What can the Happiest Place on Earth teach us about sales campaigns?

If you hadn't guessed, Disneyland, a.k.a the happiest place on earth, can teach us a thing or two about sales campaigns.

Despite your age, the experience of visiting Disneyland is unparalleled. Why? because Disney is the expert on customer experience. This perfect Disney illusion and their ability to deliver growth and sales via customer experiences are a team game. It's a full-scale operation that requires complete dedication from all employees, from the front office staff to the cleaners. Believe it or not, cleaners get the most training out of anyone—mind-boggling! 

So, what can we take from Disney and apply to our sales and marketing campaigns?

1. Testing

It's no coincidence - the manicured lawns, the ice cream stands, and the infamous flirting between Snow White and her prince, everything you see is the result of rigorous market research, testing, and optimising. They even tested where to locate their garbage bins by looking at where most wrappers were dropped—all to ensure a clean, family-friendly park. And just like that - there's our first lesson. 

Before you jump into planning your campaigns:

• Meet with all teams indirectly and directly associated with the customer experience. 

• Get to know the target market intimately and discuss the opportunities, the trends and the challenges they are experiencing. 

• Conduct your market research. 

• Be thorough and ensure that your campaign solves the target market's most burning problems. 

2. Storytelling 

Why is Disneyland so successful? I think a lot of it comes down to their ability to tell stories that evoke emotional responses. To this day, we still feel nostalgic about our Disney experiences because it transports us back to a time in our childhood when we felt immense joy and freedom. As sales and marketing professionals, we are all responsible for crafting stories, and in the modern-day, we present this as content. 

Content is king, and it is both sales and marketing's responsibility to create and distribute meaningful content that evokes emotion. If you need some tips on creating epic stories, check out a recent podcast episode here, with the queen of storytelling herself, Maz Farrelly, whose content has been seen over 8 billion times. She's the creator of all your favourite, top rating reality shows, including X-Factor, Farmer Wants a Wife, and Big Brother. She dishes out storytelling tips and shares expert advice on being interesting. 

Bringing the Magic to Your Sales & Marketing

Disney’s magic isn’t luck—it’s strategy. The best sales and marketing teams do the same:

• Test and optimise relentlessly

• Tell compelling, emotional stories

• Align across teams to create seamless customer experiences

• 
  

Ready to bring some Disney magic into your sales and marketing strategy?