"Zappos and the way to ride the Social Marketing wave"
Not sure if you all noticed this quite development over the last weekend, Amazon finally after all the regulatory checks was able to close the acquisition of Zappos, this company as we know became a billion dollar company form a shoe store.
News from TechCrunch on the same:
"Zappos earlier this morning announced the official closing of the acquisition of Zappos, a deal which we broke the news about back in July. Turns out the valuation of the online footwear and clothing retailer went up from the reported $928 million over the past few months too – thank you, stock market – and Zappos turns out to have been deemed worth a solid $1.2 billion by Jeff Bezos & co based on Friday's closing price of $117.4 a share."
Zappos as many of us know has been famous for being a ‘company with great employee culture and obsessive emphasis on customer service’ with some very tempting delivery and replacement options like ‘Free Shipping & Free 365 Day Returns’ . A retailer with more than 75% repeat customers in my opinion is phenomenal , what kind of reach they have probably can be explained by their web presence on the Social Media platform Zappos probably is one of the best examples of what we hear today as ‘Thin marketing’ trend, where one does not blow away the money on marketing campaigns but judiciously plans it by making best use of models that are not only cheaper but have a far reaching impact, in this case Twitter is the tool that they kind of completely swerved to their benefit, the figures talk for themselves Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh has nearly 1.48 million followers on Twitter, and the company's official Facebook page has almost 21,000 fans. On their webpage, they have 500+ employees tweeting regularly ( total employee strength of 1500 ) they tweet regularly about what they're doing at work etc etc…. They go to the extent of using Facebook to feature videos and pictures of company picnics, employees at work, office humor, motivational messages etc etc …
In my opinion there is a subtle shift that we are noticing and Zappos is probably an early example of it –I term it ‘Thin Marketing’ . The way it would work is very different from the earlier models..where you invest in an agency, splash big hoardings, newspaper ads, TV ads etc etc ..and wait for the campaign to be a success and start counting the ‘Footfalls’ , a typical “top-down” marketing that I believe isn’t going to work by itself, and is the one is seeing a shift. As mentioned in my earlier blog post customers today not only have the power to change the product, but also are forming an opinion in what goes to production. Companies like Zappos, Comcast, Ford , Starbucks have helped their customers develop a credible voice along the parameters of engagement, ideation and service models. The newer models are not only evolving true and more friendly for the companies but for the customers as well, making it more two way communication rather than a Company directing what needs to be pushed.
Do check this link , a bit old though from Read Write web where they cover Zappos and their wonderful style of operating the whole GTM with very then investments on marketing here.
Think in the short run the team has certainly achieved the best they could: 'Great Stock valuation' as we know it, however what they leave behind are great lessons for a lot of other commodity and large players, on how to create value for both customers and internal employees- they were transparent , responsive ,passionate about their work and knew smart means within reach to make best use of them !!
