Zappos: Unique digital marketing The digital age has forced companies to reevaluate their marketing strategies as consumers and competition became more sophisticated. Companies are in constant search for new ways to capture the attention of consumers and influence their purchasing decisions. The latest in digital marketing strategies is leveraging the power of social media. Companies with successful social media strategies have captured their customers’ heart, mind and market share. Zappos is a great success story of traditional business leveraging digital marketing to be the nation’s largest online shoe retailer. Zappos1 started in 1999 because Nick Swinmurn was frustrated in finding the right pair of shoes at the mall and online. The original idea was to create a website that offers the best selection in shoes. Then in 2000, Tony Hsieh joined Zappos as an investor and co-­‐CEO, evolving the business to focus on providing the best service online in shoes and other categories. With the goal to be the online service leader, Zappos announced joining the Amazon.com family in 2009, as both companies have strong passion for customer service. Today Zappos has over $1.2 billion2 in gross merchandise sales and has restructured the company into 10 different divisions, all with the same focus on providing the absolute best service. Early on Zappos has diverted its marketing budget to focus on customer service. It offers product’s return for up to a year, encourages customers to call about nearly everything 24/7, and invests in ‘surprise’ free overnight shipping for most customers. With the goal to acquire customers through word of mouth and retain existing customers through good service, it is no surprise that Zappos excels in social media strategy. As an early adaptor of technology, Zappos was one of the first companies to embrace Twitter in 2007. It has created a page3 on their site that pulls in all the mentions and links of the brand on various industry sites and blogs. Zappos CEO, Tony Hsieh, has more than 1.7 million Twitter4 followers, and over 400 of the company’s employees tweet regularly about special offers, how they help customers, why they love their jobs. This is not only shows a strong presence of the brand, but also helps in Search Engine Optimization to spread Zappos’s name. Zappos Facebook5 Fan Page is another example of a company that understands social media. They have over 67,000 fans that they keep engaged with daily status updates, questions and answers, and sharing their internal activities. The Facebook interactions make the company appear human to its fans, thereby deepening their connection and increasing loyalty. Zappos Family Blogs set the bar high for companies to follow. Zappos family blogs have over 15 blogs including video blog where the company explores various topics from fashion to outdoor activities. The blogs are written and recorded by the employees. The posts within each blog vary in topics, often discussing activities within the companies, sharing customer service stories or specific products experience. When reading the posts, it is very clear that these employees love their job and are passionate about their company. Zappos has figured out how to leverage the power of social media. It understood that social media is about amplifying the human communications and used it to propagate the Zappos brand name as it created a huge wave of word-­‐of-­‐mouth (and word-­‐of-­‐mouse) advertising. The exciting thing about Zappos’ s success is that there is no magic formula. The company’s competitive edge is not due to special pricing or special products. Its success lies in providing an 1
Zappos history: http://about.zappos.com/zappos-story/in-the-beginning-let-there-be-shoes
Revenue info from Zappos site: http://blogs.zappos.com/blogs/ceo-and-coo-blog/2010/03/11/zappos-com-updatemarch-11-2010
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Zappos’s Twitter page: http://twitter.zappos.com/
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Tony Hsieh Twitter page: http://twitter.com/Zappos
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Zappos Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/zappos?ref=ts&v=app_7146470109#!/zappos?ref=ts
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exceptional customer service that keeps customers coming back while constantly recruiting new ones. It is no surprise that Zappos is used a case study for social media success. It has figured out how to use technology and word of mouth marketing to implement some of its core value of exceptional customer service while voted top 100 companies to work for in the last few years.