Tick Yes

Think about how you like to be romanced; chocolates, flowers, long lazy Sunday afternoons curled up in bed, having every one of your desires met. When we are out to romance our mission is to explore how our loved one is wired and what gets them excited. The rest of the world melts away as we focus all our energy on wooing this one special individual.

Romance offers a fresh approach to marketing by making marketing programs as intimate and relevant to your target audience as possible. Wooing them and sweeping them off their feet, appealing to their emotions so they buy in with their hearts and bellies not just their minds. Our most intense feelings are involuntary, falling in love just happens, and when it does it is very strong. Romance Marketing works the same way by engaging the emotions and helping to develop a life-long commitment.

When romance is added to your marketing efforts the customer is elevated into a new position, the barriers break-down as we invite them to engage with us on a new level. It starts by comparing successful personal relationships with core audience needs. The expectations are the same and the outcome of the relationship, positive or negative depends solely on these expectations being met.

Why do some relationships go sour? Disappointment happens when people’s needs, wants and desires go unmet. Usually the derailing of a relationship is attributed to the ‘C’ word. Complacency that is. Romance Marketing forever strives to keep an audience engaged never losing sight of its needs and desires.

Recent statistics from the ABS show that 50 per cent of first marriages and 60 per cent of second marriages end up in divorce. Think of the consequences of when a divorce goes sour. Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt are going through a bitter struggle for a multi-million-dollar fortune estimated to be worth $227 million. In most cases the break-down results from complacency and lack of communication.

Most people have horror stories of a relationship break-up, ‘If only I hadn’t taken her for granted, I might still be in the relationship’ are common thoughts that continue to pound in our heads well after the relationship has ended. Romance Marketing stands in contrast to traditional marketing methods, it flames the fire of passion, trust and connection.

Just think of the consequences of an unfulfilling relationship – loneliness, anger, hurt and frustration. These are the same feelings that we risk evoking in our target audience if their expectations are not met. At the most basic level it is vital to; talk, listen, hear and respond to the needs of your audience. Human beings are powered by emotional connections not reason; you need to forever make them feel valued and important.

Experts in customer psychology say that customer’s emotional states influence about 50 per cent of the value they perceive. How you connect with someone determines the success of the relationship. There are three things that are absolutely fundamental to any nurturing/emotional relationship. We consider these to be the three R’s of Romance they include: Respect, Reciprocity and Real Communication.

Respect is the main building block of any successful relationship. Recently I had my car serviced at a prestigious car dealership, I was totally consumed by the experience it felt like I was standing on the shores of an exotic resort with a team of ‘servants’ ready to pander my every need. The experience started while I was waiting to have my car picked up from their VIP waiting lounge, I was offered a café latte with my preferred ‘soy’ milk, had a choice of my favourite magazines, was offered a phone and laptop to check messages and emails I was even offered a platter of cheese and fruit!

I don’t even think Prince Frederick and Princess Mary would have experienced such luxury on their recent visit. I was afforded this special service as over the years I have built a special bond with the brand, the product and the people of the car dealership. It’s also no coincidence that my latte came with soy and a complementary copy of Marketing Magazine. All this information has been amassed through a series of launch parties I have attended, customer satisfaction forms I have completed email marketing promotions and personal phone calls I have received from my own customer support agent.

By the way when my car arrived a thank you note was attached to my steering wheel along with two tickets to the French Film Festival – how lucky that they knew I enjoyed foreign films. This is romance at its best; Romance Marketing is about marketing that touches the audience, it’s a love affair that has you in a constant high.

In showing this sort of respect to your customer they will inadvertently trust you. Once the relationship has progressed in trust your core audience ceases to see you as a company, service or product; rather they see you as an ally or ‘partner’. When the relationship moves to this level, there is little a competitor can do to lure your customer away. You are perceived as being worth more than simply the product or service you sell.

In this post HIH and Froggy world, we are facing a crisis that stems from the lack of trust with which consumers view companies and their brands. This suspicion can only be eliminated by creating trust and involvement, a relationship.

Reciprocity – is the balance within a relationship. It is expressed by the nature of give-and-take, when appealing to an audience they have certain expectations of what they will receive. Marketing programs need to provide a relaxed environment so that an audience feels free to voice their concerns and provide feedback without being ignored.

I recently had a massage chair delivered that was designed in Italy and had its hide come from specially protected paddocks in Sweden. The colour that I had chosen was a very light beige it looked totally different from the catalogue and was looking too bland in my entertainment room. After voicing my concerns to the distributor not only did they replace the chair with a darker colour, but payed for all the delivery charges and upgraded the model to include a leather encased cup holder.

For my inconvenience I was also offered two free DVD’s for my children with an apology note. Needless to say an otherwise disappointing experience turned out to be an opportunity to romance me.

Real Communication – you simply can’t relate without communicating. Real communication is the expression of feelings fears and desires; discussions of problems, needs and concerns. This goes back to fostering an open environment so that feedback can be gained and constant efforts made to meet needs.

By engaging in real communication the target audience is more willing to share their goals and plans with you, explore possibilities, listen to new ideas and engage in a process of mutual discovery. You don’t learn anything about your customers by just talking you need to allow information and customer feedback to flow in from every avenue; websites, focus groups, online surveys, promotions, sale interactions, newsletters, everywhere. It’s about keeping the flames alive showing that you care and are interested.

The response allows the communication to build. Without the response it’s not communication but mere dissemination of information. In personal relationships a lot of people are afraid to say what they want. That’s why they don’t get what they want. As romance marketers our aim is to listen and respond. It’s about building a dream a future together – just like a marriage.

Romance marketing is about managing the customer relationship it should mean creating mutual wins for customers. Would you willingly continue to do business with a company if you didn’t feel you were a ‘winner’ in the relationship?

In Customer Are people: The Human Touch, author Jon McKean states that in competitive markets, where customers have a choice between simular products and pricing, ‘seventy percent of customer decision making is based on how customers are treated. Yet paradoxically, McKean continues on to say that his research finds: over 80 per cent of customer initiatives are focused on how to ‘sell the customer better’ through matching products to customers rather than investing more resources in treating customers better.

One of my favourite examples of customer loyalty and emotional-engagement comes from the motorbike icon brand Harley-Davidson. The company has identified the ‘typical’ Harley-Davidson owner and began to meet that person’s needs. Once they become HOGs (Harley Owners Group Members) they stay HOGs. They even tattoo Harley-Davidson on their body!!!

In the 1980’s Harley Davidson was being run out of business by Japanese manufacturers, today Harley holds 48 per cent of the US market. How did this leadership come about; not through a better manufacturing process the major boon to business came from developing a loyal customer-base. They have successfully converted their customers into advocates, Harley riders rave about their bikes they do all the marketing for the brand and there is no other marketing as valuable as word-of-mouth.

Harley-Davidson have an integrated marketing program that is designed to take customers from the online world into the physical world. They believe the relationship needs to be established between the dealer and the motorcycle purchaser within the physical dealership. By doing this Harley is creating and controlling the whole Harley-Davidson experience, when consumers have a chance to come into contact with a brand in a three-dimensional way, they are more likely to form a lasting memory or association with the product.

To be successful with Romance Marketing you must start by understanding your customers. Know everything possible about your customers, going beyond typical demographic information;

Know how much money they make
Where they live
Their hobbies
The kinds of holidays they take
What kinds of books they like to read
The genre of music they enjoy listening to
The movies they like to watch

It’s all about how you make them feel, how you romance them. Value is added every time a customer is made to feel welcome, important and valued. Getting happy customers to spread the word is your best source of advertising. Therefore it’s always important to give them something to talk about. The key question is: How does a company create romance?