Touchy-Feely

Yvonne DiVita whose engaging blog about marketing to women online never fails to enlighten, amuse and instruct, in  her musings on marketing links to a wonderful post by Mary Hunt at Attract-Her.  (I'm also delighted that she liked Twisting the Lion's Tail.)

Provena St Mary's Hospital in Kankakee, Illinois, has found a sure fire way to attract moms to their birthing center.  They've hired  photojournalist Bill Jurevich to capture the moment when a newborn first goes eye to eye with their family.  That magic moment is captured on DVD and given to every new mom.  Of course, they love it and they tell their friends and the hospital benefits in that halo. They are part of that beautiful  "touchy-feely" personal moment.

It's called experiential marketing, creating bonds with customers through the sharing of our human experience.
It's the touchy-feely stuff that connects women --- and men too. 

Just because it can't be measured easily, doesn't mean it doesn't work.  After all, you can't measure beauty, truth, goodness, friendship or love either and they are the things we most value in life. 

One of the many wonderful things about the Web is that it allows companies to be more human, more personal by engaging in many different conversations, by listening to many different voices.    What after all are markets but conversations in human voices, "open, natural and uncontrived" asks Cluetrain

"We are not seats or eyeballs or end users or consumers.  We are human beings - and our reach exceeds your grasp.  Deal with it."  The Cluetrain Manifesto
 
Before anything, we are human and it's what's most human about us, the mystery of our very lives,  that binds us together.  With everything becoming commoditized, it's the touchy-feely stuff that counts.