What Thailand taught me about marketing 🇹🇭

10/10 retention tactics

Thailand was awesome. 🥥

But as a marketing nerd, my biggest takeaway wasn’t the pad thai or elephant feeding... it was the genius retention tactics weaved into Thai culture. 🇹🇭

Two traditions that I found particularly interesting:

• 🤝 Serving with both hands

• 👞 Leaving shoes at the door

Let’s see how we can use these tactics online to boost retention. Let’s dive in!

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🤝 Serve with both hands

In Thailand, you’ll always be given things – money, food, gifts – with two hands. It’s mindblowing. Full focus always. 100% respect.

How to show customers the same level of love:

(1) 🎩 White glove EVERYTHING:

• Real humans must sign all emails (especially automatic ones)

• End all emails with a question to start a chat

• Send personal intro videos

• Offer live Zoom calls

Example: Superhuman assigns each new user a dedicated onboarding specialist who conducts a live video call (with each new user!) to tailor the app to their specific needs.

(2) 🍰 Help customers skill-up:

• Create free courses/webinars (not only about your product)

• Give certifications for users to prove their expertise

• Build interactive challenges (e.g. Capture The Flag)

Example: Canva’s Design School empowers users to develop their design skills and achieve their creative goals (…and become better at using Canva).

(3) 🌪️ Give ultra-proactive support:

• Monitor feature usage to provide help

• Proactively offer resources to help customers maximize their use of your product

• Add them on LinkedIn even if they don’t need your help

These tactics require a lot of manual work—but their effect on retention is huge.

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👞 Leave your shoes at the door

Entering a Thai home, store, or spa often requires removing your shoes.

It’s like saying, “Everything is clean inside, so you MUST be clean too.”

This shoe policy instantly creates a sense of a community with ‘house rules’ that visitors must follow. Becoming part of the community suddenly feels earned — making us want it more.

How to give your customers the same house rules FOMO:

(1) 🐕 Dogfooding to the max:

Apply your internal company culture rules into the product UX.

Example: Basecamp, a project management software, is famously anti-meeting. This house rule is reflected in their product - which lacks any meeting features.

(2) 🦜 Coin new terms:

Create insider lingo. Prove you’re the category king by inventing a new language. It makes people want to be ‘in the know’ and understand those terms — to feel part of the community. It’s like a secret handshake!

Example: TimeOS, a productivity software, introduced terms like ‘Time Developers’ and ‘Hacking Time’ to redefine how people think about time management.

(3) 🕯️ Include playful easter eggs and rituals:

Create weird rituals that users “must” participate in to use your product. This could involve anything from quirky onboarding challenges to secret features that unlock after specific actions.

Example: Duolingo uses daily streaks, levels, and XP points. These hacks create a sense of community among users who share their progress in the leaderboards.

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🧠 The bottom line

Thailand taught me that the ultimate customer retention boils down to:

✅ Treating them like absolute VIPs

✅ Making them feel like part of an insider club

✅ Giving them the tools & support to win BIG with your product

Nail this and you won’t just keep users around — you’ll turn them into advocates.

See you next week ✌️

Tom