[anonymousadguy]

I love Southwest Airlines. Not because I have a thing for cattle calls. Not because I’m a sucker for the middle seat or a three-stop flight to Vegas. I love Southwest for the simple reason that, as a traveler, I know what to expect from them.

I’m not alone, by the way. Forbes just ranked Southwest at the top of its airline customer satisfaction survey. Again. And it wasn't a squeaker-- they beat the snot out of the other guys. What, you might wonder, is so satisfying about flying Southwest?

For years, Southwest ran a wickedly simple TV ad. On the screen, you see a pack of peanuts on a tray table. The announcer says, “At Southwest, this is what our meals look like. It’s also what our fares look like.” This ad clearly laid out what you could expect from Southwest: cheap fares and no bad airline food. And though the campaign has changed since then, the message hasn’t. (I couldn't find the ad before publishing, so post a link if you're able to hunt it down).

Southwest doesn’t claim to “know why you fly” Like American, or portray itself with fanciful cartoons like United—two airlines that are wallowing at the bottom of the satisfaction heap.

Southwest simply tells you the benefit of flying them, and delivers that benefit when you do. That’s how satisfied customers are created. And that’s exactly how smart marketing works.

I used to work on the advertising business for a global hotel chain. One day, a junior marketing manager came to us with a promotional project he felt would drive loads of wedding business to the hotel. The offer he wanted us to promote was this: have your wedding at our hotel, and we’ll pay for your honeymoon!

What a deal! What a steal! Who wouldn’t like the sound of that? An offer that terrific would surely drive traffic. Except… once we dug into the fine print, we learned it would be nearly impossible to qualify for the free honeymoon, and even if you did, the package itself was so lame that you’d probably take a pass.

In other words, the hotel chain could never meet the expectations set up by the marketing. That’s how dissatisfied customers are created. And that’s how bad marketing works.

Want to know the six golden rules for using marketing to improve customer satisfaction? Read the full article at Anonymous Ad Guy

[AntonyR]

Marketing includes customer retention, not just acquisition of new business or visibility.