Creating Lifetime Customers

It's almost a cardinal rule in marketing: create lifetime customers or fans of your product or service, ones who will stay with you. The idea is that they are less expensive to maintain than continual cycles of new customers, plus their stories make for wonderful marketing fodder.

And yes, I'm proud to say that I am one of those people.

Recently I came across an L.L. Bean photo contest via the company's social media. Now, I can't afford their products very often. Their $200 boots have been calling me for years. I do have several products, the most well-loved being my green backpack that I've had for years. So posting a photo and being entered to win a $50 gift card seemed easy enough and worth a half hour of staging.  

And it worked. 

Once the card arrives, L.L. Bean, of course, will receive free publicity via my Twitter account, and my continued patronage. 

And while I cannot speak as to the company's ROI on the #ThrowPackLLBean campaign, it surely worked on this marketer/consumer/adventurer.