Gratitude Marketing—It’s the Attitude That Makes All the Difference

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Gratitude sometimes gets a bad rap. We all cringe at the memory of someone in our past scolding that we “ought to be grateful”—usually for something awful, like spinach. We live in a culture that elevates the myth of the “self-made man,” leaving thank-yous mostly for acceptance speeches at the Academy Awards.

Have you ever thought about the marketing power of gratitude?

Here are some ideas in this lean winter season to plant the seeds for a more prosperous new year—and a more personally fulfilling holiday season—with the concept of ‘gratitude marketing’.

Take time to say ‘thank you’ to current customers. They’ve got their worries too, this season. Your ‘thank you’ may make their day. We don’t appreciate loudly enough. If the size of your client list doesn’t allow for a hand-written note, write a personal email. Be specific if possible. Do their projects give you an exciting challenge? Do you appreciate that they always pay on time? Are the consistently pleasant to work with? Tell them.

Take time to say ‘thank you’ to your past customers. No, this isn’t a veiled attempt to garner new business, although reminding them that you exist may do that. You never know what jogging someone’s memory can do in terms of referrals or recommendations.

Say ‘thank you’ to your vendors. You’d miss them if they disappeared. That includes the printer who does you a favor from time to time on rush jobs, the graphic designer who turns a bad sketch on a cocktail napkin into art, even the cleaning person who shows up reliably and always does a nice job. Kindness is free, but it’s in short supply these days. It’s notable because it’s rare and precious.

Thank your employees—real or virtual. The truth is, you can’t do it without them. They know it, but sometimes they wonder if you realize it. In lean times, maybe you can’t give them a raise, but you can give them an appreciative work environment. That’s so rare, they’ll probably tell everyone they know. Sure, other bosses send holiday cards. But how many actually say ‘thank you’ and mean it?

Thank the people who enable you to do what you do. That includes your life partner, your kids, your extended family, the friends or sitters who pick your kids up when a meeting runs late, the neighbor who gets your kid off to the bus because you have to leave for a meeting, the best friend who encourages you when you lose out on a bid.

Give something without expecting return. For one month, try to move past quid-pro-quo. Make a referral to someone who probably isn’t in a position to return the favor. Do a networking meeting (or two or three) with people looking for a job in your industry or students who are fresh out of school. Speak at a career day or present on a helpful topic in your area of expertise to a job hunter group. Make it a point to buy from a local retailer to help them stay in business. Give a bag of groceries to the food bank. Or start a ‘pay it forward’ chain when you buy a cup of coffee in the morning and buy one for the next person in line, too.

You have absolutely no idea about the power of the energy compassion and giving release into the universe, or the eventual and possibly far-reaching results of your good deed. I can’t back this up with market research, but I do believe that eventually, that goodness does come back to you. And in the short run, you’ll discover that the headlines don’t seem to matter as much any more and for a little while, you stopped stewing over the current market value of your 401K.

When you are animated by a spirit of gratitude, you become different from the norm. You glow instead of glower. You become approachable. People feel appreciated so rarely that they are attracted to those genuinely are grateful for what they do and who they are. And they tell other people about it.

So while ‘peace on earth’ may be out of your personal reach this holiday season, how about ‘goodwill to all’? Granted, ‘gratitude marketing’ may not be something they teach you at Harvard Business School, but you might find that it gets you your MBA (that’s Marketing By Attraction).