Greetings from Anaheim, California!

I’m at the “Happiest Place On Earth” and although I thought it was a bit of hype… it turns out to be true.

Except if you’re a tearful 4-year-old child who has had way too much sugar and despite being too tired to walk and having to be carried by an equally tired parent… still hasn’t had enough Disney by the Midnight closing time.

No matter how hard you try, I don’t think you can fit enough Disney into one calendar day. There’s just way too much to see and do.

And that’s exactly the way it was designed. Disney wants you to come back again… and again… and again.

So, they have teams of Imagineers who come up with new and creative ways to make Disneyland more enjoyable so you do exactly that.

Every single thing at Disneyland is there by design, not by accident.

There’s a train that takes you around the park and the New Orleans Square train station is home to the telegraph cable office. While you wait for people to get on and off the train, you can hear the sound of a telegraph machine tapping away in Morse code.

Knowing that everything has a purpose in Disneyland, I wondered what the message was so I looked it up. It turns out it’s a paraphrased portion of Walt Disney’s opening-day speech from July 17, 1955.

The telegraph message is just over a minute long and decoded it says: “To all who come to Disneyland, welcome. Here age relives fond memories of the past, and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future.”

How cool is that?

Now, not everyone will know that… but that’s part of the magical layers you’ll find at Disneyland.

And when it comes to magic… when I first saw the buildings along Main Street, they looked so tall (I was looking at the windows and the names on them. More about those later.) but then I found out that the buildings used a concept called “forced perspective.”

This was created by the Imagineers to give Disneyland a grand look in a small space… and it works.

What happens is, the first story of the building is made to scale, but then the second and third floors are made to a smaller scale. Bricks and other building supplies on the upper levels are scaled down to make things look bigger. There are many other places forced perspective is used.

Disney totally controls the way you see and experience everything.

Including what you smell.

That’s right! Smell.

They use “Air Smellitizers” to match smells to places in the park.

On Main Street you’ll smell cupcakes, on Pooh’s Adventure you’ll smell honey (or is that hunny?) and you’ll smell salty sea air as you stand in line for Pirates of the Caribbean.

There are a few rides that are ridiculously popular and the lines are super long, so Disney turns the waiting line into an adventure. On the Indiana Jones ride, there are things to do along the way (and out of necessity, there’s a hidden restroom) to keep the people occupied. There’s a rope that has a sign “don’t touch” but you are supposed to pull it and when you do… the roof falls in.

But that’s not all.

If you’re in the know, or have done your research, there are other experiences you can have that others don’t know about. On some of the rides or experiences if you say a special phrase, you can get a special experience.

That goes for the menu too. There are hidden menu items you can ask for.

And speaking of hidden things… through out the park, there are hundreds of “Hidden Mickey’s” for you to look for. Mickey Mouse’s iconic silhouette appears everywhere… but they are hard to find. It takes a keen eye and patience.

The merchandising is absolutely on point.

There are collectables of every character Disney has, and there’s something to suit everyone.

Each year, Disney releases different mouse ears (these are ornate Mickey Mouse ears on a headband. They range from the original Mouseketeer ears to super blinged versions.) and last year the ears to have were the rose gold sequins ones. They’re sparkly and beautiful!

And in true Disney fashion, you could accessorise your ears with a matching t-shirt, sweater and mini backpack. There were so many people walking around with the matching set.

This year the trend has changed to a new blingy set of ears.

It’s marketing genius in action.

If you collect stuff… there’s lots to collect.

There’s a roaring pin trade. There are pins you can buy (little pieces of metal you can pin to your clothes or a lanyard. There are thousands of them, all with different characters.) and then you can either keep them… or you can trade them.

And if you see a cast member (Disney doesn’t have staff… they are cast because this is show biz!) that has a pin you want, you can swap with them. And there are pin trading places scattered around the park.

If you’re not into pins you can collect the celebration coins you press yourself. You put 50 cents in and you get a stretched and stamped penny like coin. There are at least 64 different coins you can collect!

Essentially, no matter what age you are and whatever you collect… you are catered for.

Disneyland is a place where you can let your Disney related, family friendly freak flag fly… and no one bats an eyelid.

Disney knows how to treat their visitors well and have been refining the process over decades.

It’s hard to find out how much money Disneyland makes in a day, but it would be an absolute fortune based on ticket sales, parking, merchandise etc. But all of the 6 parks around the world make a combined amount of $13,611 Billion each year.

Disney wants you to spend your money, because it costs them $3.25 million to run each day.

Each day, everyone and everything shows up full tilt because this is the happiest place on Earth and if this is the only day you turn up… you get the full Disney experience.

Disney has always known what modern-day businesses are only just staring to work out…

Knowledge Nugget #197:
Customer Experience Matters!

And it always has.

You see, Disney knows something that a lot of business’ have lost sight of… happy people spend money.

We all know that the items for sale in Disneyland are overpriced… but no one seems to care!

I saw one family walk into one of the stores and walk out in matching cosy hoodies. The hoodies were priced at $69.99 and there were 5 members of the family. And the hoodies weren’t all they bought. They walked out of the store totally “Disneyfied!” It was awesome to see.

Now, there is no judgement here… just a simple observation of human behaviour and the absence of price resistance.

There is so much to learn from a company / empire like Disney. They know the importance of their customers and the customer experience.

Of course, we don’t have to go to the lengths they do, but we can refine our processes to make our customer’s experience a positive one.

Because when we make customers happy… they are happy to spend their money with us.

I see so many copywriters, marketers and business owners who behave like divas and disrespect their customers or clients (they take the Mickey out of the people who pay them… not a smart thing to do!). This may work for a while… but as soon as something better comes along, the customer is gone.

But if you treat your customer well and do what you can to make them happy, then they will bring their friends and look for other things to buy from you.

You don’t only want to make your clients happy though. You want to keep them happy too. So, look for ways to keep your client’s experience fresh and exciting.

Look at Disney, there is so much going on that whether you’ve been to the park once or 1000 times… you’ll have a great time.

In all the days I went to Disneyland (I had a 10-day pass) I never once saw anyone roll their eyes and say they were bored or had seen it all before.

That’s a phenomenal achievement in a world apparently filled with instant gratification, short attention spans and self-absorbed people.

Disney isn’t affected by any of it. And for a good reason… they care about their customers.

I know I haven’t even scratched the surface of what Disney does… but it’s a great start. I’d love to see how their Imagineers create their magic. Talk about coming up with the Big Idea! (Many of the windows along Main Street have the names of the Imagineers who helped to shape the Disneyland that we experience today.)

Until next week… take care, stay safe and don’t take the “Mickey” out of your clients   : )

Pauline xxx

Pauline Longdon
a.k.a. “The Copy Alchemist”

P.S.  I usually come under fire for saying that other people have trouble with their clients. People give me all the reasons why all their clients suck, but I’m not buying it. We all have the occasional problem client, but if every client is a problem… then you are the common denominator. You need to sort yourself out and change the way you attract your clients.

When you do that… you’ll auto-magically have better clients.

P.P.S.  Disney really knows how to make people feel special. If it’s your birthday, you can get a special pin/button/badge to wear and every cast member that sees you wishes you happy birthday. They also have pins for brides and grooms, for first timers and many other significant events. It’s a great way to celebrate and recognise the visitors. And it totally makes you feel special.

Disney knows how to create a memorable experience. We could learn a lot from them.

P.P.P.S.  If you want to treat your ear drums to our “Accents of Awesomeness” … we’ll have a new episode of our podcast “Breaking Through The B.S.” available tomorrow.

In case you’ve missed any episodes, you can find ALL our previous episodes over at: https://BreakingThroughTheBS.com/podcast

Remember… if you enjoy what we are doing and want to help us share the love… then leave a 5 Star Rating and review over on iTunes. https://breakingthroughthebs.com/itunes