Funny Letter from Deodorant Company Teaches Key Marketing Lesson

Working with small- to mid-sized businesses means virtually never having a low-cost/low-price strategy. Customer intimacy or technical innovation strategies rule.

Imagine you make deodorant in a small company and you sell it online. Before you read any farther, think of how you would make a positive difference in each customer’s day by sending them an email about their order. Not so easy, right? Which is why I insisted my wife send me a copy of the email she received from Native Companies, as follows:

“Frances,

Your bar of Native Deodorant was gently pulled by our team of experts and placed on a gold-trimmed pillow stuffed with the finest fibers known to man. Then, a team of six inspectors examined your deodorant under a magnifying glass, ensuring it was in perfect condition.

Once the inspection was complete, our veteran polisher (he was previously employed at the Tower of London, where he was responsible for polishing the Queen’s jewels) polished it as a quiet hush fell over the warehouse. ‘This package is getting shipped to France,’ he whispered, ‘take good care of it.’

We hope you had a wonderful time shopping at Native. In celebration, we have placed your name on our wall under the title “World’s Best Customer” and assigned you a dedicated parking spot right up front. We’ve also hired a pilot to skywrite “Frances Rocks!” above the Golden Gate Bridge. Thank you for supporting Native!”

I gave five stars to Native for building customer intimacy through creative email content, and I’ll point to this example with future clients who struggle with the notion that price is the only answer when selling commodity products. (For the record, I had never heard of Native before and have no affiliation with them.)

Lud Kimbrough is a Managing Director on The Fahrenheit Group’s Advisory team which is staffed with deep senior-level experience, including corporate finance and operations, executive coaching, strategy development, and transaction management. Please feel free to reach out to Lud, or any member of our team at fahrenheitadvisors.com with your advisory and finance needs.