The Power of Being Memorable
by Antone Roundy | 1 Comment | Marketing
For my birthday last week, my wife gave me a cover for my Kindle and an iTunes gift card. So naturally, the time I've spent browsing around the iTunes Music Store deciding what to get is now worth more than the value of the card (apparently, I haven't learned my lesson yet).
What I want to talk about today isn't the songs I bought, but one that I didn't buy.
It's a song I last heard about 19 years ago, while in school in San Francisco. For a month or so, it was getting air play on the radio station that we listened to at the travel agency where I worked.
At the time, I went to the local record shop to see if they had it. No luck.
A few years later, I found some information about the artist online and sent them an email asking whether the CD were available. I got a response from one of their people saying I could get a burned copy of it from them, but it wasn't available at retail at the time. I'm not sure why, but I never got around to sending them the $10 (or whatever it was they were asking).
But I never forgot the song.
Yesterday, while browsing the iTunes Music Store, I thought of it again. A search revealed that the artist had another album for sale. But still not the one I was after.
So I decided to search elsewhere, and finally found it on YouTube.
Are you and your products memorable enough for people to go looking for you 19 years from now?
In music, you don't accomplish that by sticking to a standard G-C-D chord pattern, the same rhythm as everyone else, and yet-another-song-about-lost-love.
In business, you don't do it with me-too products, and done-for-you marketing systems. You do it by finding your own unique selling proposition or "USP", and putting it to work.
You have a good point about being memorable, but are there any companies or websites that you were reminded of that you've personally gone back to?
I remember several websites and communities that I've belonged to years ago, but sadly, they've van...You do it by focusing not just on features, but on customer experience -- especially by helping people feel good about themselves.
Something to think about and aim for.
June 29th, 2011 at 1:18 pm
You have a good point about being memorable, but are there any companies or websites that you were reminded of that you've personally gone back to?
I remember several websites and communities that I've belonged to years ago, but sadly, they've vanished. Unfortunately, as the Internet changes so quickly and doesn't exist in any tangible form, it's really easy for something that you remember from a decade ago (or much less!) to vanish or change beyond recognition.
On the shorter term, though, there are sites that I will keep going back to, often because they provide services that are beyond what their competitors can offer. It's the care and hard work that these developers put into their products that make them stand out today and keep them in our short-term memories, at least until something changes, internally or externally, that makes them irrelevant or tired.