The Vital Art of Creating Memorable Messaging 

When we make buying decisions, we usually are choosing from a short list of options. Our memory assembles these options. So, from a Customer Experience perspective, it is vital that your product or service is one of these options recalled at the moment of the buying decision.

In this episode of The Intuitive Customer podcast, we explore how our memories generate these choice sets for buying decisions. We also take a look at how you can ensure that your product or service is one of the options your customers’ memories retrieve. (Spoiler alert: it has to do with customers’ emotions.)

Let’s say that you were out with friends and the dinner hour arrives. You all decide to go out to eat together and begin discussing where to go. You will likely:

• Think about what you want to eat (e.g., comfort food, pizza, fast-food, healthy options, etc.)
• Consider the size of the group and the type of restaurant serving the food you like that you want to go to (e.g., buffet, pizzeria, family-style, fast-casual, white table cloth, etc.)
• Make a list of restaurants you like in that style of service
• Remember what restaurants are close to where you are at the moment (or at least not so far away that you don’t want to wrangle everyone there) that meet your chosen criteria.
• Offer up a list of options from which the group begins a decision-making consensus.

From a restaurant owner’s point of view, if you and your group don’t think of their restaurant when you are making this list and narrowing down your options, it’s like the restaurant does not exist. In other words, if you can’t remember the restaurant at this moment when you are deciding where to eat, the restaurant’s marketing message wasn’t memorable. 

We often say that customer loyalty is a function of customer memory. What we mean by that is that customers return to you not for the Customer Experience you provide, but for the Customer Experience they remember you provide. Making a memory that brings customers back has been a topic we frequently discuss, as a result.

However, you must also ensure that the customers retrieve your memory at the right moment. For example, if you remember that Italian place that serves family-style homemade pasta just after you paid the bill at the restaurant you chose with your friends, that Italian restaurant was memorable, just a little bit too late to fill their tables. 

Memorable messaging is an essential part of this process, too. Your marketing makes a promise to customers, but it also builds a memory of your brand. Putting a cue in the message that triggers the mind to retrieve your message at the moment of the buying decision is an Customer Experience strategy that could make the difference for your bottom line.

So how are these memories retrieved, and why are they associated? What can you do to ensure that your customers remember you at the right time? The answers, it shouldn’t surprise you to hear, have a lot to do with emotions.

 

Listen to the podcast in its entirety to learn more about The Vital Art of Creating Memorable Messaging for your Customer Experience.

 

The Intuitive Customer podcasts are designed to explain the psychological concepts behind customer behavior.

If you would like to find out from one of our CX consultants how you can implement the concepts we discussed in your organization’s marketing to improve customer loyalty and retention, contact us at www.beyondphilosophy.com.

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