A simple way to build a fanatically-loyal following

fa-nat-ic (n.) a person marked or motivated by an extreme enthusiasm, as for a cause (thefreedictionary.com)

Several years ago, a friend took me to a Thai restaurant in nearby Tacoma, Washington. The food was fabulous; we shared our dishes family style and everything I tasted made me want more. Set in an older building in the downtown area, the two-story interior transports you to another place. You sit around a reflecting pool on beautiful, polished wood benches, surrounded by deep, rich colors, textures, fabrics and art. The service is impeccable, accommodating, nearly invisible (until you need them) and unfailingly pleasant.

These factors alone led me to take other people back to this restaurant and recommend it to others. But what turned me into a fanatically-devoted fan of this business wasn’t its food, décor or service: it was its story—which I found out by ‘accident.’ (Check out my last post: ‘Accidental Marketing’]

The ‘accident’ happened while I was getting my hair done. The owner of the salon I frequent was telling me her plans for renovation and I remarked that many of her décor choices reminded me of the interior of this particular Thai restaurant. Her eyes widened and she asked whether she had ever told me about her connection with the family that owns the restaurant. When I said, “no,” she went on to tell me how the family had emigrated to the United States as refugees when she was a child, coming to the U.S. with nothing more than one another and the shirts on their backs, fleeing a brutal regime in Cambodia during the 1980s.

The restaurant is actually a pair of identically-named local restaurants which were started and are owned (and still largely family-run) by cousins of this family. The salon owner told me how, as a girl, she’d been friends with their kids and run in and out of their homes, often returning to her own home at dinnertime already well-fed by this Thai family (to the consternation of her mother at dinnertime). She told me about how she would further exasperate her mother by giving away her new school clothes to some of these friends at the start of the school year. Her mother would ask her why she didn’t give them her old clothes, and my friend would reply that she didn’t really need the new clothes but that her friends did. The family that owns these restaurants epitomizes the dreams emigrants have when they come to the United States. The dream of providing opportunity for their children. The dream of ensuring that their children will be educated, fed and clothed.

Now that I know more about the history of the families that own this restaurant—how much they had to risk and endure to provide for the safety and well-being of their kids, how apparently kind and generous they were to my friend after only just arriving in this country—I’m not just a fan, I’m a fanatic.

Do we, as human beings, crave great food? Indisputably. But we crave connection even more.

There is a reason that some stories are called “human interest” stories; it’s because people—humans—are interested in them. They strike a chord, touch the heart, stir the emotions, create empathy, sympathy, affection, etc. To create fanatically-devoted fans, you must go beyond the logical reasons why someone should do business with you. In order to generate 'extreme enthusiasm,' you must engage the human, emotional side of your audience.

Give your customers and prospects reasons to connect with you as a person and a professional by telling the story of your business. Talk about the events that led you into the industry, what brought you to the community where you live or about growing up there. Talk about the difference that you want your business to make in the community. Describe the culture you provide for employees and how you support their personal and professionals goals. Talk about the reasons why you started your business. Don’t be afraid to express the idealism that you felt when you started, and which is stirred up again each time you gain more education about your business, attend a trade show, etc.

Give people reasons to connect with you, and build a bigger role for your business—and for yourself—in the lives of your customers.

And hey, don't just take my word for it. According to Chip and Dan Heath in their book "Made to Stick", stories are an incredibly important element in creating ideas that stick. We humans process information much more efficiently when it's in the form of a story, and we're therefore much more likely to remember it. We quickly forget dry recitations of facts. And yet, most marketing is just that: fact after fact after fact: "Buy this widget from us, and it'll do this, this and this." That doesn't stick. If you want your marketing to really sizzle, if you want people to remember it, turn your marketing messages into stories.

Elizabeth Kraus – 12monthsofmarketing.com
365 Days of Marketing is available on amazon.com in book and digital formats.