If you hear what they say, your business will thrive.
This news is as old as the hills, but there are a couple of recent developments that underline these longstanding truths.
These developments could also have major implications for how you use copy in your business.
This week Jim Burt of The Car Connection Web site reported on a J.D. Power study that says Toyota, for the first time, is getting more repeat buyers than any other car company. Toyota has become increasingly profitable and is doing better than any of the Detroit-based automakers.
What is it about Toyota that makes people want to buy another one?
Quality and reliability, for sure. Offering the customer a lot of choices, too, according to Neal Oddes, an analyst with J.D. Power, the survey company.
I'll go further. You can't measure this one quantitatively, because we haven't come up with convenient measures for it. It's a qualitative factor: Listening.
Toyota gives the impression it listens while others don't. Detroit has gone its merry way with bigger and badder SUVs. Toyota comes out with hybrids. Which purport to help the environment.
Do they really? I'm not convinced. I've heard reports that it takes a lot of resources and generates thermal and yucky pollution to create the clean fuels the hybrids run on. More, mile per mile, than old-fashioned gasoline cars.
Maybe, maybe not. No matter for the point of this post. It's what a lot of customers want. Toyota listened. Customers bought. Then they bought again. Then the Japanese company busted to the top, right past the old school tie network that controlled the U.S. car market for years.
Interesting.
Another interesting note:
One of the most perplexing, and I would imagine, annoying, businesses to pop on the scene is Craigslist, headquartered three blocks from where I had breakfast yesterday in San Francisco.
Craigslist is diverting millions of dollars away from the classified ad departments at newspapers around the country. Craiglist doesn't have 19th century marches written about it (like the Washington Post), time-honored nicknames (like the New York Times does) or a worker who leads a second life as a superhero (like the Daily Planet is rumoured to).
But Craigslist has eyeballs - over 9 million unique visitors a month, according to estimates by quantcast.com.
Craiglist gives away a lot for free.
Craigslist also makes money. Enough to have convinced eBay to buy a significant minority stake in it.
But... money is not the top factor in decisions made at Craigslist, according to a recent public statement. Its customers are.
Listen.
"Well, this week, the CEO of Craigslist, Jim Buckmaster, gave a talk at the UBS Global Media and Communications conference. His message was clear: the company listens to its users.
"For example, the company could easily make a fortune from text ads. However, since users have not requested such things, Craigslist won't do it (how's that for a simple corporate philosophy?)."
That, from a very thoughtful and provocative post by Tom Taulli on bloggingstocks.com.
So what does this mean as far as copywriting is concerned?
It's simple. People - smart people, successful entrepreneurs - spend inordinate amounts of money, time and energy on the copy up front. The copy to get customers.
As well they should. Because the nickels turn into 10 dollar bills. They make profits more than most people could even imagine or hope for.
But do they put time, money, effort, creative thought and urgency into post-sale communications? You know, copywriting for existing customers?
They should. Because the real money is in the Toyota and Craigslist world. The world of customer loyalty, where they keep coming back for more.
How do you use copy to start a dialogue and develop a relationship?
Does this blog post give you any ideas?
Not the content, but the fact that I'm writing it, and you're reading it, and if you choose to place a comment below, then we're having a conversation.
I'd love to hear what you think.
David Garfinkel, http://world-copywriting-institute.typepad.com/
Contest aims to encourage inventing
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