, even more specifically, they target first-time moms.

Three, they all use experiences to win over new customers.

And four, they are amazingly successful at doing it.

What's amazing is that they use very similar experiential marketing tactics to own the very same customer, except they did it over 100 years apart.

Everything old is new again.

Experiential marketing… over a hundred years ago

Joe Nathan ran a powdered milk company called Defiance Powdered Milk which he had purchased with his brother in the early 1900s.

Joe and his brother were struggling to compete in a marketplace of more than 300 powdered milk...

Let’s dive into marketing and sales funnels. I'm going to explain what they are, what's wrong with them, and uncover the simple trap that most businesses are falling into when it comes to funnels.

I'm also going to reveal the conspiracy behind the plot to keep the funnel.

What is a marketing funnel?

A marketing and sales funnel is designed to help you visualize a series of stages during the consumer's buying journey.

Generally, there are five or six stages. In the funnel I show you in the video, there are six:

• Awareness
• Consideration
• Intent
• Purchase
• Loyalty
• Advocate

Here's how it works. You make a ton of people aware of your brand… now some of those people might consider buying from you.

Some might show some intent to purchase and some might actually purchase, and some of might become loyal advocates for your brand.

With the funnel approach, you’re trying to push a huge volume of people through your funnel, but the problem is that a lot of them aren't...

Here's a paradox for you…. A bad experience can actually make us happier than an experience that meets our expectations. I know, surprising?!

We’re going to uncover why this paradox is true, why meeting or exceeding your customers' expectations just doesn't work and what to do about it.

Understanding experience  

In order to make my case of how bad experiences can actually make us happy, we need to understand two things.

The first is that an experience is an event or occurrence that leaves an impression, or not.

And second, experiences create opportunities for deeper and longer social interactions.

If I tell you I bought a new pair of shoes this weekend, how deep or long is that conversation? Not very! However, if I tell you all about the awesome hike I took this morning in my brand new pair of shoes, all the way around the island of Nevis (where this video was shot from) and the fact that I saw some monkeys, that's a deeper and longer conversation. (Yes, the...

I’ve had a lot of people asking me recently what gear I use to shoot the Loyalty Loop videos.

I wanted to give you a special behind the scenes look at not just the equipment I’m using, but the process I follow for shooting the videos.

I want to demonstrate that it's not just about the equipment. I think it's just as much about the pre-production and the process.

But first, let me answer the burning question…

What gear do I use to shoot The Loyalty Loop?

Cameras and tripods

The video above is shot on my GoPro HERO7. I really like this camera, not least because it's a great travel size. I tend to use it a lot for time lapse and B-roll – the audio is great too.

I attach this camera to a JOBY, which is a little tripod. I like these so much I also have a big JOBY which I’ll talk to you about in a minute.

The other camera I use – especially when I’m travelling – is the Panasonic LUMIX G85 MK.

On top of that, I have a really nice RodeLink...

For more than a year I've been talking about creating loyalty loop experience and someone recently asked me this question: "Hey Drew, what exactly is an experience?"

It made me realize that I’ve never actually defined the word experience or truly explained what an experience is.

Better yet, I’ve never demonstrated what an experience is, why an experience matters and why every single person in your company contributes to creating a great experience.

The Loyalty Loop

If you've watched every episode of The Loyalty Loop you’ll know that it’s defined as, ‘a series of post commitment encounters designed to elicit intense and eager enjoyment, approval or interest’.

That is the textbook definition. Notice it's a series of encounters or experiences.

And that begs the question: What exactly is an experience?

The customer experience demonstrated

I’m going to give you that here... using a chair as an example.

I just found out that a chair I own is a...

Rub and dub dub, Loyalty Loopers! This week’s episode is fresher than fresh, and not just because I recorded it in my shower.

Now, I know that’s not the only reason you’re tuning in. You’re here because you want to know how to build your brand, but let’s be honest - it’s hard! I’m not going to sugar coat this: building a brand may not be easy, but it can be elegantly simple.

To start brand building the right way, you’re going to have to embrace a big idea. Ready? Ok, let’s do this! When you first start out, brand building is not about you, your business, or even your product. Instead, it’s all about the market. Say whaaaat?

Before we explore my bold claim further, let’s take a step back into my office (a.k.a. the shower). Why was I even in here to begin with? To show you this line of hair care products I love called Under the Sun, of course.

Under the Sun was created by none other than my hairstylist Lauren...

We're going to dive into one of the things that bothers me most about staying at resorts and hotels, and that's their text message strategy, you can watch this little video about it that I did earlier in the year if you'd like. 

But I wanted to tell you about the resort I’m staying at in Phuket and what they've done to transform the experience by using messaging in a way I've never seen done before.  

If you remember a few months ago, I did a Loyalty Loop episode about the most annoying text message experience I've ever had with a hotel in Toronto. 

And here's the problem with messaging from hotels, it's all self serving. You see the hotel is trying to get a 10 out of 10 experience instead of focusing on delivering a great experience while the consumer is in the resort. That's adding up to a terrible set of interactions. 

But I arrived in Phuket a few days ago and had an amazingly refreshing experience. And there are two things that this hotel, the Trisara...

Here’s to a second “sawadee ka” from paradise, Loyalty Loopers!

We are kicking this week’s episode off in the sunny resort town of Phuket, Thailand, a place where relaxation, action, and intrigue go hand in hand. Bring your spy kit and take a boat ride with me to the (not so) secret lair of Scaramanga on James Bond Island in Phang Nga Bay. It’s one of my favorite places in the entire world, and not just because I’m a huge fan of The Man with the Golden Gun (1974).

But that’s enough movie geekery. Let’s cut to the real chase.

Last week, I showed you the difference a big, amazing Loyalty Loop experience can make when acquiring new customers. But as the words left my mouth, I could literally feel a buzz of objections in the air:

“But Drew, I’m not on the customer service team! My job is to acquire new customers.”
“I want to design big ideas for the front of the funnel, not the back.”

Believe me, I hear you!...

Sawadee Krab, intrepid readers (a.k.a “hi” in Thai)!

This latest installment of the Loyalty Loop video series is coming to you from the vibrant streets of Bangkok, a city in which the spiritual and the physical go hand in hand. Traveling through the temple-dotted landscape, I can’t help but feel like my international trip is also taking me on a journey into my own psyche.

Which leads me to the central theme of this episode: how to dig deep, find that great idea, and make it a reality. How do we differentiate our products and services?

Last week we discussed the importance of discovering your clients’ biggest post-purchase concerns and using those to pitch an audacious idea. We also covered an easy method to identify the creative concepts most likely to wow them. And (shocker!), they’re definitely not what your competitors are already doing.

But this week I have a real-world example for you that shows these concepts in action. This is the amazing story...