RobIsIT

How I Would Have Crafted The FabFind iPad Deal

This is the second part of of my look at the Fab Find iPad offer. In part one, I reviewed their base business model, briefly explained the pro’s and con’s of it and then evaluated why their recent $10 iPad offer created a negative impact. It is said that no marketing is bad marketing, but this tagline was created before online communities existed.

During the “deal”, FabFind told people they had the opportunity to participate in “the most incredible and legitimate iPad deal found online”. In short, they launched a one-day contest where people could purchase an iPad for $10 and not $549. It sounds like a great deal and an interesting promo but when you dig a little deeper, you’ll find out why it didn’t work out very well. This article is based on my observations. I don’t have an inside view of FabFind so my conclusions could be incorrect.

Read Part One of This Article:
How to Create a Negative Impact Marketing Campaign: The story of the $10 iPad from FabFind.

In the first article, I give FabFind a lot of shit. It was well deserved and (as far as I’m aware), accurate. The article was read by nearly 1000 people yesterday and when my wife read it, she asked, “wow, did the CEO of that company punch you in the face or something?”

No, FabFind CEO Bill Heilmann did not punch me in the face and I have nothing against the company. I don’t know anything about them other than that they are a Toronto Dot Com startup trying to make their mark on the world. In fact, reading part one of the article again, I think that it was unbiased.

What I Would Have Done To Save FabFind From an Evil Marketing Campaign

I don’t claim to be smarter than anyone else… especially the folks who work at FabFind.com. It’s not like I haven’t been around the marketing and technical blocks once or twice and although I’ve never met them, I bet they’re smart people. I also have hindsight on my side. So, armed with these things, here is what I would do if I had made a marketing blunder like FabFind:

1)
I would buy 20 more iPads. I’d go buy them right now. I would bring a photographer and a videographer with me to record my triumphant purchase of awesome apologeticness.  In a very loud voice online, I would say something like, “OMG FABFIND IS SORRY – but we’re going to say sorry in a really awesome way”. I would overlay this phrase (or something similar) across the video, photos, etc. I would get people excited about an iPad inspired apology and show them that I was doing something. I’d say stuff like, “that was the beta iPad giveaway, now we’re doing it for real”.

2)
I would contact a series of shockingly awesome retailers, restaurants or service providers. I wouldn’t accept any luke warm spas or revolving door restaurants. I’d contact well-known, sought after locations. It would take a custom sales kit and presentation based on real statistics, but from Canoe to Futureshop, I would not rest until I had 10 truly outstanding deals.

3)
These 10 “solid gold” retailers would not be charged anything to list their product or service. If Futureshop offers FabFind deal hunters a $100 computer accessory kit for $25, Futureshop would get to keep $25. The accountants should like this deal – the FabFind statistics should show upselling forecast profits along with customer retention numbers and a low cost of customer acquisition.

4)
Once a week (on a random day), one of these 10 Solid Gold retailers would be listed with a special gold skinned version of the FabFind home page. This would allow for 10 weeks of iPad giveaways rather than one day.

The day after the Solid Gold Deal ended, a random number between 0 and the total number of coupon sales would be drawn live on camera, broadcast on uStream. I’d create an event around the broadcast of the drawing in one way or another.

While the sale is going on (before the draw), social network users from Facebook, Twitter, etc have a SECOND chance to win an iPad. With no purchase necessary (to keep this legal in Canada), people would be invited to guess the number that will be drawn at the close of the Solid Gold Deal. An example message from a community member on Twitter might read: @FabFindToronto, my free iPad guess for todays solid gold deal is 2103.

Why I would do it this way

First and foremost, a multi-layered contest like this rewards 3 important groups of users. First, the high quality retailer is rewarded. By allowing them to easily recoup their costs and adding the extra marketing power of 2 free iPads, high class retailers should easily experience the value of this campaign. Additionally, regular FabFind customers are rewarded by doing something they want to do. With no extra effort or additional fee, their value proposition reads, “great deal plus a very good chance at winning an iPad”. The third group of users are those in the Fab Find community across the social networks. By relaying a phrase to FabFind through their social network, Fab Find increases their exposure exponentially.

Win, win win instead of the fail, fail, fail experienced on FabFind’s previous iPad giveaway.

In addition to tangible rewards, this promo will increase the value of every single merchant who uses FabFind that is not one of the 10 Solid Gold folks. Over 10 weeks (and likely well beyond), merchants will be associated with extremely high quality vendors while website traffic will build evenly in staggered blocks every time people get pumped up about a Solid Gold deal.

No server downtime. Added value for every merchant, customer, and FabFind alike.

Using this model, FabFind has a number of new and unique opportunities not only to differentiate themselves in the saturated market of Groupon clones, but to receive a number of new outlets of marketing themselves. From the weekly live uStream drawing (that will become surprisingly popular) to newly formed relationships with high quality merchants who have experienced the service, to a significantly increased audience, the Solid Gold Deal promotion will benefit FabFind more than anyone else.

Additional avenues of marketing, improved community interaction, new relationships.

What would you have done differently?

This is perhaps the most important part of how I would have crafted my FabFind iPad Giveaway. FabFind and all of the group deal websites rely on a community of deal hunters to regularly purchase deals. One of the most powerful ways to market something to a community of people is to have a discussion. In this case, showing the community the series of photos and videos from the new block of giveaway iPads, getting them excited about the possibility of winning one and then asking for their ideas, suggestions and input about how to give them away will engage the community in the campaign from the start.

Author: Rob Brown
Date Published: 08. Oct, 2010
Categories: Groupon Clones, Ideas, Internet Industry
Number of views this week: 508