WOMBAT is off to a good start. The Chip Heath keynote just ended, and I was able to walk away with some really great ideas for how we can be ’succes-ful’. Heath defines success as being: simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional, stories. In the talk, he focused on being unexpected, concrete and emotional.
Be unexpected - Serve them cookies
He gives this versus that examples of companies doing things expectedly and those doing things unexpectedly. Ritz Carlton is losing market share because although they’re doing a great job of being a top hotel, they’re nothing more than that. Double Tree hotels, on the other hand, is a quality, middle-of-the-road hotel that is doing a good job of being who they are, but throw fresh baked cookies into the mix, and instantly you have something to talk about (and a reason to come back).
How can we serve our users fresh baked cookies? (I plan to answer this in a later post)
Be concrete - Give them something to stand on
The way I can explain this concept is by using on of his examples. Is there a difference between Idiopathic Cardiomyopathy and heart flutters? Essentially, they are two phrases describing the same thing. Which resonates with you more? This goes to using natural language which is something we believe in strongly with siteMighty.
With siteMighty, and affiliate marketing in a broader sense, we have to do some educating to get people understanding what IT is. We made a decision in the beginning to use natural language all throughout the site and in all our correspondence to help people get it easier, faster, better.
Be emotional - Make them care
I want our users to like us. I want our users to know us. The other day I was answering a support ticket for siteMighty, and when the user responded, at the end of her response she said that she hopes we stay the size we are now because she loved getting an answer from us so quickly.
She actually used the word, “love.” That’s emotion. I responded by telling her that I hope to always do things that she can love, no matter how massive siteMighty becomes.
More to come!
