Making the most of your mistakes

Being a part of a very important club (burger connoisseur’s), I received an email yesterday from Burger Fuel telling me to expect a postcard to my address addressed. It’s a marketer’s greatest fear – something not being perfect.

The only mention of sorry was “sorry if it freaked you out”. They then urge you to use the postcard voucher like you stole it, for all it’s worth.

Getting a perfect corporate picture about your company and communicating this immaculately isn’t everything. Here Burger Fuel have leveraged a mistake to make me like their brand even more. I’m also looking forward to receiving this postcard, when if I didn’t know about it I probably wouldn’t care for it at all.

The same principal applies to blogging, being honest and communicating this will improve your customer relationships. Dell’s battery recall hit news everywhere, surely you’d imagine this to be a bad thing for their brand. Instead of taking the hit, they had a blog about it. People could post their comments publicly (complaints and anger included) and Dell employees commented back to them. People will see through the slick brand and communications, you may as well show them through it and have your say whenever someone sees something they don’t like.

DISCLOSURE: I’m a sucker for juicy beef, bacon, avocado, aioli and relish.