10 Sep The ‘little piggies’ of marketing
I am recently married. But we’re also renovating a property. So, when the question of ‘should we honeymoon?’ came up, we decided to wait a year. It would give us something more to look forward to and it would allow us to renovate the dining room in time for Christmas – a real priority. So, we booked a little weekend away to a 5* hotel in the centre of Manchester, one of our favourite cities to visit.
The hotel we booked is called the Hotel Gotham and has a very unique style.
As we pulled up to the stunning building on Manchester’s King Street, we were greeted by friendly staff who offered to park our car and went ahead with our bags. We then rose five levels in the elevator, secured an early booking and headed to our room where we found a white plate with chocolate covered strawberries and the word ‘congratulations’ written in chocolate. I was delighted. We’d only been chatting to the hotel staff, who were parking our car, moments before. I’d mentioned ‘We just got married, this is my wife’ and had I laughed because it’s the first time I had said ‘my wife’. So in the time it took us to check in (some five minutes!), they’d had the idea and executed it to perfection. I instantly knew I loved this place.
The room was beautiful. It felt luxurious, expensive, well finished. From the large bed and to the inspirational, but personal books that had been selected for the solid wooden table and then from the embellished robes in the bathroom and the fresh milk in the mini bar, it felt like the details had been taken care of.
Moving from the mini bar to the view, then back to the desk, I then spotted a little jar with something pink in side. I remove the glass lid and peered inside to find three little shortbread biscuits in the shape of pigs and decorated with pink icing sugar. No sooner had I said ‘Oh look Lucy’, to my wide, had I taken a little piggy biscuit and bitten off a leg. A head felt too cruel.
I was delighted. “Look at these Lucy”, I said, “how easy is it to buy those little packaged biscuits – someone made these”.
I absolutely loved the touch, promised I’d return to the hotel and finished my biscuit and fresh tea.
When we later looked on Trip Advisor to read what people were saying about the hotel, we found mention after mention of the little pink piggy biscuits in the glass jar. I enquired about them at reception and the chap laughed as he told us ‘Everyone asks about the piggy biscuits and where they can buy them’.
It made me really think about my own business and the businesses of my clients. Something bespoke, something unique, something handmade goes a long way to make a client feel special, like an extra detail we barely consider has been taken care of properly. From handwritten ‘welcome to our business’ card, flowers to clients who have big wins and even handmade gifts in the post: What can we make, bake or produce to create little piggy moments of our own?
