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Number
12: July 23, 2003
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now so you don't miss an issue.
This week in Katydid:
Few
Holes in Krispy Kreme Site
Why do I need a web site if I can't sell my product over the Internet?
This question comes up a lot for B2B service companies. For web
skeptics, if there's a value at all, it's in streamlining the lead
generation process; because if there were someone out there interested
enough to look up their web site, then they'd rather have a salesperson
calling them.
They could learn a lot from a doughnut shop.
I thought I'd heard enough about Krispy
Kreme Doughnuts after the Purple
Cow Round Up last month, but I wanted to see if their web marketing
was as savvy as the rest of their efforts.
What I discovered is that Krispy Kreme gets the value of integrated
marketing. They understand that, for Americans at least, the experience
is more important than the product. To be blunt, the experience is the
product.
Krispy Kreme emphasizes the experience of anticipating the
consumption of a hot doughnut. You stand in line and watch the doughnuts
being made, you might even taste one while in line, but the true
experience is waiting for the red light to come on signaling a batch
coming hot out of the oven like Grandma's cookies.
What is critical is that the experience cannot last longer than a few
minutes. For the 'real' experience, you must stay in the store. (Of
course, in Phoenix, we have the 'twice-baked' experience, where we can
place the doughnuts in our trunk and retrieve them piping hot at home.)
This emphasis on anticipation leads to the kind of loyalty that has
customers lined up around the block for new store openings.
So, the question is not, "How do you sell your product over the
web?" but, "How do you extend that experience to the
web?"
The Krispy Kreme web site succeeds best with their design. This is a
great example of a contained web site (one that doesn't expand to fill
the page) that doesn't feel cramped. Clean lines separate larger
graphics and create opportunities to break up the layout on deeper
pages. The art direction emphasizes hot colors and fun text treatments.
Everything for the fanatic is here: collectibles, history, and updates
on new products. The architecture is clean and intuitive with lots of
fun surprises as you dig around.
The site has outstanding use of rollover techniques. The History
page, the Doughnut
Varieties page, and the Collectibles
page use rollovers to add energy through movement. It also makes the
site seem larger and more complex than it really is. Steal this idea for
your B2B sites. It's cheaper than Flash, more compatible with browsers,
faster to load, and makes the same impression.
For contrast, look at Winchell's
site, one of Krispy Kreme's competitors. The site displays their
products with all the charm of an auto parts store and the classy
presentation of a Denny's menu. The site's real purpose is as a
placeholder for contact forms for franchisees and employees. It's not
meant to extend the brand, but I can't imagine it makes anyone feel like
having a doughnut.
Krispy Kreme has been able to reinforce their brand experience on the
web. They're using the site to promote new store openings and to gather
information on loyal fans through their Friends of Krispy Kreme
program. They make a few mistakes, however, that you can learn from.
The goal should be to drive visitors back to the stores. The home
page design wastes valuable real estate. The best real estate is middle
and middle-right because eye-tracking studies show that visitors start
by looking in the center and then scan counter-clockwise around the
screen. Instead, Krispy Kreme has a rotating graphic on the page that is
not linked. Every time I went back to the home page, I found myself
trying again to click there.
When you do find the Friends link at the bottom of the home
page and click it, you find yourself at a very long form. This much
information only a true fan would provide. Additionally, the page
doesn't show what value you receive for giving away your precious
contact data – only company information in a monthly newsletter. This
program could be a great way to continually reward brand loyalty with
coupons and special internet-only offers. Perhaps Krispy Kreme does
this, but visitors need to know in advance what they will get.
For those neophytes who've heard their friends raving about these
doughnuts, there's not much to drive them to the store, and for the
raving fans, there's no mechanism to invite their friends to share in
the experience. These are missed opportunities.
So, what can the B2Bs and other companies with long sales cycles
learn from a doughnut shop? Consistency is everything. It does no good
to say you're hot in tall letters if your colors are cold and drab. It's
counter-productive to say you'll make revenues rise when your content
falls flat. If you are a bold company, then provide exciting information
that people will want to come back for and invite their friends to
share.
Finally, in the interest of full disclosure, I don't even like Krispy
Kreme doughnuts. I grew up in Las Vegas on Winchell's doughnuts and I
still find it hard to pass up their apple fritters. I'm not sure what
everyone sees in the plain glazed doughnuts that I would push around in
the box trying to find the cream filled. I mean, the doughnut is the
ultimate 'empty' product, of which many companies have some
version.
In this study, Krispy Kreme's site is the innovative approach,
selling the experience of the product's value. Winchell's is the typical
approach, selling their product's features. Which do you prefer?
"You can't wait to sink your teeth into this hot, fresh
confection." or "It's flour and sugar - deep fried!"
Top »
Repeal
the 5K Minimum
I briefly mentioned in last
week's newsletter that the 5K minimum list rental makes life
difficult and expensive for B2B companies who want to send highly
targeted e-mail campaigns. I've talked to a few list brokers who are
frustrated by it as well. It's hard to make a strong ROI case when you
pay anywhere between $500/M and $1500/M for good lists only to find you
have to pay for 3,000 names more than you need.
The official line is that it's not cost-effective for list owners to
rent lists smaller than 5,000 names; the cost of managing that list
outweighs the revenue from the list. That made more sense when the list
management was manual and labor-intensive.
The truth is, the 5K minimum is a holdover from the industry's
origins in direct mail where 20,000 names is considered a small drop. It seems that for the list owners, the only part of their business
caught up with the Internet age is the price.
For some industries and products, the target is so specialized, the
entire market may be fewer than 5,000 people, and since list owners have
failed to collect e-mail addresses until recently, many lists fall short
of the 5K.
You can select from multiple lists to get to the minimum size, but
you can't run tests, because the collateral must be identical for the
entire group.
Here's what you can do. Express your frustration. When you talk with
list brokers or list owners, let them know how you'd prefer to do
business. Continue to suggest that they allow you to run small tests
with your list. Suggest agreements for minimum purchase over an extended
period for smaller lists.
List brokers are salespeople and they want to make their customers
happy. The more they hear from us, the more pressure they'll put on the
list owners to come up with solutions that are more creative. And, by
all means, if you decide you can't use their service because it isn't
cost effective, tell them that they've missed out on your business –
even if you knew you wouldn't be able to in the first place.
Finally, when you find a broker or list provider that lets you buy
what you need, let us know and we'll spread the word.
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Thanks for Reading
This e-mail newsletter spreads mainly by word of
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read other back issues.
If you have suggestions of web sites to review, writing that buzzes,
or a new way of looking at things, let me know. Send your suggestions to
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from this newsletter,
please let us know.
Kind regards,
Kevin Troy Darling
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