Disruption

So, the word of the year was "w00t". Merriam-Webster has officially declared it. The company that owns woot.com has got to be loving the quick, unpaid for PR blitz around their name.



I was introduced to woot.com many months ago by my friend Brian Christensen, CEO of Simple Product Corp.. He's always on the lookout for cutting-edge concepts -- and woot.com fits that bill.

The concept behind woot.com is almost insane. They sell one product a day from their site. That's it. One product. When they sell out of the product, it's over. The lights are turned out and the door is locked. Well, sort of.

You see, they have created an amazing following of groupies. Woot is like e-commerce rock stars. They've harnessed several Web 2.0 components that are feeding their community with cleverly written morsels of edutainment. They have a robust community, podcasts about their products, a blog, Google Adsense (to bring in some extra cash), and they leverage RSS feeds to let users know about the next deals they're about to miss if they don't act now.

In an e-commerce world where everything is secretive, Woot actually tells you everything about their sales: How much they made on each product (the Woot Wage), the Order Pace, when they sold out, and the percentage of sales per hour. For instance, on December 23 their product was a Creative Zen Micro Photo 8GB Media Player for $49.99.
The "First sucker" (the first person to buy) was: kgutah.
The first unit was sold in 29.327 seconds after it was launched.
The "Wooter to blame for sellout" was: red300m.
The order pace was 37.271 seconds. (WOW!)
The "Woot Wage" was $4,829.48.
The total units sold, or "Total Woots" was: 900.

Talk about disruption of the old way of doing business. The typical retailer tries to stock as much product as possible and then hope like crazy they've got what you're looking for. Woot is the exact opposite. One product and they don't care if it's what you want. They know that if you're not going to buy what they have to offer someone else will.

Ingenious!

E-mail Marketing Trends

With e-mail marketing there is so much out there to explore and test... The problem is that there is so much out there to explore and test!

I recently read an article by Karen Bannan, "Looking Ahead: E-mail marketing in 2008" at www.btobonline.com (see full article here). To summarize, she spelled out four main points:

1. E-mail campaigns will have more CRM integration. I definately see this as a trend in my own work. However, integrating leads is just one part of the equation. I'm sure all marketers everywhere have been plagued with the fact that we can deliver premium leads to our sales force, but once they are sent, we have no control over whether or not the sales force actually calls on them. This can be exceptionally frustrating because so much work goes into generating the leads and then, more often than not, it seems sales people can't get around to them, or the are too busy doing something else. Granted, this is a blanket generalization, but throughout my 15 years in marketing, this is a typical scenario.

2. Automated e-mail tools are going to be used more. In my current organization, I have relied predominately on our tech team to ensure the messages look OK over various platforms. I've always known that I should never rely solely on the tech group to ensure this and I'm going to look for some tools to really help perform these operations.

3. Aligning e-mail closer with all marketing elements. It's true. It's time that we start looking at e-mail as a strategic marketing element rather than a purely tactical one. In my current ogranization I don't have a big marketing budget. But I do have access to a programmer and a massive database (although it needs quite a bit of segmentation work.) The article mentions the strategy of creating search-engine friendly landing pages that then direct people to opt in for more information. This could also be a great strategy to get people directed immediately to other areas of your site.

4. Using video with e-mails. Ahem. Read my post below. 'Nuff said.

One-to-One Marketing Microsites

Recently I was stumped by a one-to-one marketing problem. I'm leading the marketing and managment of a new product at FranklinCovey, and needed a way to cut through the clutter of traditional e-mail, and make my target markets WANT to learn about what I had to say.

My target market was clear: Learning and HR professionals in 63 major corporations in the US, Mexico and the UK.
My message had been established.
My media was the big question...

The Project:
Because my budgets were limited, I was forced to think very resourcefully on this project, and handle the bulk of the work myself.

To be able to hit my market with a high-impact marketing piece, I created custom microsites with the target client's logo and several video clips. The main clip, which auto-loads, was done with individual custom video clips of Dr. Stephen R. Covey saying, "Hello my friends at XYZ Corp. I'm Stephen Covey and I hope you are all doing well." He then tactfully pitched the product (The 7 Habits Interactive) and presented the value proposition.

Because I needed to have these sites truly educate and entertain the prospect, I also included seven additional clips of Dr. Covey talking about different aspects of the product. There was also a link to an upbeat, promotional Flash piece as well as a PDF brochure of the product. To top it off, each site is customized with the sales person's name, phone number and e-mail address.

Click here to see one of the final microsites.

The Results:

So far the microsites have been working exceptionally well. The salesforce has been sending out the links to their prospects and the clients have been responding to the message. In one instance I was at one of the target companies (a Global 50 Corporation) on a sales call and played one of these custom clips in the meeting. Everyone in the room did a double take and wanted to watch it again because they were so impressed that there was a custom video mentioning their organziation by name. In fact I keep getting requests from other sales people to create them for their clients.

How To Make Your Own Marketing Microsite:

Step 1> To create these sites I first hired a professional video company to shoot the clips with Dr. Covey. Note: I don't think you necessarily need to use a "celebrity" for these marketing campaigns. I think you'll get a good reaction regardless of the spokesperson. Of course it will probably have more meaning if it's someone of import from the client (President, VP, etc.) We shot the video on a green screen and then digitally created a nice white background. Even if you have the video gear, I recommend using a professional because the difference in video quality is just so much better. (I had a teleprompter worker, a cameraman, audio guy, makeup artist and production manager/lighting guy for these clips. I know it sounds like a lot, but you can find video companies that don't cost a lot.)

Step 2> I also used this video company to do the first round of edits and touchups to the clips. They delivered to me a final set of clips that I then could edit in Final Cut Pro. (Cost= about $8,000; well worth it!!!)

Step 3> I then took the clips and did the bulk of the work myself in Final Cut Pro. By so doing I saved tens-of-thousands of dollars. However, the trade off was big. I spent a couple hundred hours doing the editing to make sure the clips were in the right aspect ratio (16:9), and the compression was adequate. I then used Sorenson Squeeze to smash these clips into Flash files. (Cost=$0; I already had access to the computer and software.) Sorenson Squeeze is an amazing tool...but pricey!

Step 4> I hired another agency to create a 60 second promotional Flash piece to also go on the site (Cost=about $4,000 including voice-over talent and studio time).

Step 5> I then hired a web programmer to finish out the project by creating individual microsites for each of the clients. (Cost= about $8,000)

Because I knew my target corporations upfront, I was able to "mass-produce" these microsites saving buckets of money and getting the results I wanted.

So, for $20,000 (and a lot of late nights and early mornings) I created a campaign that would have otherwise cost well over six figures.

Good luck and I hope this helps you explore this great medium!