When a customer comes into contact with your brand they take away a part of it in the form of a seed. Is this seed remarkable, the message will spread. Is the customer a close connection to your brand, the message will spread.
I just re-stumbled over a note by Scott over at Scottgould.me. I have always liked Scott's approach and am always spurred to think differently when reading his posts. Definitely read his writings. A few months ago Scott wrote a piece following the likeminds conference about the spreadability of situations, concepts, anything basically.
1. There will be failure. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tweeted something with the #likeminds hashtag, expecting it to get taken up, only for it to fail. I’ve wrote blog posts I thought would capture the hearts of readers that get no comments. I have gone from having a massive event to running the followup which has been poorly attended. You have to factor in and expect a percentage of failure.
2. You need to prepare the soil. You have greater chance with your seed with good soil. You soil is your community, your network, your brand, your reputation, your customers, etc – and the more connected you are with them, the greater chance your spreadability seeds have. (But of course, still expect some to fail.)
3. There are always unknown variables. Like inclement weather and unforeseen circumstances, there are always variables that you don’t know. This isn’t necessarily bad – because an unknown variable can be what rockets you to success. If anyone has read Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, you’ll understand that this is the law of context - which is made up of so many variables that can you never be 100% sure.
4. You don’t know what will succeed. The above three points should help us understand that we actually don’t know what will succeed, for sure. Now I know that, yes, we can be certain about somethings, but let me illustrate with the #likeminds hashtag example again. When I put something out on that hashtag, I never know if it’ll take. Sometimes the things I think are best, get no mentions, and sometimes the worst things do. Even worse is when other people seem to always have their stuff on the hashtag retweeted when mine arent’! Knowing this, I then follow this final fundamental:
5. You have to keep scattering. Spreadability is accumulative. As you build upon your network, your failures at the least add to the soil – teaching you lessons and at least keeping your network nurtured.
These are great points and very applicable to experience creation. When structuring the physical engagement points with your customers keep a particularly keen eye on point two and five.
Prepare the soil.
Think about your current customers, and strengthen your current relationship with them. The closer you are to your current customer the more willing they are to share and spread your message.
Keep scattering.
When creating your brand experience, think of your touch points as the seed scatterers. Every time you come into contact with a customer/prospect you give them a seed. Give these contacts a remarkable seed and they will share it with others. Think of how Cold Stone Creamery took the touch point of the waiting customer and created a remarkable moment.
Do you prepare the soil? Do you keep scattering?
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