A Real Brand – Real Customer Loyalty
I love to hear of stories of great companies who have built a real brand. This is a brand that has a loyal customer base and when the brand is mentioned people can tell you stories (great stories) of this brand. Recently Peter Day of the BBC interviewed the CEO of WD-40. Yes those distinctive blue and yellow cans with that spray we use to solve all sorts of problems.
As Peter stated in his notes – ” it starts off as a lubricant and then generates all kinds of other uses, most of which give the users the wonderful feeling that it’s their cleverness to spray on the WD–40, rather than the product’s versatility.”
Originally WD-40 was designed to stop space rockets corroding. This formula was the 40th attempt to come up with a water dispersant. However as some of the people who worked for the company started taking the product home it started to gain other markets.
There are a number of lessons that can be learnt from the business.
It has been a business significantly built on sampling. They give a sample to someone to try which has led people to purchase. From this word of mouth has done a lot of the business building.
But this word of mouth has been helped by the company. It you visit their website you will fine a fanclub and a page devoted to 2000 plus uses of the product. The 2000 plus uses are full of stories that people can tell each other, try out and otherwise create word of mouth marketing.WD40 ask people to continue to send in examples of how they use the product.They are fostering the word of mouth.They are creating a tribe around a spray can.
The brand has a promise of being able to solve all those little lubricant issues around the house or business. But more than that even keep squirrels from climbing a pole. Read some of the 2000 uses for some crazy examples.
Also it is interesting how little detail is important. The smell that comes with the spray is added. It is not necessary to make the product work. But the smell is important for us to remember the product.
WD40 really take the time to understand the customers need and how their products can help.
So the lessons in summary -
- how are you fostering word of mouth
- how can you allow your customers to sample your product or service
- what little details can you do to your product or service that will leave a memory eg smell, touch etc
- how can you really understand the customers needs better.
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