John Moore is not your typical marketer. He is more likely to tell you to focus on creating a good experience for your members than suggest that you create a slick new brochure for prospective members.
That is because Moore says that word-of-mouth recommendations from happy clients yield far more power than any traditional advertising campaign. It is the approach he used with great success during his decade as a marketing executive at Starbucks Coffee Co. and Whole Foods Market.
The marketing mastermind will share more of his fresh take on marketing and customer service when he presents the first keynote address of Club Industry 2011 at 10 a.m. on Thursday, Oct. 13, at McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago.
Moore launched his own marketing practice, Brand Autopsy, in 2005. His specialty is giving business owners second opinions about their current marketing strategies to help pinpoint what is going wrong and to advise on how to make it go right.
“It’s kind of like a trainer talks to a client, finding out their goals, what they are currently doing and then offering up recommendations on what they can do so they can feel better and achieve their personal goals,” Moore says. “I do the same thing but for professional goals.”
One of the most common mistakes Moore sees is not in how companies communicate with their current and potential customers but in how they market themselves to their own employees. Interactions with a company’s staff often can be what turns a one-time customer into a long-time customer, Moore says, so it is vital that employees be recognized for the value that they can add to your company.
“If you don’t put in the same time to make employee marketing materials look as good as your customer marketing materials, your employees are not going to feel that special,” Moore says. “If you jazz employees, they’re going to jazz customers. It’s as simple as that.”