Trending
While I have had an occasional sip of Coca-Cola® in my life, but I have never drank an entire bottle of Coke®, let alone buy a case of it. That all changed when I experienced their relationship marketing strategy.
In fact before my experience and I would see someone drink one, I would wonder why someone would drink something that is so bad for them. So, when I purchased an entire case of Coke®, my husband asked me if I was feeling OK. I started to laugh and wondered what happened – where did I get off course. While I am influenced by my 11 year old son’s love of Coca-Cola®, the real shift was Coke’s® ability to touch my heart cord through their holiday marketing campaign. Specifically, their shift from selling coke to embracing happiness, love and kindness.
Over 11 million Filipino ex-pats have had to leave their country so they could financially support their families. Instead of spending their income to travel home, they stay and work so they can make money and send it back to their family. One man left his son when he was 1 year old and hasn’t seen him in 11 years. Others haven’t met new additions to their family. Coca-Cola® brought a select group of Filipinos home for Christmas. You can’t watch this video without it touching your heart. The next thing you know, you will be buying a case of Coke® – it’s that powerful.
So what can we learn from this experience that can produce these types of results for our business?
#1 Add a Relationship Marketing Strategy
Relationship Marketing (such as sending a heartfelt card, video or even telephone message) is only for the purpose of connecting with your prospects and clients on a deeper level. An effective relationship marketing strategy allows us to tap into a prospect’s emotion. This is important because the majority of people make buying decisions based on emotion. And when we combine relationship marketing with an authentic, heartfelt approach, we become unstoppable. Caution: if we do it in a manipulative manner, your clients and prospects will sense this and it will backfire.
#2 Add Some Emotion
If you look at many of the fortune 500 companies, they no longer sell products, they now sell emotions. Coke® is selling happiness as this video exemplifies. BMW® is selling joy. Disney® is no longer selling rides or adrenaline rushes, they are now providing family fun. What emotion will resonate with your prospects?
#3 Add in Social Media, Including Videos
A picture says a thousand words. The advantage of YouTube is that it allows you to connect with many more people in an easier way. It also allows your message to go viral like Coke® did with their relationship marketing strategy.
Take a minute and identify 3 actions you will commit to make in your market strategy that will get you deeper and better connections with your clients, prospects and centers of influence.
Until we connect again, schedule time to begin working on your relationship marketing strategy so you can create an emotional connection with your clients and prospects that will stand the test of time.
This article originally appeared on PMA360.com .