Smooth Marketing

I’ve written before about the (in my opinion) really rather good company, Hotel Chocolat, who do some of the best chocolate I’ve had in a very long time.

In a similar kind of vein to Innocent, Hotel Chocolat have looked at the way people buy things, and have applied it to their company – and this is something that certainly shows up in both the way they market themselves, and the ordering process.

When you order with them, you can choose the dates you want the items to arrive – particularly in the case of things like Easter, Christmas etc. this can be really useful, as you can order well in advance, and choose to have them delivered to you immediately (so you can wrap it and send it on, or give it as a gift, I assume) or delivered straight to the recipient’s door as close to the day as possible. It doesn’t sound like much, but it shows the thought that’s gone into the process.

An example of the marketing skill came through in the post yesterday – an order form from them with a cover note that basically said “These are the people you ordered stuff for through us last Christmas – tell us what you’d like to order for them this year, and it’s all sorted” (I assume you had to pay them too, but that wasn’t mentioned in the letter) It just struck me that it was again something really simple, but that kept Hotel Chocolat in mind, and made you think “that’s actually really rather clever”.

Well, it impressed me, anyway. But I’m kind of sad like that.