Random Crap for Sale

I check woot.com everyday for two reasons.

1. They inspire me to write good copy. Seriously. If you need a boost in the creative rear (pun intended) woot.com is a great place to go.
2. I like seeing what the deal is-because it changes daily.
   

So when they were selling a bag of crap today I was intrigued.

What? How-can-you-sell-that? Has the world gone mad?

Nope.

Check out the copy that they wrote.

Bag O’ Crap XXI

Wait, wait, why are you clicking that button? Don't click! You don't want this junk. Seriously, clicking that I WANT ONE button is a one-way ticket to disappointment and shame. You'll cram a few useless clumps of consumer flotsam into your life, be out like eight bucks, and for what? For what? What is the sound of one hand crapping?

If you must proceed, CHECK THIS OUT. Somebody misunderstands this concept every time, so please READ THE BIG PRINT:
1. WHEN YOU ORDER THIS ITEM, YOU’RE ORDERING ONE (1) BAG WITH up to THREE (3) PIECES OF CRAP IN IT.
2. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR SELECTING THE QUANTITY: THREE WHEN YOU ORDER.
3. YOU WILL WASTE FREIGHT IF YOU ORDER FEWER THAN THREE. And you’ll get less crap. Wait, why is that bad again? Do you people really need more crap?

You’re only getting one bag, no matter what. The order quantity you select is the number of crappy items we’ll put in your bag. Select THREE. Later, you’ll enjoy the satisfaction of taunting the surprisingly large number of less observant Wooters who ordered less than THREE.
As usual, we promise nothing about the quality or the desirability of these bags or their contents, except to promise that their quality will be low and their desirability will be non-existent. The best quantity you could possibly order would be ZERO.

THE HOLY CRAP COMMANDMENTS v2.0:
I. Thou shalt expect nothing beyond one bag of some kind and your chosen quantity of crappy items (which should be THREE).
II. Thou shalt not whine and complain when some people’s crap turns out to be nicer than yours.
III. Thou shalt take a moment to consider whether you might be better off just not buying this crap.
IV. Thou shalt not order just one crap and blame it on anything but your own inattention.
V. To paraphrase Stephen Stills, shalt thou not get the crap you want, want the crap you get.
The crap will be shipped via SmartPost, the crappiest shipping method available to us.

So you saw what they did there right?

First of all its woot.com, they have built a reputation with their customers that they are unique, they are not for everyone, and they are perfectly happy with that.

But look at how the marketing department addressed this problem (because honestly selling a bag of crap is exactly that).They didn't see the problem of selling the bag of crap, they only saw a problem of how many items can they convince someone to buy. So they just starting closing the sale right in the description.

Wow. What a great concept! They got this internet thing down perfectly.

Here's why.

• I went to the website with the idea that I more than likely would buy something if it was cheap.

• A $1 is cheap and really $3 bucks isn't much more, so yeah. Sign me up, I'll take 3.

• So rather than trying to sell me, the moved in for the kill right away, and just closing the sale by telling me I need to make sure there is 3 in quantity of the order. And if I don't put a 3 in the quantity I am stupid and getting taken advantage of.

Wait. I am not stupid, I know that I can order 3. I'll show them, I will put 4 in the quantity and press checkout!
Rats! Its already sold out. Now I really want one! Hang on. One what? One bag of crap that someone else just bought? Yup. Now I feel left out.


Here's an idea for you...
When was the last time you prematurely went for the jugular right away with a sale? I work with salespeople everyday, and every day I see them being very timid about closing the sale.

Stop being timid!

Go in for the kill, worst case scenario they will say NO. But in that 'No' your going to find out a key hurdle you needed to overcome a while ago. So now you can start addressing it.

Now, I wouldn't advise you to tell your customers you think they are stupid. But you should know that people don't like to feel stupid. So perhaps we should point out how smart other companies have been because they bought your product.

So what have we learned.
If you have a great reputation you can sell crap in a bag. Check that, you can sell out of crap in a bag.And we need to take a page from woot's book and start closing the sale sooner. They went in for the kill on a bag of crap--and sold out. If they can sell out of crap, why can't we sell the out of the best product in the world?

Technorati Tags: Advertising Creativity Positioning Sales Tools woot.com great copy inspiration

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The ebook is here!

Friends first, customers second--the approaches I use for every sale, every time.

Click here to download it for FREE from my website!

There's a widget on your blog!

I spent 5 minutes tonight with iTunes and added an iTunes widget to my blog.

Why?

Because its great sales and marketing on Apple's part. And doesn't everyone care what music I listen to?

Hmm. Maybe not.

But it looks neat right?






So then its more about the viral marketing part. Apple hopes that you will come to my blog, like my music, click on the widget and buy some music from the iTunes store. Ok, I will buy that.

But I think it has more to do with the bottle water theory. You have heard that before right? People don't buy bottle water for the water, they buy it for the 'coolness factor' of being seen drinking bottle water.

Well then let's go with that in our kudos to Apple and their new widget. They increased my coolness factor by making this blog just a bit better looking, and my social status as someone who buys his music from the iTunes store. So as you read through some postings feel free to take a moment to admire my new widget.

Its cool. And I am cool for having it. Aren't you jealous?

Here is an idea for you....
With Apple's new widget they are definitely upping the exposure of iTunes to the few non-iPod owners. (Honestly I only know 1 person that doesn't have an iPod.) But in doing so they made it fun to do and increased my brand loyalty. So when was the last time you gave someone a reason to "tattoo" your brand? Sure we don't all sell music and movies, some of us sell a bit less interesting things like test assessments. But allowing your customers access to fun webpages to create a widget with your logo is a perfect way to bring viral marketing in through the front door.

So what is your idea to increase brand awareness?

Technorati Tags: Branding Creativity Product Placement iTunes Widget

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The ebook is here!

Friends first, customers second--the approaches I use for every sale, every time.

Click here to download it for FREE from my website!

I am reading labels again

I like the trend I am seeing in marketing copy for products today. Gone are days of boring promises that a product will do this or that.

That's old school.

New school today is all about the story.

Yesterday, while out for a ride on my bike I stopped for some fuel. Both for myself and my bike. As I perused the cooler filled with energy drinks and the usual gatorade type-super-carbo sports drinks. I came across Vitamin Water. It looked so un-pretentious in its simple two color label-as opposed to the flash and glam that seem to be the norm for sports drinks. So I picked it up. And on the back was story.

"in soccer (excuse us mexico, spain, and italy, we mean 'futbol'), there isn't a more exciting moment than when the announcer screams 'goooooooooal' (yelling 'oooffffsiddde' never quite caught on).

with that said, we added b vitamins and guarana to give you an extra kick (pun intended). so now when your watching soccer, playing soccer, coaching soccer, driving kids to soccer or doing anything that starts with 'socc' and ends with 'er', you too can have the energy of a raving lunatic to yell 'goooooooooal.'"

Now I don't listen to too much futbol as an American, but I know what they are talking about. And the few times I have listened to futbol its quite exciting when a goal is scored.

So for $1.69 + tax I got an exciting little vignet in my head to think about as I passed the two minutes it took to drink my Vitamin water. Perfect. In the 84 words they carefully placed on the bottle only 12 actually spoke to its benefit! And did so in a beautiful way.

Do I know what guarana is? Nope. I am just glad that someone does and they tell me it gives me a kick.
Works for me.
I don't need the encyclopedia version-just the Cliff notes version will be fine. And if you frame it in a good story so that I can remember it- all the better. Now every time I see guarana as an ingredient I will think kick.

And while I am thinking about places to find inspirational copy. I have to point out woot.com. It's a great little site that only offers one item for sale everyday. That's it, just one item. And when it sells out you can check tomorrow for a new item. But more importantly, its the copy that sells the items. Depending on the day, it can be anything form a cooking set to flash drive. But one constant is the story they tell you, the story that makes you want to buy the product.

Here's an Idea for you

Telling a story isn't a new idea. Fables have been around for years (remember Aesop). And the idea that consumers need to be told a story isn't a new idea either (Seth Godin-the modern day Aesop brought it to my attention). But in a time of ever increasing sales goals, and demanding margins what ever happened to the story?
I suggest you start telling more stories with your product. That way consumers like me can pass the story on to our friends-and on to their friends- and so on. By giving me (the consumer) a story, I feel more connected to the product and thus more likely to recommend the product.

So next time you stumped for good copy. Run out to the store and pick up a bottle of Vitamin Water and go Woot.com. In nothing short of a few minutes you will be revitalized and inspired to write good copy. And you might get a great deal on a universal notebook dock, or maybe t-shirt.

Technorati Tags: Creativity Branding Packaging Aesop Seth Godin Vitamin Water Woot.com creative copy

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The ebook is here!

Friends first, customers second--the approaches I use for every sale, every time.

Click here to download it for FREE from my website!

One call, one person

A while back I pointed out a phone call I had with American Express and the positive experience I had.
The best part of the conversation I had that day was it revolved around one person solving all my problems.
I have more good news. That great virus is spreading into other companies. It should really be no surprise that my local bank can do exactly what American Express did. Really it speaks more to the level of customer service from American Express when they provided me that level of customer service. But the other day I called my local bank to update my address. The person that picked up the phone changed my address, answered my question, and promised to send me more information that I was requesting.

One person-solving all my problems-what a great idea! But...

That shouldn't be all that great, if you think about it. The problem is that we (as customers) have become so accustomed to hitting the phone tree maze that we really take it for granted.

What a shame.

Here's an idea for you...
When was the last time you called in to your customer service department? How many times were you transferred to different people to solve simple problems. I would advocate that everyone in customer service take a page from Apple. Think of how it should work, and make that the standard. Don't look at how everyone else does their customer service, think of the ideal experience and replicate it 500 times (or more) a day.

Just because everyone else has massive phone trees doesn't mean you should. Sometimes its the simplest of measures that will make your customers the happiest. Happy customers always equal buying customers.

Technorati Tags: Customer Service Relationship Building

I Rock!

In my daily perusing of blogs, I read this entry from the 'Catch up Lady'.
Her blog is a must read.

Anyway in her post she mentioned a snafu in Technorati that listed every blog as #1. Being the pessimist I am I just had to check to see if I had propelled up the ranks.

Sure enough. I am number #1!

I am going to soak this up. Thanks for pointing it out Catch up Lady!

Technorati Tags: Technorati Catch Up Lady