Marketing With Kindness? It'll Never Work!

Martin,

Actually this sort of thing can and does work.

I do things like provide refunds of shipping charges where my shopping cart has charged a customer more than it actually costs to ship an item. And sending personal messages to buyers who don't expect to hear from me.

It lets people know they're not faceless entities dealing with a cold corporation, and it does make a difference.

Happy holidays,
Marcia Yudkin

Yes, that is interesting and it is true. With kindness you get way more done than with brutal force.

I shop for groceries at two large chain supermarkets.
One has much better prices but the cashiers are not
very pleasant. The other is about twice as expensive
but the customer service is great. If I weren't such a
cheapskate I would cut out that other store altogether.

When I shop at the more expensive grocery I know that
I am paying more just for the experience of being there.

-Ray Edwards

I cannot find any specific reason why it becomes a matter of comparing marketing with kindness. Both the keywords are from the different poles. Don't try to do marketing with kindness, that's my suggestion.

There is no real kindness in the commercial world. There is only persuasion using various different forms of manipulation. This is why most people don’t trust anyone. Real kindness doesn’t depend on recognitions and posterior benefits.

What really matters is everyone’s personality. This is what makes the various persuasion techniques be accepted by the public as genuine demonstrations of kindness.

Marketing is marketing...following successful marketing strategies has nothing to do with kindness.
The kindness in business is how we treat our leads and customers AFTER the marketing is successful...which , sometimes , is the only real difference between some companies/services.

Nice post Martin.

I think people will likely smell it if it not genuine. Also, if that is not truly the business owners' method of operation, then they will not be nice when it comes down to customer service issues. And, as always, the truth percolates to the top.

Maybe marketing ploy or tactic yes (not cynical), but I reckon the testers/bean counters could tie kindness into the bottom line. Something like: this win/win way of handling refund requests - or sponsoring charities - has actually led to "x" amount of new, repeat and referral business and less dollars spent on marketing and advertising. Or, has led to new, repeat and referral business equivalent to spending "y" on advertising or marketing.

Dame Anita Roddick had figures as I've suggested:

The Body Shop - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Anita Roddick - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dan

Hi Martin,

As the 'traditional' systems that many of us have grown up around disappear in the very near future, because they are part of a greater system that is absolutely unsustainable and is accelerating towards it's inevitable collapse, many of us may well be encountering this 'new' (relatively, to most people) form of 'currency' - social capital.

As we do, we will discover how different forms of kindness, trust and exchange are central to the concept of social capital and therefore will also become an important part of how we market/advertise ourselves and our services.

Think about testimonials, the different ways that they can be made more powerful and how the power of a testimonial is affected by the social networks linked to the people involved (the seller, the testimonial giver and those who have developed trust in either of those people.)

A rare testimonial provided by a well respected owner of a forum in a marketplace within that forum holds a lot of sway, does it not? Well kindness and trust (especially linked with the perceived longevity of those attributes) go a long way towards making the opinions of those sellers and testimonial givers even more effective, so those things should not be discounted when examining the marketing mix that leads to success.

Well here's something to ponder - it's difficult to predict how things will turn out in the near future, but it is logical to assume that great change is upon the horizon. One distinct possibility is that cynical marketing (or business practices) will become so despised and the consequences for practicing it so severe, that business people may well make it a priority to avoid appearing to walk too close to that line and they may do this by focusing all of their resources on ethical business, which in a way can be viewed simply as making a profit out of 'kindness' (over-delivering real value.)