I received a very formal letter the other day from a vendor of ours. The letter was sent to inform me that the services we had used in the past were being eliminated, and the new services that were taking their place would cost more than the old ones. It was written in legal jargon because the vendor needed to check a box that all their customers had been notified of the change. The letter was meant to cover the vendor from any pushback. Legally, they had covered themselves. But from a marketing perspective, they had just caused me to think about changing my business over to one of their competitors.

We wouldn’t normally consider a legal compliance letter as marketing, but when you think about it, it really is. In fact, there is little in business that touches a customer that isn’t tied to marketing. Marketing is the promotion of your brand so that people in the marketplace – especially those in your target market – will have good feelings and buy the brand. There are business activities that bump up against customers all the time. Either they help build good feelings about your brand or they tear down trust. Little things matter, especially when it comes to your marketing.

If you are in charge of marketing, you need to be aware of the subtle mood changes of your market. Are they experiencing good times or bad? Are they happy or sad? We don’t often think about the moods of our customers as a marketing indicator, but it is. The mood of the market determines when and how you will be marketing to them. Business goes through cycles and customers can be very fickle if things aren’t going well. If they are in a bad place, they might not take well to your over-the-top funny campaign. You might want to save the happy promo for another day. Instead, you might want to focus your marketing on how your brand can make things right in their world. Your marketing has to be able to reflect the mood in the marketplace to be effective.

Another unrecognized piece of marketing is the concept that the customer is the winner for purchasing your brand. Good marketing builds trust between your customer and the brand. When your cleverly worded interaction with your customers has them feeling like you are trying to give them less than your best, they will mistrust you. The best deal for your customer is the best marketing play for you.

One more thing about understated subtleties in marketing: being kind to the customer never went out of style. There is a lot of marketing that happens online these days. It is efficient, but impersonal. Never forget that you are dealing with people with feelings and those feelings need to be stroked. Find a way in your marketing to do so.

There is much to learn from paying attention to the little things if you want to be successful in marketing. Many times, we don’t recognize the handling of human emotions as a part of marketing, but it is crucial if you are going to build trust between your customers and your brand.