June 24th, 2009
A couple years back I had the opportunity to eat at Cafe Gray, the (unfortunately now closed) fine dining vision of world-renowned chef Gray Kunz.
To sum it up in one word: holy-wow-I’ll-never-have-another-meal-that-good-so-long-as-I-live.
The thing I remember most about my meal at Cafe Gray was the mysterious, teeny-tiny spoonful served before the meal. Thankfully I was with people who had experienced fine dining before. This, apparently, was called an “amuse-bouche“, a single bite-sized hors d’oeuvre meant to excite the palate and spark a guest’s interest in and anticipation of the meal to come.
That technique works just as well for marketing as it does for cooking.
The marketing amuse-bouche can be anything. It can be an elevator pitch that focuses on an interesting facet of your business, leaving space for your audience to ask questions. It can be a uniquely designed business card that surprises someone into slowing down and noticing your unique style. Maybe it’s a signature pair of red sneakers that people will think of everytime they remember that party where you met.
So next time you’re going to a networking event, try this: instead of explaining the ins and outs of your work, talk about why your work is exciting. If you can communicate the exciting parts, suddenly you’ve got an audience anxious to hear more.
Tags: amuse-bouche, anticipation, interest, surprise
Posted in Building Relationships | No Comments »
June 10th, 2009
Want to see a trick? Go up to your browser’s menu bar and click “View” and then “text size”. Click a few of the options and see what happens.
Did you know you could do that?
One of the beautiful things about the Internet is just how customizable it is. For someone whose eyesight isn’t that good, there’s an easy way to make any website more readable. There are ways to make colors appear differently, to change the fonts in your browser, and lots of other little tweaks you can make so your web browser behaves the way you want.
And that’s all well and good for viewers. But for businesses building a website, it means planning for the changes your viewers might make.
A ‘For Instance’
I recently signed up for a new online service. There was a long and elaborate setup process to get things moving, and just when I thought I was done, the application wouldn’t let me finish.
I went backwards, repeated steps, and checked all my answers. Finally, after my level of frustration had increased to the point where I was angrily (and futilely) asking my computer questions like “Why won’t you just work?!”, I called customer service.
After a few minutes of searching through my account, the customer service rep discovered the flaw. Turns out, I had needed to insert a special formula in one of the lines of text. My mistake. But one I would have been able to quickly fix if only the site had explained it to me. Both the company’s customer service team and I would have saved a 10 minute conversation.
Pave the Road
I like to think of Marketing as ‘paving the road’ for potential clients. You’ve got to meet people where they are, clear a path to your business, and encourage them to walk it. With the ever-growing number of choices out there, you’ve got to make it as easy as possible for people to choose you. If that means clearing trees off the path, I’d say it’s probably worth it.
Tags: clear the path, contingency planning, customize, pave the road
Posted in Building Relationships, Web | 1 Comment »