Most of the people that our clients aspire to gain as customers have two major obstacles that prevent them from becoming every brand's idealized customer, the mythical slave of desire with a bottomless bank account. 1) They have too many choices. 2) They have too much stuff. And any attempt at simply convincing a community that your stuff is a better choice than your competitor's stuff is an uphill battle with limited potential return. If you hope to be the next breakout success in the new media-enabled marketing environment your repertoire better include more than pretty pictures, catchy slogans, and strategic media buys.

We know that the goal on the new playing field is engagement. I think that David Armano described this desired effect of new media marketing campaigns perfectly in his post about The Marketing Spiral. And I would only add that the measure of engagement and advocacy is best described as resonance, or the tendency of an individual to be compelled through interaction to share their experience with their community. But, how is this effect achieved?

The three essential elements of a product or service that will resonate within a community in a meaningful and compelling way are Relevance, Utility, and Delight.

Relevance
Each customer's choices are guided by myriad personal values and lifestyle circumstances. Our relationships, our aspirations, and our passions. Each individual's identity is unique and intricately nuanced. The traits that are shared by certain individuals extend beyond traditional boundaries, i.e. age, income, or geographic proximity. This complex list of interests and responsibilities shapes our self-identity, and the places where we overlap with each other defines the communities with which we identify. When we make purchasing decisions we use this perception of self-identity and community to intuitively rate how much importance or meaning to subscribe to any given experience.

Utility
Make yourself useful by offering customers something they need. Johnny Vulcan, of Anomaly, describes it as "being genuinely useful to their customers, employees, suppliers and the people they touch." We are beginning to see a steady shift away from consumerism; "less is better" is the newly regnant mantra among trend-setters and influencers. More people are beginning to realize that the endgame of unabated material consumption is bleak and unsustainable. So a completely frivolous purchase embarrasses the customer and inhibits their willingness to become an advocate of the experience. On the other hand, when customers say to themselves, "I needed that," you create advocates.

Delight
Give your customers the pleasure of discovery. Different than outright happiness or fun, delight is a unique strain of satisfaction. Delight is the feeling we get when an idea or experience surprises us by rousing a sudden effervescence of joy out of our otherwise staid disposition. We rely on delight as a physiological validation of the wisdom of our choices. Delight also induces a feeling of ownership, because when those chemicals get released we established an emotional bond with the experience. Delight is the intangible and unquantifiable element, the pixie dust.

These are the items on every customer's conscious and subconscious check list.

1) There's significant overlap between the product and my personal values and lifestyle circumstances.
2) The product enhances my life in a substantially meaningful way.
3) The experience inspired an emotional connection through the pleasure of discovery.

The customer's experience of the brand's product or service has to satisfy all three if it hopes to inspire resonance; and the successful effect of this experience elicits a transformation from awareness to engagement to advocacy.