Marketers are planners and opportunists. We use every chance we can to create a lead, expand a sale, increase a donation, or renew a service, even if the current subscription or agreement is long from ending.
To that end, we insert catalogs and brochures in boxes with shipped products. We make “customers also bought” suggestions on our websites. We slip promotional inserts in with billing statements.
But what if we didn’t? What if we just let a product or a service do its job and leave it alone, with no piggy-back offers, no other distractions?
If you’ve never stopped at the Sam’s Club gas station in Frederick, you’re missing out on a unique and slightly eerie experience. It has the quietest set of gas pumps you’ll ever see. They don’t beep when you insert your credit card. They don’t announce, in electronic song, the five digits of your zip code. There’s no video screen and loud news feeds or company commercials blaring in your ear. There’s just silence.
It’s a little jarring, to be honest, but it’s also peaceful.
A “do nothing” strategy won’t work for every company or every situation, and we certainly don’t recommend that across the board: you have to engage customers somehow. But doing nothing, even just once in a while, could just stop and make your customers take notice. It’s worth testing.