Before playing “Doc” Brown in Back to the Future and Uncle Fester in The Addams Family...
Christopher Lloyd rose to fame portraying Reverend Jim "Iggy" Ignatowski in the ‘70’s television series Taxi.
In one episode, his eccentric but lovable character decides he’s going to be the most perfect cabbie in the world.
He surprises his patrons by treating them to a level of service they’ve never experienced before. He serves them sandwiches and drinks in the cab. He takes them on guided tours all over Manhattan. He even sings Frank Sinatra tunes while he drives.
Iggy’s customers are so thrilled with the experience of just being in his cab (rather than getting from point A to point B) that they happily give him bigger and bigger tips.
They ecstatically refer their friends to him – and even pay more to be taken around the block again just to prolong their enjoyment.
The service that Iggy provided was simply the stage for the experience that he was actually selling.
In 1998 B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore published an article titled “Experience Economy.” They insisted that businesses should create memorable experiences out of mundane services.
This is more than experiential marketing - for example, every year at the Festival Italiano at Belmar, kids can sign up for free at Balistreri Vineyards, then kick off their shoes (and rinse their feet), jump into one of dozens of huge bins of grapes, and experience stomping grapes.
It's different than event marketing - Yanik Silver, self-proclaimed adventure junkie and founder of Maverick Business Adventures, sets the bar with unique themes for his annual Underground Online Seminar.
If you’ve ever experienced a professional shoe shine at an airport, a train station, or a large hotel – you’ve experienced an event that far outweighs the cost of the service.
Meet Don Ward, aka the New York City shoe shine guy. He will tell you he LOVES shining shoes. After more than 20 years, he’s shined over a quarter million shoes.
First thing every morning he shines his own shoes… before coffee. His office is on the corner of the Avenue of the Americas and 47th Street. For $5.00 you are treated to a spit polish and street entertainment.
You sit above the sidewalk like a king while you listen to the rhythmic snap of the cloth. And when asked if he has a job title, Don just says without any fanfare “Call me the shoe shine dude.”
Maybe it’s just part of the allure of New York City, whether real or fictional.
Or maybe Iggy and the city’s most charismatic shoe shine guy have figured out that when you deliver your customers service that is memorable, they're customers for life.
And if the Stevie Awards are the Oscars of the business world, surely Iggy and Don would be nominated in the service categories 🙂
When we build out a CyberFunnel™ for our customers, our goal is to create the most pleasant experience possible.
Using a restaurant analogy - Todd (as the marketing expert) plays the role of the host. Rick (as the project manager) is the table side server. And Tim (as the copywriter) is the head chef who crafts the messaging for the video guys, the web developers, and the campaign builders to do their jobs.
Everyone knows their roles and works together to make the process as smooth and stress-free as possible.
>> To check out what our very cool customers have to say about their experience with us, click here.
Lots of marketing firms can design pretty websites and fancy Infusionsoft campaigns...but our goal is to make the process an event from start-to-finish. So that when the funnel goes live, our clients say "I can't wait to start on our next project together!"
Create more than products with a short description and a SKU number.
Create memories and events that become the product.
Seize the day!
