HotOrNot.com sold for about $20 million the other day.
Hot or Not has a great story. Basically 2 buddies built a site for fun where people could rate people based on their looks. They always had a moderation queue so they could weed out the pornography. The funny thing behind this is James’s parents were doing most of the moderation for the first couple years of the site. He told me it was kind of weird paying his parents to sort out the porn pictures on Hot or Not. Anyway they implemented a dating/connection component and other items to create revenue over the years. Techcrunch reported last may the site was bring in 5 million a year in revenue with 2-3 million of that being profit on average. Also reported was that the founders had taken out 20 million from the site over the years.
So this means they have personally taken in 40 million from the site now with the sale. Great job guys.
So I recently ordered “God’s Chosen Fast” from an Amazon.com seller. The book was processed, shipped, and at my door in 3 days. The package was hand-written on by the seller’s telling me “Your Amazon.com marketplace order”. This was cool because they saved me the time of wondering what it is (I can even forget I’ve ordered things sometimes). So immediately I have this amazing first impression of an online company; they’re quick too.
I open the package and in it is my book. of course, along with the invoice with a personal “thank you” message. This was also hand written.
Then I thought how this could be such a small little advantage this company has over the trillions of other online bookstores.
What I learned from this is that not only are customers important, they’re very important. Know what I mean? Being “treated right” as a customer is our standard today. We expect it. So, by finding ways to treat your customer EXTRA special, you can have a huge increase in popularity, while also building a database of loyal customers that will come back in the future.
Jeremy Schoemaker knows what I’m talking about.
Just a tip - take it or leave it.
Gap (clothing store) pumps a lot of money into viral marketing. The video below was made to spark an interest into Gap and non-Gap shoppers. The point of the video is to leave you in suspense. Suspense is the real marketing tool here. The video uses obvious humor to capture your attention, and at the end the title reads ‘Pardon our dust, a new Gap is coming’. A prime example on how to kick start a buzz-marketing campaign. Enjoy.
By the way, I found this video at VirtualMarketingBlog.com - one of my favorite marketing blogs. The two authors of the blog post funny marketing-related videos, usually from youtube every Friday. Check em out. (not an advertisement).
