Imagine you are shopping at our MudLOVE retail store. You find some things you’re interested in purchasing but decided to hold off for now. As you start to leave, someone shouts “I’ll give you 10% off if you buy that right now!”. You politely decline and walk out. Next you’re off to lunch and you notice a person standing in the window holding the exact products you had in your hand at the store. They’re waving you over to complete the transaction. What a creep! Finally, you go home and you’re scrolling on your phone. Suddenly, someone pops up from behind your couch with the same products and begs you to complete your order. It’s officially a horror movie.
We’re guilty. We’ve rewarded people for leaving and entertained the idea of retargeting our customers. In hindsight, it was desperate and we wanted to see our conversion rate go up. Even though we were technically rewarding our customers, we were only undervaluing the brand and overvaluing a number. Why would we reward someone that wants to leave or stalk an undecided customer when we could reward the loyal customer who crosses that finish line? It didn’t make sense. We needed to break free from the tricks and focus on something else, but didn’t know where to start.
The mindset shift started happening at MudLOVE about a year ago when we were at a loss for how to grow our web sales. We all felt it needed to be done, but one person helped put words to it. I was fortunate enough to ask the brilliant marketing mind of Seth Godin a question at the Ocean conference in Cincinnati. I asked him how to grow our online sales without the gimmicks. His answer was idealistic but right. “Forget the retargeting; you don’t need it. Make a brand and a product that people cannot and will not stop talking about.” Duh. We thought about how we’ve made it this far in the first place. The reason: it’s you, the one reading this blog and believing in what we do here. I don’t think we tricked you to join in our story; you saw our products, heard the mission and wanted to be a part of it.
In hindsight, the change needed was obvious. It’s so easy to lose sight when things start to feel desperate and we get caught in a grind. While we still don’t have a perfect strategy, this realization was the spark we needed to say goodbye to the temptation of gimmicks. We started down a much clearer, freer and more fun path. You’re a friend; a person and a partner in fighting the water crisis. MudLOVE is raising its metaphorical right hand and vowing to never stalk you online, or reward you for leaving (sorry, not sorry). Instead, we want to invest in our brand and rewards program. You deserve better and we’re going to do that with our hands in the clay, our minds in the process, and our hearts on the mission.
To celebrate our 10th birthday and new beginnings for all of us, from me, Luke, to you, our friend in fighting the water crisis, we’re doubling the rewards you get from our program for the month of September. We just want to say thank you for getting us here, and letting us figure it out as we go. Join The Wishing Well today and earn 400 coins just for signing up!
