Make Your Customers the Star Attraction
A hotel in California offered up a promotion wherein the first guest each day to sing a preselected song received a free room upgrade. The performances were videotaped and uploaded on YouTube, and a grand prize awarded to the best performance of the summer. It was an outrageous idea that worked fabulously for the hotel. So what are you doing to include your customers in the fun and to actually get them involved in some way? Here are a few ways companies are including their customers (and keep in mind, everyone has customers, your customers might just be sitting down the hallway):
- Hold a contest that gets your customers involved in your business in some way. Perhaps it’s a contest to name a product or create a new idea. (One restaurant, for example, offers a prize four times a year for the most creative idea fo
r a new menu item.) - Hold a contest for the most creative photo or video submitted by a customer that promotes a product or your company in some outlandishly fun way.
- Create “behind the scenes” events where your customers can get a hands-on experiences to find out what some aspects of your business are truly like.
- Include your customers in brainstorming sessions.
- Make your customers the stars of your marketing campaigns.
- Highlight a customer regularly in some fun way. Promote their business on your social media or website, include a write up about them in your newsletter, or create a customer hall of fame fun photo gallery – do something to make them feel like the star attraction, because, well, they are!
Michael Kerr is a Hall of Fame speaker who travels the world researching, writing and speaking about inspiring workplace cultures. Sign up for his raved about weekly e-zine Inspiring Workplaces – Humor at Work at www.mikekerr.com
