National Clothesline

Before I get started this month, I want to make it clear that I am not a “marketing guy.”

I want make that clear for two reasons. The first reason is because in about a minute, you are going to say to yourself, “Hmm, Don is writing about marketing this month,” and secondly, the difference between me and the immensely qualified marketing people out there is that they

will provide advice and solutions while I will simply give you something to think about. Food for thought, if you will.

I don’t consider myself a very good salesperson. Fortunately, what I do speaks for itself and I don’t have to market very aggressively to keep my schedule filled. This is different than the plight of the drycleaning plant owner who must continually strive to expand his customer base.

Because I don’t consider myself a good marketer, I have a thirst for knowledge on the subject, so I continually observe what other types of businesses do to win customers. I’d like to share those observations with you today.

When we market our shirt services, what do we do? Often, we use a low price. Rarely do we sell on guaranteed quick turnaround (”Shirts done in four hours or less!”).

I have never seen anyone sell their shirt service with something along the lines of “If you find a wrinkle, the shirt is free!” How’s that for bold?

I think that we sometimes forget what the actual product is, from the customer’s perspective. We think of it as a clean shirt, a low-priced shirt, a wrinkle-free shirt. What do customers view it as? I don’t know, but I do know that what they value might not be what seems obvious.

We often market on price because that is the only promise that is easy to keep. Can we continually guarantee wrinkle-free, perfectly pressed shirts? That’ll be a challenge and one that we need to delegate to overwhelmingly dedicated employees.

Can we continually promise specific turnaround? Perhaps, except during vacations, volume surges and times when the equipment fails. When all else fails, we can be sure that the price at the counter will remain un-changed. We promised shirts for a dollar and a half and we never fail. Let’s hope that this is what the customers wanted in the first place.

Last year, I wrote about the trip to the grocery store versus the trip to the convenience store for the same item. Exactly the same two-pound box of sugar. Exactly. Yet we pay 50 percent more to avoid the lines at the supermarket, and the walk to and from the car, which we are forced to bury deep in the bowels of the parking lot.

This tells me that the product isn’t just the sugar when we pay 50 percent more at the Quickie Mart. The “product” is the sugar plus the convenience.

Here are some of my observations.

Tomorrow morning, I’ll get to my office and open my mail. The TV will be on. Then I’ll get in my car, stop for a cup of coffee and then fill my car with gas. During that span of time, who will have tried to acquire or retain my patronage? And how?

When I return from a business trip, there is always an intimidating stack of mail on my desk. I categorize it, piece by piece.

One of the piles is unofficially titled “I wonder what this is?” Another is junk mail. Then there are bills, trade publications and perhaps others.

The junk mail never gets opened. It goes straight to the circular file. If someone sent me mail that ends up in the “I wonder what this is” stack, they are the big winners because they succeed at getting me to view their message. Bravo, for them.

The people that “sell” junk mail know that lots of people never even open their mail. Their challenge is to find a way to get you to try their product, just like you try to get someone to try out your services.

The “I wonder what this is” stack has envelopes in it that are stamped with “Personal & Confidential” or “Do not discard” or the envelopes have the look of official government mail. It has some excerpts quoting mail fraud laws.

The envelope gives no clues whatsoever that this was simply an invitation to a car dealer’s “MegaSale”. They used a back door to get me to listen to their message. Perhaps I won’t buy, but they made me aware. They trumped the guy that sent me mail that was evidently something that I could not care less about. Perhaps there is a lesson for a shirt launderer there. Are you plucking the right nerve?

The television distracts me for a moment. David Spade is now type-cast as the CSR for the awards redemption department of your credit card company. No matter what you want to redeem your points for, the answer is “No!” This is an ad for Capital One credit card. Their pitch to you is not “Our interest rates are lowest.“ It’s not “No annual fee”, nor is it “Everybody takes this card.”

These are things that we are supposed to care about with regards to our credit card. No, their angle is (amazingly), “Get our credit card, use it as much as you can, paying our near usury level interest rates and an annual fee all the while accumulating token bonus points that you can redeem for stuff you want without fear that you will be denied any of these goodies.”

That’s some angle. Does that give you any ideas about how to get new customers? The fact that this TV commercial has been on for quite some time suggests to me that it has been an effective way to attract new customers for Capital One.

I get in my car to get a cup of coffee. What is the product? Is it that hot beverage that I can make in my own kitchen for 10 cents, but will drive to a shop five miles away that will charge me 20 or 30 times that for essentially the same thing?

Starbucks certainly banks on the thought that the experience that they provide is worth big bucks to their customers. But let’s put Starbucks aside because it is now an over-used metaphor. (If Starbucks can get $4 for a cup of coffee, how come we can’t get that for washing, pressing and packaging a dress shirt?)

Don’t the spill-resistant lids on coffee cups amaze you? Someone is in the business of devising surprisingly complex devices to control the outflow of a hot beverage from a disposable cup. Each device is more intricate than the other. How much do these cost? I asked someone at a coffee shop while researching this column but I didn’t get an answer, just a shrug.

Someone has decided that a cup of coffee is just a cup of coffee so they have decided to enhance the product. Now the product is the beverage just like the other guy serves, but served in a cup that will keep the hot liquid from dibbling all over your shirt. The only way they can trump their competitor, who also has a drive-thru, a friendly staff and a clean store, is to enhance the product.

Does that mean that you need to do the same? I think that it is food for thought, that’s for sure.

Perhaps a customer will appreciate enhanced packaging, for example. Just make sure that it’s something that a customer feels has value, not something that you think is “pretty cool.” Remember that the cup of coffee, er… the shirt, needs to be of equal or better quality as that of the person you are competing with.

While not spilling my cup of java, I drive to the Mobil station and fuel up my car. Mobil’s marketing scheme is great. Gasoline is gasoline, right? Some of you may disagree, but when you car is thirsty, any brand of gasoline will quench it and get you on your way.

I have no idea how the cost of gas compares at Mobil with its competitors. I have been fueling there for years because of the convenience of the Speed Pass and the Car Tag especially.

All you do is pull up to the pump and an RF chip in the car tag identifies you as you and the pump is ready to go. No money is exchanged. No delays. Just gasoline. A little short on customer service, no doubt, but I’m guessing that Mobil figures that you care more about convenience than conversation when fueling your car.

I bet that I pay more for Mobil gas and if someone else’s gas makes my car run better I may never know unless that “better gas” company finds a convenience that I like better and then lets me know about it, perhaps in a “junk mail” piece that looks like something I should be opening.

Mobil has come up with a fascinating way to retain customers and it has nothing to do with “the product,” if you believe that “the product” is nothing more than gasoline.

We come close to providing a product like this when we offer drive-up windows, car hop service or home delivery. However, this may not be unique enough when our competitors offer the same services. Once they do, the playing field has been leveled again and the company with the most amount of marketing savvy ups the ante with everything that everyone else provides, plus one more unique amenity.

This doesn’t have to be very hi-tech. A client outside Chicago provides car hop service, perhaps similar to drive-ups that competitors have, but here the CSR puts the garments that the customer is picking up right into their cars. They will open the tailgate or the back door and hang the clothes in the car — and up to four cars simultaneously. The ultimate in convenience, I think.

Do you want to be made to feel like a king? Do you want to feel like you are more than just another customer to a big company?

Try this: Join the Club Gold with Hertz Car Rental. It doesn’t cost any money and you don’t have to be a frequent renter. When the Hertz van picks you up at the airport, the driver will ask you if you are a Gold Club member. If you aren’t, you will be courteously dropped off at the central building where you will queue up with all of the other common folk. You will wait in line, and when its your turn, you will make the necessary arrangements and negotiations to rent a vehicle.

If you told the driver that you’ve made a reservation with your Gold Club membership, it’s an entirely different scenario. You are dropped off at the car that has already been reserved and prepared for you. There is a lighted marquee at the vehicle that is clearly identifying you by name — Desrosiers — and the trunk is open. You place your bags in it, get in the car, and drive away. Your paperwork is in the car. You are on the road in minutes. This makes anyone feel special. I flatly refuse to rent a car from someone else. Hertz makes me feel important.

What do you do to make your customers feel important?

“If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you always got.”