Using Creative To Build Relationships

December 19, 2007      Admin

Thanks to Ann Handley at Marketing Profs for this post about a marvelous piece of creative.

Not just creative to please its creator, but an effort to make a routine communication — a mundane one in the hands of most marketers — both stand out and trigger an emotional connection.

What follows is a shipping confirmation email sent to a customer who had just ordered some music from CDBaby, the online music store …

“Your CDs have been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CDs and polished them to make sure they were in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CDs into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved 'Bon Voyage!' to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Sunday, November 18th.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did.

Your picture is on our wall as 'Customer of the Year.' We're all exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Sigh…

Derek Sivers, president, CD Baby
the little store with the best new independent music
http://cdbaby.com cdbaby@cdbaby.com (503)595-3000″

No communication from your nonprofit should be permitted to be mundane. Not one.

Every one creates an impression. Every one gives you the opportunity to express the personality of your organization. To stand out. To build an emotional connection.

“Edgy” isn't the answer for every organization. What you're shooting for is “authentic” and “memorable.”

Make a resolution today: “I will find the most boring communication my organization routinely issues, and make it sing.”

Roger & Tom