Imagine I send you a bunch of flowers tomorrow. Yellow. Mmmm, they smell nice. Let’s say it’s for one of the following three reasons:
1) It’s your birthday
2) I screwed up
3) For no reason at all
Tell me, which one of these three reasons would result in the most impact to you when you received those beautiful daffodils?
Well, let’s think it over. If it’s your birthday, recognition–and possibly a gift–is expected. In fact, if I didn’t send you flowers, you’d probably be mad. Secondly, if I screwed up, it’s an apology. You kind of expect an apology, too. Plus, all I’m doing is making up for something that shouldn’t have happened in the first place.
But how about reason number three? That’s your answer, of course. When the action is unprovoked, it’s more impactful. In fact, if done right, your unprovoked action can be nearly incomprehensibly great to your customer or member.
And that goes for whatever you’re doing, whether you’re thanking someone just because (maybe you send flowers), “adding value” to their lives (sending them an article you clipped with a “thought you might find this interesting” note), or offering them something unexpected (here’s a .25% bonus on your CD).
If you’re doing bank marketing, credit union branding, or whatever, leverage this powerful fact! If you’ve got great bank marketing ideas, unleash them on your customers at seemingly random times. The more unprovoked your good deeds are, the more bang you’ll get those those efforts.
PS: And if those unprovoked deeds are experiential and multi-sensory, oh boy do you have some serious branding impact. But that’s another post; don’t get me started on that one…