The success in the details.
Every little thing counts. I’m a detail-oriented person and always have been, so seemingly small efforts are noticeable and important to me.

I love little touches of creativity that take something mediocre and make it great. These are the stories of 3 companies that used the smallest of details to capture their target market’s attention and sell more stuff.

We don’t support trips to the past. Yet.
Alexis Ohanian, the founder of Reddit, and an early investor and later the Marketing Director for Hipmunk, the uber-cool travel planning website, says people still tweet about Hipmunk’s error messages.

“We don’t support trips to the past. Yet.” is the message that appears if you try to book your return date in the past. “Why don’t you just move there? 30 days is the max.” is what you see if you try to book past the 30-day time limit. The 404-error message (for a website page that doesn’t exist) says, “You’ve gone off the map.”

Ohanian says this is simply “giving a damn” about your business. The smallest of details help you stand out in a big way.

In the case of Hipmunk, these creative error messages provide a smidge of entertainment during a tedious yet necessary task if you want to travel anywhere.

When was the last time you tweeted about an error message?

Your order has shipped.
Derek Sivers, the creator of CD Baby, a global music distributor for independent musicians, decided that the automated email copy to confirm shipment of a CD order (it started with CDs and is now all digital) simply wasn’t congruent with part of his mission—to make people smile.

Instead of the industry standard “your order has shipped,” Derek sat down one day and wrote this email notification, in his words, “in about 20 mins:”

“Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist lit a candle, and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterward, and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved ‘Bon Voyage!’ to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Friday, June 21.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did.

Your picture is on our wall as “Customer of the Year.” We’re all exhausted but can’t wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!”

A Google search for “CD Baby private jet” will get you many pages of results for this now-famous email. People have talked, tweeted, studied, and written about this non-automated, automated email confirmation for years.

Sivers says it is still his most successful email to-date. In 2008 he sold CD Baby for $22 million.

Welcome to Mr Porter, Mrs. Pizzolato.
My Husband is hip. Way hipper than me. This is how I know about Mr Porter, and this is how I came to receive this box, which is one of the most fabulous packaging efforts I’ve experienced in all my years of online shopping.

Granted, plenty of items on Mr Porter.com will run you big bucks. Those are not the ones my Sweet Husband ordered for me. But no matter the price of what you ordered, you still get the sweet unboxing experience everyone who shops at Mr Porter.com gets.

We seriously lamented having to throw away the box. I’m still hanging on to it, and the shirts came on Wednesday. They gave Jeff the opportunity to write a personalized note to include in the box (which he did, and it was super sweet).

I got a welcome packet, printed on the most fabulous paper I’ve ever touched and sealed with a ribbon that says Mr P on it. It tells me all about the style advice I can get, the same day delivery in certain cities, that they hope I’m delighted with my choice, and how I can get weekly style updates.

So much attention to detail has gone into the packaging and unboxing experience Mr Porter provides.

Thank You.
I’ve gotten personalized, hand-written thank you notes from online courses I’ve purchased, dried flowers and extra samples in my Jane Iredale deliveries, and stickers, makeup pouches and super cute notes from Glossier.

Even the business cards I get from Moo have a love note in the box. I love to get mail that’s not a bill (or junk), and I love to open cool packages. Sometimes the package-opening is better than what’s inside.

Confirmation emails, thank you pages, shipping boxes, and error messages may seem like small, inconsequential business necessities. Most people leave them programmed with boring, standard-issue messages.

I hope this has inspired you to up your game with the small stuff and make everything about your business meaningful at every turn.

The most overlooked things in most businesses can be what catapults your business to rock star status. Tiny tweaks can lead to Big Changes.

Always behind you 1,000%-
Julia

I joined Facebook 11 years ago today (July 13, 2008).

I have connected to people I would never have been able to create any kind of relationship with otherwise. I have reconnected to the people I missed. I have discovered the true colors of others.

I have gotten distracted by political arguments, memes of the day, those dang Goalcast videos that are like inspircrack (inspiration + crack), and stalking the pages of people I haven’t seen in the newsfeed in a while. Like every picture in your albums. Sigh.

I have learned so, so much. I have connected to people who have taught me more about marketing than any college education ever could have. I have learned more about nutrition and even helped a few people ditch some bad habits because of what I shared (THIS is one of my favorite things about social media).

I’m reading a book about morning routines, and this guy devotes almost an entire chapter to the dangers (to your success and society in general) of digital distraction. I could not agree more.

While I have seen social media make small business owners millionaires, literally hundreds of thousands of businesses and families supported via the audience they were able to reach on the platforms, I have seen the damage it has done as well (as we all have).

I post when I feel like I have something meaningful to say. Maybe something that I hope will make you laugh (most likely because it made me laugh), will inspire you or will cause you to think. I run my business pages the same way, and I run client pages this way as well.

Here’s what I’ve discovered is the key to “healthy” social media:

I put a time limit on it and try to remain very strict about it. That’s why if you comment, I may not respond for 24 hours, but I am always grateful to read what you have to say. Even if you are disagreeing with me. 😜👌🏼

I very carefully curate my feed. I unfollow a LOT of people. I search out people who are positive and inspirational. I never follow news channels. Ever.

I make it a point to look at my “most recent” feed to see new things and curate my feed more.

I actively take note of when I’m reaching for the phone out of boredom or because I want the distraction from work that just got hard… 😬

In the end, I still can’t help but wonder how many total hours of my life so far I’ve “wasted” on social media. The time that truly had no point other than scrolling. The times I got caught up in trying to make points with people who just can’t see past their own immediate life vision. The ones who don’t understand that we are all connected.

With all the media uproar of late around the social platforms and breaking them up (I am still undecided on my stance on this one), I still say it’s been a good thing. What’s been not so good is the way bad people have used social media to their own benefit and to manipulate the masses.

BTW – manipulation is not possible where education is in place. In other words, the more people are educated (not by the news) on any given topic, the less they will be manipulated around the opinions of others on that topic.

My suggestion: limit your time and commit to the limit. It’s still a great way to connect, create helpful communities (I’m in private groups for marketing that are literally BEYOND helpful. Help I could never even pay for and from thousands of people who want to help), and grow a business.

In other words, use it for good. Which I see most of you do. 😘👏🏼

The idea formulated at a creative brainstorming meeting at Bandolier Media in Austin, Texas. They ran with it. Then it hit Twitter (@barbzlovescarbs). Then a popular Instagram meme influencer (@middleclassfancy) got in the game. And that’s when the tide turned for @justaconstructionguy.

The story:
Some chick going by @barbzlovescarbs on Twitter posts that “her dad” asked her what an “influencer” was. She explained the concept, and he says, “I can do that.” So, he creates an Instagram account to prove it. A few influencer tags and re-posts later and bam, he’s got over 500,000 followers in less than 2 weeks.

He’s just a simple, coffee loving construction guy working on the East Side in Austin, Texas posting his crazy-good photos of designer coffee in a thermos. Hhhmmm…

The REAL story:
Mike McKim, the owner of Cuvee Coffee in Austin, Texas, wanted to pump up the marketing for his local coffee shops a bit. He felt like the typical influencers were passé and wanted to “create” an influencer more akin to the customers Cuvee actually had, specifically in their East Side shop.

The East Side of Austin has been under massive amounts of construction for the last 10 years or more. It’s a perfect example of gentrification at its best (or worst). When Jeff and I lived in Austin, we spent most of our time on the East Side and even looked for a house there right before we moved to Palm Springs. But I digress. The point is, the customers Cuvee saw most often were, of course, the construction guys on the neighborhood projects.

Someone at Bandolier Media knew a construction worker. Omar Madani was their guy. They approached him, and he agreed to be the face, err the Influencer, running the Instagram account @justaconsructionguy. The catch? Omar wasn’t really running it. Bandolier was. Omar was paid for the photo shoots, and Bandolier handled the rest.

After @barbzlovescarbs posted her Tweet about “her dad” and the influencer convo, the account literally blew up. But not one person knows or will claim who Barb is and why she did it. Mike McKimm says he has no idea who she is.

By the time the account got to about 400,000, the jig was up. The internet had been spoofed—Omar was a marketing ploy to “influence” people to drink Cuvee coffee.

The thing is, it worked for Omar, not for Cuvee. Once the cover was ripped off the story, Omar took over the account. He’s partnering with other brands to promote their products (this happened in 2 weeks, I kid you not). Omar got to go wave the flag at the big NASCAR race in Iowa over Father’s Day weekend.

This will literally change Omar’s life (has already). But what about Cuvee?

They are left to explain why Barb lied (Omar is NOT her dad), deal with the backlash of people angry to have been tricked, and slink away tail tucked. Some people think it’s funny and “so 2019” that they were so easily duped and some are straight-up mad.

The Challenge.
Bandolier Media did too good of a job. It looked staged, just like every picture on the Cuvee account does. There’s no way Just A Construction Guy could take photos like that on his own. The social media savvy picked up on it in a big fat hurry. Now the discussion is, is it right to use influencers? Is it inauthentic? Is it really brand influencing if you pay that person to use your products or services?

Hollywood has been using product placement to raise capital for movie production since the beginning of time. Sleight-of-hand advertising. Instagram just offers a different stage, right?

If an ad campaign, stunt, spoof—whatever you want to call this—leaves most or even any of your customers, potential or current, seriously questioning your integrity (the comments are all there on both Cuvee’s and Omar’s accounts) is any publicity good publicity?

My take: nope. Most of the comments are along the lines of disappointment in Cuvee for dishonesty or what a genius marketing stunt it was by Bandolier Media. Either way, it did nothing to sell Cuvee Coffee. It just made them look bad. Omar goes on with his 540,000+ followers, and Cuvee stays behind with their 16,000 and a bad rep.

You reap what you sow in marketing…and in life.

Always behind you 1,000%-
Julia

This is the foundation of Apple’s incredible success.

Whether you love them or hate them, there’s no denying the success of Apple. With other personal computers coming on the market at the exact same time that Apple launched the Apple I in 1977, what set them apart?

Employee #3.
To take the Apple I into production, they needed a mass infusion of cash. $250,000, to be exact. No bank was going to loan a barefoot, smelly hippie that kind of money—especially not to produce a product they couldn’t even understand.

A prominent Silicon Valley investor introduced Jobs to Mike Markkula, a 33-year-old retired multi-millionaire who was an expert in marketing and selling technology parts (his fortune came from Intel). After helping Jobs write a business plan, he offered to invest the $250,000 in return for one-third ownership of the company.

At this point, the fledgling Apple was still operating out of the garage in Jobs’s family home.

On January 3, 1977, Apple Computer Co. was formally incorporated. That day Markkula sat down and wrote a one-page paper titled “The Apple Marketing Philosophy.” It set the tone for everything Apple has done since with just three simple points:

1. Empathy – an intimate connection with the customer’s feelings. “We will truly understand their needs better than any other company.”

2. Focus – “In order to do a good job of those things that we decide to do, we must eliminate all of the unimportant opportunities.”

3. Impute – “People DO judge a book by its cover. We may have the best product, the highest quality, the most useful software etc.; if we represent them in a slipshod manner, they will be perceived as slipshod; if we present them in a creative, professional manner, we will impute the desired qualities. “

Perception is everything, my friend. People will form an opinion based on what you convey about yourself and your product or services.

Markkula’s philosophies were in alignment with Jobs’s. The year before Jobs had been quoted in a magazine saying “If we can rap about their needs, feelings, and motivations, we can respond appropriately by giving them what they want.” “Them” referring to the customer, of course.

Next step.
To “impute” the proper perception of their company, Jobs set about courting LA’s top PR and ad executive, Regis McKenna. McKenna had produced an ad campaign for Intel that set them apart in the technology industry, and Jobs wanted that same treatment for Apple. In his usual, determined way he set about making that happen. McKenna finally agreed to meet with Jobs (still a barefoot, smelly hippie) and took Apple on as a client. McKenna did two things that set the foundation for the trajectory of the company:

1. His art department created the rainbow-colored Apple logo (with the bite taken out).
2. He gave their marketing materials a tag line that read: “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

That maxim became the defining tenet of Job’s design philosophy.

This is the sum total of what should be taught in any marketing 101 courses. If you operate your business based on these principles, there’s almost no way you can fail.

Always behind you 1,000%-
Julia