Your Four Walls

How many gas stations are within two miles of your home?

One? Two? Twenty, including eight Mobil stations, every one of them somehow with a different price per gallon on the very same day?

I’d say that the only one that matters is the next one you go to. All else being equal, this one is most likely the same one as the last one you went to.

This repetition rule applies to any business, bricks or clicks.

Let’s talk about the four walls of that business. It can literally be four walls (plus roof and floor) of a physical site. It can be more abstract, like when I make that turn into Walmart’s parking lot and the laws of physics and driving no longer apply, I know I’m at Walmart.

But on a less scary note, when you were inside a business’s literal or figurative four walls, when they had you all to themselves, ideally blocking out all outside messages and influence and surrounding you with their own, it was up to them to worship you, make your experience total pleasure, and make sure that the next time you have to fulfill that same kind of need, whether fuel, food, or fashion, you come back to the same place or website.

If they failed in doing that, they blew it. Now, true, it might not be their fault; maybe you’re a variety seeker. Maybe you got a push message from a competitor at the ideal time for you in your consumer decision making process. But that business, the last one you patronized, should have done everything they can to totally seduce you, to make you love the experience and knock out the competition from even being considered.

What are your four walls, the elements of your immersive customer experience that surrounds your customers with your offering and your message and makes them not even think about your competition?