But most exhibits do a lot to block that conversation: big TV screens, laptops between the exhibitor and the prospects, or having conversations standing in front of the table so your back is to people walking past.

That’s why I like this simple tabletop by Sprinklr. The fireplace catches your attention. The furniture encourages you sit down and have a deep conversation, and the whole arrangement visually draws people in.

When you find fans and communities that have true, dedicated passion, it’s your job to support them and keep them going. Make them happy, and these powerful talkers will bring in everyone else for you. How a few marketers are doing it:

1. With an online library
2. With helpful instructions
3. With a dedicated channel
4. Check it out: The Restart Page

1. With an online library

Sometimes what enthusiastic communities need most is a home base to share their passion, knowledge, and geeky details. That’s what Foot Locker’s Sneakerpedia does for shoe nerds. Just like the name implies, it’s essentially Wikipedia for shoes. Through it, fans can browse thousands of shoes, edit entries, and create their own articles about shoes they love. They’ve also created a Sneakerpedia blog and Twitter account to keep the community talking.

The lesson: A lot of enthusiastic talker groups need your help with a simple place to share their passions and meet others like them.

Learn more: Ad Age

2. With helpful instructions

A great way to support your fans’ obsessions is to help them do what they love a little better. You could go all out with detailed guides and training, or you could just post some simple instructions. Beer brewer Stella did it with their video on how to pour the perfect beer. It includes 9 steps like “The Sacrifice” and “The Beheading” that bartenders and connoisseurs should follow when pouring any brew. Their video has some high-end production value, but the content is straightforward and easy for beer lovers to forward, share, and talk about.

The lesson: Help the super-fans by giving them tips, tricks, and how-to’s to help them do what they love even better.

Learn more: PSFK

3. With a dedicated channel

Sometimes all the super-passionate fans really want is access. The more they get to see, touch, or experience the brand they love, the better. That’s the idea behind Burger King’s Whopper Lust channel. They actually created a channel on DirecTV to air endless footage of a spinning Whopper. For each 5 minutes people watch and respond to prompts, they get a voucher for a burger. The idea is a great way to give Burger King fans a new topic to share and forward — and who knows, all that subliminal burger spinning might have created a few new obsessive fans too.

The lesson: Support your fans by doing your best to give them non-stop access to whatever it is they love so much.

Learn more: AdWeek

4. Check it out: The Restart Page

Check out this throwback site to relive the restarts of classic operating systems from Apple and Microsoft.

Check it out: The Restart Page

[Good social media is the] difference between teaching a class and hosting a party.

In both, all the participants are in the same room, but the dynamic could not be more different. In the classroom the teacher (the brand) dominates the conversation, and the flow is hub-and-spoke, with the teacher at the hub. At the party the guests (customers and prospects) may or may not interact directly with the host, spending most of their time with one another. But since most of the guests know and like the host, when the discussion touches on the host it’s likely to be favorable. Even though the host can’t control exactly what is said, the guests at the party are every bit as likely to go home with positive feelings toward the host as the students are to go home with a positive view of the teacher. As you say, it’s not that one model is right and the other wrong; the challenge for brands is to use the right model for each context.

(Emphasis mine. From Harvard Business Review, January 2011.)

Then we got a nice plant from Freytag’s Florist around the corner — with a $10 gift card for our next order and a stack of coupons.

It was a simple demonstration of what they do and how good they are. Sure, it cost them more than printing some flyers.

But we never even looked at their competition.

They instantly became the only one on the list. And we still have the plant to remind us of them.

Lesson: One great marketing move beats a whole lot of average marketing every time.

Robert Kennedy, March 1968:

Our Gross National Product…if we judge the United States of America by that – that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage.  It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them.  It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl.  It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities.  It counts Whitman’s rifle and Speck’s knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.

Yet the Gross National Product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play.  It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials.  It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country.

It measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.  And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.

Here’s another idea:

People appreciate being appreciated. They want to know that their voice has been heard.

Here’s a great example here from TripAdvisor’s email newsletter.

When I bought a camera from Casio, I was pretty excited about the relationship. I bought several models over the years, convinced many friends to buy one, and blogged about them more than once. I was a fan. I gave them my email because I trusted them.

But to them, I’m just a name in a database — a name to be marketed to. Even if it makes no sense at all — such as these emails that I’ve been getting for keyboards and watches (5 spams in 10 days). Who there thinks that camera buyers want to be spammed about unrelated products?

The point of this post isn’t to pick on Casio, but to ask you to rethink how you protect your customers’ trust. Do you respect them? Do you harass them? Do you have someone on your team to think about this sort of thing? Do you have someone who cares more about protecting your customers more than selling more stuff?

Re-read Seth Godin’s Permission Marketing.

Great marketers aren’t just looking for the new and shiny — they’re also looking at how to get the most out of what they already have. Here are a few examples to inspire you:

1. For recruiting
2. For innovation
3. For competition
4. Check it out: Events from your birth year

1. For recruiting

Finding new, talented people to join your team can be expensive and time consuming. But you already have a pool of potential candidates who know you and believe in what you do: your customers. And not just that, but because they’re coming in to your store and buying your stuff, you’ve also got a lot of opportunities to reach them. IKEA is doing this by inserting clever job ads in their packaging. These ads resemble their distinct instruction manuals and include “career instructions” to “assemble your future.” It’s a great way for IKEA to find potential recruits among their loyal customers, and because they’re including the ads in their own packaging, there are no postage or insertion costs.

The lesson: When trying to recruit smart people, start by thinking about the groups who already know you, know what you do, and want to see you succeed.

Learn more: Trend Hunter

2. For innovation

Before investing in outside consulting for ideas and innovation, put your own team in a situation where they can do it. It can be hard to do it when they’re caught up in the day-to-day operations of keeping the business running, which is why programs like Yelp’s “Hackathons” are so great. For these annual events, Yelp gives their engineers a break from their everyday jobs to collaborate and build something new. The results range from hacks to make their office printer quieter to fundamental changes in how Yelp displays reviews.

The lesson: You already have some fantastic talent on your team. Are you giving them enough opportunities to show it off?

Learn more: Yelp Blog

3. For competition

If you find yourself in a situation where you have more square footage than you can fill, use the opportunity to bring in a complementary business that can attract new customers. That’s what Sears is doing with extra space in their sprawling stores. Through the program, Sears has already leased hundreds of thousands of square feet to everything from grocery stores to health clubs to clothing retailers. It’s a smart use of existing resources. Not only does it help with cut costs, but it also helps pull in new customers in space that would otherwise sit empty.

The lesson: Instead of just accepting underperforming or unused retail space, turn it into a marketing asset by bringing in a great business partner.

Learn more: The Wall Street Journal

4. Check it out: Events from your birth year

Here’s a fun way to spend a few minutes. Just type in your birth year (or any year) and this site will walk you through the major political and pop culture events from the time.

Check it out: What Happened in the Year of My Birth?

I was at the mall and some guy in a kiosk was selling special iPhone screen protectors that are supposedly better-feeling, better-working, and don’t fall off. With a lifetime guarantee. For $20. My regular screen protectors keep falling off or getting bubbles, so I decided to try it.

It’s amazing! You should get one. I show it to everyone, every time I pull out my phone.

But here’s the big word-of-mouth lesson: I have no idea what it’s called. I don’t know the name of the store. There is no brand name, no package, nothing to tell me how to tell people about it (except “walk around this mall and there is a kiosk somewhere.”)

What’s missing is what we call a “word of mouth tool” — the thing that helps you tell a friend. It can be a sticker, a flyer, a link … anything that makes a referral easy.

How would your customers tell their friends about you?

A manufacturer can save millions by slicing a few inches off the bottom of every shirt.

Bad companies look at this as a spreadsheet question: How much money can we save by reducing fabric quantity?

But the most important data never shows up on a spreadsheet: Customers who bought the shirt, thought it seemed short/cheap, and never came back. Your “fabric cost” spreadsheet doesn’t have a column for “customer retention costs.” Which means you may be saving money on a cheap product, but losing more money in lost repeat sales.

A good company has better math: What is the most economical way to keep our customers happy?

But they have no idea why I left.

Why didn’t they call? Why didn’t they ask?

Was it an unsolvable problem, or could they have won me back with a quick fix? Was I upset about something that they could apologize for? Or was there a mismatch between my needs and their product line — information that would help them in the future?

Don’t let a customer leave without finding out why. (But don’t be an ass about trying to prevent cancellation like some companies.) Take it as a learning moment that could change your business forever, or at least save some customers.

So few companies do this, which is surprising if you do the math. The cost of calling customers who are cancelling is a lot cheaper than sales calls. Plus, you’ll recover more revenue and priceless knowledge.

It’s a little naughty — and it gives the page a lot of personality.

What makes your work recognizably different? What makes people pause and notice that you’re a little bit special?