SURPRISE AND DELIGHT MARKETING BASICS
Last updated: August 01, 2020
The first question that usually comes up when I talk about surprise and delight marketing is…what is that exactly? Let me tell you a story:
It was Christmas-kah 2018 and my fiance knew how much I love the brewery Troegs. I freak out [in a very palpable way] every year when their holiday release of Mad Elf comes out, and every time I pass through Central PA, I make it a point to stop in. Their food is incredible, and their beer is fab. So yes, I had some strong brand affinity going into this experience. As a gift, he ordered me a set of two Mad Elf glasses to drink beer out of all year long to keep the holiday spirit going. On Christmas morning, only one glass was in the box. What a bummer. In the rush to get every order out the door, one of our glasses had been left behind. He called Troegs the next morning to let the store team know and see if there were any glasses left to send since one hadn’t made the trip. The “correct” thing to do would have been for Troegs to send along a glass, which would arrive in 5-7 days because of the holiday postal delay. That’s basically the minimum viable solution as a brand: correct to the level of error and move on.
Here’s what they did instead:
They employed surprise and delight marketing [and excellent service!] to correct the oversight and build increased brand loyalty instead. Troegs overnighted the missing glass to us at no cost. The GM hand wrote an apology note. The package it came in had a set of Mad Elf bottle openers, a coaster set, and some stickers. And through this, Troegs turned an already raving fan into a full blown brand lunatic. I’ve told probably no fewer than 50 people about this. I’m writing about it here. I talk about it every time we use the glasses. I’m a brand evangelist to anyone who loves beer and wants to hear “about a cool thing Troegs did.” They had surprised and delighted their way into my heart forever.
Surprise and delight marketing is a brand’s chance to make a lasting impact on the consumer, for no other reason than that they can.
WHAT IS SURPRISE AND DELIGHT MARKETING?
This is sometimes mistakenly called “relationship marketing”, but I think it’s different in one important way. Relationship marketing is intended to be two-sided, a give and a get for both consumer and brand. Surprise and delight is single-sided: the consumer “gets” with no expected return [more on this later]. Surprise and delight marketing is a brand’s chance to make a lasting impact on the consumer, for no other reason than that they can. It can be used effectively in three key ways:
To help rectify a misstep, such as above
Increase brand affinity while building consumer engagement and loyalty
Make a good experience feel truly premium
Brand affinity is hard to build. Many brands try by being relatable through clap back culture [read why I don’t think that’s the right move here], but it fails to permanently resonate with consumers. Seeming “cool” isn’t the same things as wow’ing. Don’t get it twisted; surprise and delight marketing cannot, and will not, fix generally terrible service. It will not fix an overall poor perception of your brand—that’s reputation marketing. BUT—for the brands that have already built trust, and know their consumers, this is a way to break ahead of the pack and stay there in the consumer mindset. It converts brand supporters into evangelists and builds lasting loyalty.
WHAT DO BRANDS “GET” OUT OF SURPRISE AND DELIGHT MARKETING?
Like most things in marketing, this isn’t usually a free route. But in doing something unexpected and high impact, the brand becomes more human, more personal, and builds emotional attachment with the consumer. More engaged consumers lead to higher average order values, more referrals, greater repeat rate, greater LTV, less attrition to competitors, and creates brand evangelists who market and refer you for free. Surprise and delight isn’t intended to reward the brand’s most important customers [in the most traditional sense anyway]; it isn’t a loyalty program. It is intended, however, to increase brand affinity so that the average consumer becomes more valuable to the brand over time. That value, and usually the social proof and referrals that come with it, is the “get” for the brand. However, that’s intangible and usually can’t be tracked 1-1. This is why surprise and delight marketing is considered single-sided. Consider the gesture of brand good-will a tax write off and see the other benefits down the road.
HOW TO BUILD A SURPRISE AND DELIGHT MARKETING PROGRAM
The most effective surprise and delight marketing programs build off of an experience that you do best. They should have broad appeal, be scalable, and not expressly targeted to the highest spend or LTV customer. The goal is to woo— build a lasting impression based on something the consumer already loves about you. This often gets confused with some sort of nurture or conversion-focused campaign for all customers (like birthday coupons, holiday gift with purchase, etc). The goal is not to reward every consumer every time; it is to strategically identify who is the right consumer to woo at the right time and act in a way authentic to the brand’s offering and experience. A word of caution: an ad hoc or misapplied program can often make important customers feel excluded, so it’s important that this program is built to co-exist with other customer-facing programs. It sounds difficult because it is, and few brands build a program they can scale and implement that actually surprises and delights their customers as intended.
SURPRISE AND DELIGHT MARKETING EXAMPLES:
While not [usually] no cost, many of the best surprise and delights are low cost, but high touch, efforts. Here are a few examples to get you thinking:
A chef hand-delivering the dessert during a special dinner [especially during the rush]
A personal response, and thanks, from the CEO to submitted consumer feedback
A bottle of champagne for newlyweds from their wedding photographer with a nice note
Gifting an experience/tickets on social media that a consumer posted/tweeted about
A bouquet of a client’s favorite flowers for an important business milestone
An unexpected upgrade for a long-time customer [better seats, gift with purchase, early access, etc]
Have questions about surprise and delight marketing strategy or tactics, or want help building your surprise and delight marketing program?