How to Grow Your Business by Being Remarkable

Good morning, good afternoon and good evening - whichever applies I hope you’re doing well. If you’ve been following our activity recently, you may remember in the last article we touched upon being remarkable in everything you do and the effects that can have.

Today we explore that concept of remarkability in more detail. First, though, here’s a short analogy. Imagine this: 

You’re basking in the beautiful serenity of the English countryside, shoes spattered with fresh morning dew, and the sun still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Strolling past a field of waking cows, you notice something hilarious, baffling, completely out of left field - a bright purple cow. None of the other cows are coloured so flamboyantly, just this one... 

No matter what time of day it is, you won’t miss this opportunity. You take a selfie with the cow, tell your friends and they do the same. Next thing you know, it’s a viral sensation all over the news, not a soul that doesn’t know about it. 

That’s the power of being remarkable, like our purple cow.

It’s also the title of a brilliant seminal marketing book by Seth Godin in 2005 - Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable.

Why is Being Remarkable Important?

In this day and age, being remarkable is even more important than it was when Godin wrote his book. Every piece of content coming from a brand is now so accessible that the difference to the consumer today is the quality of content.

It’s word of mouth. Two thirds of your marketing is now happening online, through word of mouth, amplified and overclocked by technology.

So is your product remarkable enough to have people telling their friends about you?

Ask yourself this question, over and over, ask yourself what more you can do to be even more remarkable. Once there’s a buzz around your company because of the great experience and value you offer, that’s when you’ll bring more customers in, more money in, and grow your business.

Brilliant Examples of Remarkable Businesses

There are lots of ways to be remarkable and really grab your customers’ attention. Creating an unforgettable experience, gobsmacking aesthetics, creating a vibrant community around your product, are all great methods of generating remarkability. 

Here are some great examples of businesses doing just that: 

Pike Place Fish Co. in Seattle

At Pike Place they sell fish all day, every day. Although a fish market probably wouldn’t be your first choice for incredible customer experience, maybe they will be after this… 

You’d think the smell and feel of a fish market would make you want the experience of buying fish over with fairly quickly. Not at Pike Place, where people stay for hours just enjoying the experience provided by the amazing fish salesmen. 

They throw fish around with customers and over their heads. They take selfies with customers and fish, they’re always playing pranks on each other. and playful shouting makes up a constant wall of entertaining sound. 

People engage with this fish market all day because they decided to become customer obsessed. They decided to put the customers’ experience first, and aim to always put a big grin on people’s faces. This is not only palpable but effective too, as the customers just keep reeling in all day long, and more often than not they’ll get themselves a fish.  

Here’s the video for Pike Place Fish Co: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbtsfyrEF_c

Boomtown Fair Festival

If you’ve ever been to a music festival, you’ll know they’re absolutely unforgettable experiences that immerse you into a world of music and fun for days at a time. Being that the concept of a festival is pretty remarkable in the first place, they have to come up with other ways of leaving their specific mark on the customer, so they’ll come back the next year round. 

Now we all know Glastonbury has done this extremely well, but things are a little more competitive if you take a step down towards the slightly smaller festivals, like Reading, Leeds, Parklife and Boomtown Fair. 

On this level, Boomtown are clear front runners in creating an immersive escape from the outside world that’s brilliant fun. Here are some of the things they’ve introduced to set themselves apart from the rest:

Old Town: Right in the heart of Boomtown festival, in the middle of the map there is a pop up town, styled as a medieval town in england. You can buy things, play games, talk to the inhabitants of the town and enjoy interacting to your heart’s content. There’s live shows, circus shows and it really feels like a bohemian little paradise. 

Extravagant Stages: One thing Boomtown Fair is certainly renowned for is its wonderfully extravagant stages. All with different themes and inspirations, my favourite is the Lion’s Den. Situated at the bottom of a valley, this stage looks like the ruins of an ancient Aztec temple or an old ruined castle. Everyone sits in the valley like a natural stadium carved out of the land, chilling out on the grass watching the awesome shows they put on there. It’s truly an awe inspiring place to be.

So Boomtown have managed to create new levels of escapism for their festival goers. They get bigger and better and just keep amazing people every year, so people keep coming back and bringing their friends. It’s no coincidence they’re the fastest growing festival of the last decade in the UK, increasing their capacity by 6500% from 1,000 people to 66,000 since 2009!

To End…

Those were some smashing ideas to inspire you to become more remarkable, but remember, it doesn’t have to be expensive, like with Boomtown. Customer service starts with a smile, a joke, a game you can make in your head! So to start with, just aim to be 1% more remarkable than you were previously, and work from there. 

If you do this, as well as aim for a 1% improvement in the other 11 areas of Customer Obsessed value, and do this each quarter, then you can increase the value you provide by 48% in a year. 

Repeat this cycle of 1% continuous improvements for 3 years and you’ll have tripled how remarkable your business is, and this is absolutely sure to help you grow your business. 

In the full blog post of this article we explore more great examples of businesses improving their remarkability and have a more in depth look at the details of what you can do to take action. If you’re interested, have a read!  

We’re trying to improve our own remarkability here at LexisClick. We’ve decided to put out more regular content. Taken straight from the knowledge we use to help businesses manage their growth. You can get all this content every week at no cost to yourself, just follow us on LinkedIn or whichever social channel you prefer, and keep your eyes peeled during the week for our juicy content...

What’s the best experience you’ve had from a product or service? Did it turn you into a repeat customer? Let us know in the comments below. 

Next week we’ll be looking at how you can improve your calls to action, and really get your customers engaging with your business. Until then, live long and prosper, LexisClickers!