How to differentiate your product or service!

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 of how one person took a simple idea and created a post- purchase experience so unique that it drove new business right to their door.

Let’s take a quick mental trip from the coasts of Thailand to Tulsa, Oklahoma and meet Steven, the hero of his own Loyalty Loop story. Steven is a contractor and the owner the company Tulsa Renew, a local company specializing in windows, sidings, and doors. Very quickly, Steven was able to identify the hidden concern all his current and prospective clients shared: would the contractor who’d be working on their houses actually do what was expected of him or her, even when they (the clients) weren’t home?

Luckily for him, this realization came with with a flash of inspiration. Since most other contractors only contacted their clients when something with a job would go wrong, he’d reach out to them when something went right.

See, Steven had no intention of being like his competitors. He wanted to do something remarkably different. As stated on his website, he aimed to provide his clients with “the ultimate customer experience”.

So what exactly did that look like? Well, you have to see it to believe it (no, seriously, watch the video to see his examples!). Steven firmly believed that every customer deserved to know exactly what was being done to their house every single day their team was there. So he took a $5 app and created a custom set of videos for every client showing them the work that had been done that day by using easy-to-follow graphics and visuals.

Not only did his clients love his new approach to remote communication, but they eagerly shared the videos with their friends and coworkers. Through word of mouth alone, every on-project video would get his company 11 qualified referrals. And that’s just the beginning!

His videos did such a great job of enhancing the post-purchase experience that he implemented them in the pre-purchase experience, too. Leveraging the power of GoogleMaps, he used public images of his prospective clients’ homes to make short quote videos for them as well. Needless to say, this secondary use for his simple idea made conversion numbers go through the roof (no pun intended!).

So what can we learn from this? With the right mindset, anyone can change the game and come up with their own big ideas to deal with existing customers and provide a truly differentiated Loyalty Loop.

“But I want to come up with marketing ideas for the front of the funnel, not the back!”, I hear you say. Well, what if I told you that they can be one and the same?

But for that, you’ll have to join me next week on my next Loyalty Loop adventure! I’ll be featuring another amazing real-life story that shows why creating a differentiated post-purchase experience leads to the best marketing pre-purchase experience.

Until then, I’ll be waiting for you on the warm sands of James Bond Beach in Phuket.