Balancing Loyalty and Brand with Profitability
Nov 3rd, 2009 by David Svet
Did you ever notice how nature has a way of maintaining a level of balance? It’s really a beautiful thing. Dandelions are bad, right? Not so fast. They grow well in hard, unbalanced soil. They spread like wildfire. They have huge taproots that dig deep into impossibly dense earth. Over time they grow and die leaving behind organic nutrients and looser soil. Once they’ve changed the composition of the soil they are replaced by something that can grow in more hospitable conditions. So, if you have dandelions it’s because of your soil — they are attracted to it because it suits them. No matter how much you would rather have something else grow there, dandelions will be attracted to the area until you change the soil.
Now look at your customer base — the loyal part. Who keeps coming back time and again? Are they the plants you are sowing or the dandelions? The knee-jerk reaction would be to kill off the dandelions — make it inhospitable for them in your environment. But that won’t fix the problem. If you are unhappy with the customers you are attracting, it’s time to take a look at what is drawing them to you. Changing the composition of your brand promise and fulfillment will attract a different variety of customer. In the meantime, use the dandelions to replenish the soil. Maximize their profitability. Minimize your expenditures with them, and prepare for the day when they don’t come back. With a little digging around you should end up with the crop you wanted all along.
Field of dandelions by Ernst Vikne / © Some rights reserved.
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license
