Have you ever been to Woot.com? Its brilliant business angle is to offer one—and only one—product for sale each day. The products—knives, keyboards, flash drives or a wireless mouse—are solid deals but it’s the quirky blog, product descriptions and community keep Wooters come back every day.
The clever and dryly written product description number just 400+ words. The basics are relayed but it’s the stories and unique voice that draws new and returning customers. They sell things that can be purchased at most department and computer stores yet people clamor to be the first Wooter to buy or to contribute to the conversation.
So I was surprised when I bought my first product to receive a rather vanilla follow up email. Woot’s unique voice carried from their product descriptions to their sign up forms. But they dropped the ball when it came to the automated response. There is no reason they couldn’t keep the quirky tone consistent through all their written materials. In fact, it stuck out like a sore thumb when it was missing.
Check your website and marketing materials. Is your message and voice consistent? What simple changes can you make?
Friday, September 28, 2007
Pokemon Pizzazz
Who knew selling Pokemon cards could be so lucrative?! Mom to six, Dawn Meeghan, posted a standard pack of Pokemon cards on eBay along with a humorous novella about how she came to be in possession of them. (Hint: The kids snuck them into the cart when she wasn’t looking.) Her self-effacing rant about grocery shopping with kids resonated with Moms and Dads webwide.
Her modest eBay auction for a pack of $8 Pokemon cards became a viral marketers dream. She received 179,000 page views in one week’s time, thousands of comments, encouragement to write a book, a platform to promote her blog (www.mom2my6pack.blogspot.com) and $178.50. Not bad for a simple eBay auction.
Was this just lightning in a bottle or yet another example of storytelling in product descriptions? I hope Dawn capitalizes on her new found web fame. What can we learn from her success? Are there ways for you to interject some humor into your website or marketing materials?
Her modest eBay auction for a pack of $8 Pokemon cards became a viral marketers dream. She received 179,000 page views in one week’s time, thousands of comments, encouragement to write a book, a platform to promote her blog (www.mom2my6pack.blogspot.com) and $178.50. Not bad for a simple eBay auction.
Was this just lightning in a bottle or yet another example of storytelling in product descriptions? I hope Dawn capitalizes on her new found web fame. What can we learn from her success? Are there ways for you to interject some humor into your website or marketing materials?
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