The blender. A pretty simple thing really. But unless you needed to buy one would you really find yourself googling a blender, though? A random survey of friends (in my head) all say “meh, not really.” You know it, I know it and most of all, the companies that make blenders know it too. But one clever blender company employee, George Wright of Blentec, had an idea to turn the psychology of the internet to their advantage. George knew that with a well-conceived viral video, a dash of humor and a coolness-factor you can get people to watch almost anything, even your company’s blender. And thus the Will It Blend viral video series was born. There’s no better way for me to describe it than to show you for yourself.
I give you Will It Blend’s iPhone episode (much to Kevin King’s horror):
They went on to make plenty more of these complete with running gags and suggestions from viewers. Think about whats going on here in the meantime though, you’re being entertained by a company that primarily makes as common a household item as blenders. But does it work? Try a 700% increase in blender sales for Blendtec. The internet is a strange and beautiful thing.
What I’m getting at here is no matter what product it is you sell, no matter how mundane, you can use plenty of simple, inexpensive or free tools available to your website to great advantage. The key is to give your users a reason to come back to your site. In Blendtec’s case people continued to check back to see the latest “Will It Blend” video. Even people like me who couldn’t care less about the latest advances in blender technology (hey I’m sorry, but its true).
So what’s out there that you can use? Well for starters:
- YouTube (free video)
- Blogging *cough**ahem* (there’s lots of tools out there that can make this simple and free)
- Social networking sites like Facebook,
Friendsterand MySpace that let you build user groups for your product or services (all also free) - Custom built tools in PHP or ASP.NET like user comments on products. Anything that promotes interactivity.
Of course not all of the above suggestions and examples necessarily work for any and all products and services. For example, a video series detailing the primary clarifiers and cake sludge process of a waste water treatment plant is probably not a good idea (beyond a very small niche market maybe). This is a subject I know a little something about having made waste water treatment plant websites and web applications in 4 different cities across the country.
Pictured above: nobody cares.
But for example, for one client’s surfboard shop I’ve built a section where they can upload videos of their surf team in action. Another client who makes hot water heating equipment has integrated product alerts and trade show news into their catalog. All of these give people a reason to return to the site. It shifts the focus from your site to your visitors. Don’t be about your blenders, be about a site about your blenders. And as a wise man once said, “If you build it, they will come.”
