This week, the 60 Second Marketer blog is being written from Ad:Tech San Francisco where we’re attending a conference on all the latest and greatest new marketing technologies that are coming down the pike.

Each day, our plan is to upload 10 great things we learned at the conference so that you can apply what we’ve learned to your marketing programs.

On that note, we learned something today while we were eating Lamb Brain Ravioli at a sidewalk cafe called Poggio. Yes, it’s really lamb brain. And yes, it’s really terrific.

But why on earth would be order Lamb Brain Ravioli? If we told you it was because of their marketing, would you believe us?

Well, that’s exactly what happened. The thought process went like this:

1. Hmmmm. This restaurant has Lamb Brain Ravioli on its menu.
2. WTF? Lamb Brain Ravioli? Are they crazy?
3. Wait a minute, this is a successful restaurant with dozens of patrons on a (slow) Monday lunch.
4. They also have a well-designed menu, a professionally-created logo, well-trained staff and a look and feel that leads me to conclude that this is No Ordinary Lamb Brain Ravioli.

So, we dialed up our faithful “Trust-O-Meter” and asked it “Can we trust this restaurant to serve up really excellent Lamb Brain Ravioli? Or will this end up being just ordinary, run-of-the-mill Lamb Brain Ravioli?”

Sure enough, the Trust-O-Meter said “You can count on this being excellent Lamb Brain Ravioli. After all, check out all the subtle signals you’re getting about its cleanliness, its attention to detail and its quest for quality. Especially when it comes to its Lamb Brain Ravioli.”

Which raises the question — what are you doing to build trust with your customers? Are you skimping on your brochures in order to save money? Are you scaling back your customer-service training in order to save a few bucks? Are you printing your business cards on cheap stock in order to save $50?

If you are, then you may be shooting yourself in the foot.

Customers and customer-prospects make decisions about your products and services in 1,000 little, subtle, subconscious ways. If you skimp on 20 of those things, or 200 of them, or 500 of them, the only thing you’re doing is winning the battle today to lose the war tomorrow.

Sure, times are tough. And every business is looking for ways to cut costs. But it’s important to be careful in what you cut because some of the costs you’re trimming are the ones that send 1,000 little, subtle, subconscious signals to your customers that say, “Try the Lamb Brain Ravioli. You can trust us … it’s excellent!”

Tuesday, April 21st, 2009, 3:05 am   |   General Marketing  |  RSS feed |  Respond  |  Trackback