There’s a fantastic book, Purple Cow by Seth Godin, about attracting new customers to your business. The book asks the question: Is your product or service worth remarking about, like a purple cow? There are too many websites and blogs with ADHD, bombarding the search engines with boring sales dribble. Does your message draw attention and engage people? Do they want to come back for more?  In this article, I’ll share a few tips on how to have fun and make an impression on your customers and prospects.

Slice that Head Cheese, Real Thin! When I was in college in the 80s, I worked in a delicatessen situated in a large, popular urban grocery store in South Seattle. The rare connoisseur of hog-head cheese always asked us to slice it real thin. It was a difficult, often disgusting task as we envisioned carving into Abi Normal’s, formaldehyde soaked brains, displayed in a glass jar in Mel Brook’s movie classic, Young Frankenstein.

Do you know what hog-head cheese is? It’s a inventive mixture of assorted hog parts; feet, tails, ears, snouts, and organs, lovingly combined into a savory loaf of jellied disgust. I ate a lot of gourmet cheeses and meats but never sampled the Head-cheese. The bakery produced their own signature health bars, a conglomeration of left over bread heals, cookie crumbs, old dry fruit, and assorted staples. One bar required a a gallon of liquid to wash it down..

Have you ever endured a slice of holiday fruit cake? It’s essentially the same thing. Now that I have utterly offended the head cheese and fruit cake enthusiasts, here’s the point. When you are marketing, avoid mixing all your key products and ingredients together.

Here’s a marketing no-brainer. Don’t send mixed messages, keep your message simple, focused and attractive to your customer. Target a specific niche or group of consumers that are interested and attracted to your product or business benefits. Rarely is “more” better, since most people are too busy to care. Be specific, get to the point.

A Hot Case for New Attracting Customers: In the Deli, my friend and co-worker, Rick, taught me some valuable marketing insights.  I recall vividly, Rick striding briskly through aisle twelve, a beeline from the meat department to the deli, grasping six dead raw poultry’s in each hand, proclaiming like John the Baptist,  ”Its dinner time, come and get it, we got chickens – fresh, whole roasted chickens in the deli!”

Rick’s hot case display glistened with heaping piles of savory whole roasted chickens, pork ribs, fried chicken, assorted fried veggies and chicken organs. His display was fresh, juicy, colorful, and aromatic — not a half empty, dried-up, burned-out, hideous pile of stinking, dead carcasses and rotting vegetables.

We attracted hungry, irritable, post meridian commuters with an irresistible dinner display and tons of free samples to keep the tired, starving lot from smashing the hot case in desperation.

Rick’s hyperbolic trek from the meat department of Tom, Dick, and Harry, combined with our preparation and display of an irresistible Hot Case during dinner rush hour, attracted hungry crowds and created plenty of deli profits. No kidding, the cutters were: Tom, Dick, and Harry — their white, blood stained aprons hung sordidly under their names, side by side in the slaughter room.

Rick’s deli display case was hot, stacked with food. Attracting new customers and keeping the regulars coming back was easy. And maybe for a moment, during the dinner rush, our customers had a chance to release some endorphins after a stressful day at work.

In your business, keep your display case full. In the grocery business, they call it “facing  the shelves.” Look inviting and attractive to your customer or prospect.  Empty shelves looks like you’re going out of business. Your customers might loose their appetite and look elsewhere.

In the Deli, humor sold chicken and ribs and frankly was a means to break up the monotony.  Our exaggerated hot and cold case exhibits, and slinging food around our deli cubical like high-school dodge ball players, birthed a kind of cult following among our customers.

Creating a fun atmosphere and memorable experience is what the fish throwers down at world famous, Pike Place Market do. People come from around the world to see the young Princes of the Sea sling King Salmon — an experience worth remarking about. As I mentioned, Seth Godin writes about making your business worth remarking about in his book, Purple Cow, a recommended read for any student of marketing.

Humor, Worth Remembering: Most of us welcome a laugh in order to deal with the dire straits promoted by media spin hipsters.  Humor creates a connection and becomes a useful tool in the context of marketing.  If you can effectively link humor and honest hyperboles to a great product or service and keep your shelves full, your impact could draw customers and prospects in Super Bowl proportions. By the way, what do Lizards and Cavemen have to do with car insurance?  Thanks for reading. If you liked my post, please tweetit below!  Mark