[Welcome back to our Word of Mouth Marketing Lessons newsletter. This is text from the great issue all of our email subscribers just received. Sign yourself up using this handy form.]
Leaving a lasting impression is as important as giving a good first impression. You want your customers to walk away feeling like they have to tell someone about your company.
Here are three ways to do it:
1. Send them off with a small gift
2. Give them a memorable experience
3. Make souvenirs more remarkable
1. Send them off with a small gift
Casten Auto Body Shop leaves behind a gift bag in every car they repair. It includes a bag of candy, a branded coffee mug, and a reusable bag. For a lot of people, taking your car to an auto body shop means something bad happened — like a accident that messed up your car. Little gifts like these help put the cherry on top of what was hopefully a good experience fixing it. Plus, they stick around as reminders to recommend Casten Auto Body Shop to a friend.
2. Give them a memorable experience
There are many stories of Uber drivers going above and beyond just driving their customers around. And since the game has been stepped up, drivers have to do more than just be courteous and get you there on time to stand out. One driver, Jonathan Gaurano, does karaoke with his passengers — that is, he just puts on a song everyone knows like “Uptown Funk” and sings along. It’s something people remember, appreciate, and blog about.
3. Make souvenirs more remarkable
The National Mustard Museum curator, Barry Levenson, says people do a double-take when they walk by their mustard vending machine. There’s nothing extra special about the mustard, but the fact that it’s in a vending machine encourages people to take some home as a museum souvenir. And even more people just take photos of it. Imagine how many of those people would be excited about the same mustard on a shelf. What if barbeque restaurants sold their sauce out of a vending machine, or if gift shops shot souvenir shirts out of a T-shirt cannon? Sometimes, it’s all in the presentation.
