I posted about a year ago regarding Woot!. This is a business that has really targeted a specific niche audience and is seeing tremendous results. Their target? Computer geeks. The very name Woot itself comes from slang used by their target audience as an exclamation when winning in a computer game. Their audience knows instantly that they are dealing with a business that understands them. I won't get into too many details right now about how they do what they do (I'll add my original post about Woot! as a comment on this one if you want to learn more), but they recently sold their stock of 800 units of a specific computer mouse in 11 minutes. 11 minutes! And the people buying it waited up until midnight central time not knowing what the product would be! Imagine if your business had thousands of prospective buyers lined up, waiting to see what you were going to offer them. How would that impact your bottom line?
The way to do this is through proper Target Marketing- if you can target your audience as well as Woot! has done, you too can have buyers coming to you. This is the core of the Attraction mindset, and our Attract More Business programs. Read more about our programs by clicking here.
The way to do this is through proper Target Marketing- if you can target your audience as well as Woot! has done, you too can have buyers coming to you. This is the core of the Attraction mindset, and our Attract More Business programs. Read more about our programs by clicking here.
Labels: target marketing
23940 Madison St. Torrance, CA 90505 T | (310) 320 8190 F | (310) 325 3678
1 Comments:
A friend sent me a link to www.woot.com a few days ago. What I find interesting about this site, is that it is about as purple a site as you can get. If you don’t know what I mean by purple, go visit Seth Godin’s website and read up on "The Purple Cow". You can also read this article that Mark wrote about similar concepts.
There are a few things that stand out about this site, which is why I’m writing about it:
Their target is someone entrenched in the Internet in general, and computer games in specific. How do I know this? The name, for one- woot, or more commonly w00t is an exclamation used by computer gamers to one another when good things happen in an on-line game. If you don’t know this already, you are likely not someone they anticipate as a customer, or even want as one. Their policies pretty much sum up the fact that they exist to sell you an item very cheaply, but don’t expect any support from them- either pre-sale or post-sale. These are terms usually only acceptable to computer nerds.
The other thing they do that is really unique, is that they only sell one item at a time. As of this writing, it is a set of computer speakers that are currently sold out. They sell one item a day, until their stock runs out, or the day ends- they change products at 12AM Central Time. That’s one quick way to instill a sense of urgency amongst potential customers. Either buy now, or you may miss your chance due to it selling out or the clock expiring. There are actually people who stay up until 1 AM Eastern just to see what the next item will be before they can go to sleep, for fear of missing out on a great bargain.
This also allows them to have a giant banana on the home page- if you don’t know what I mean by banana, go pick up "The Big Red Fez" by Seth Godin, which is all about web design. In a nutshell, a banana is what you want people to click when they look at your website. Because they only have the one product, it is featured prominently with "I want one!" as a giant button beneath the product description. Nothing is more simple when it comes to getting someone to initiate the buying process.
Their order form, however, is intentionally complex. It’s straightforward, but most websites would break it up into multiple forms to make it easier for their customers to navigate. Not Woot- they don’t want your business if you can’t figure out the order form. In fact, if you have any questions about the item, they don’t want your business.
How much money can they possibly make selling cool gadgets at closeout prices to a small target market when they only sell one item a day? I don’t know. Enough to support the costs of running the site surely, and they are building a community of customers who are consistently looking to them for more great deals. By the very nature of how their site works, they are pre-screened as the customers Woot wants to connect with. I bet they have bigger plans down the road to really tap into this customer base in a major way. When they do, they will have a ton of market research on their customers, and can then tailor their sales pitch to match with them on both an emotional and logical level.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home