The Essential Marketing Secrets that Amazon Forgot

Amazon has made a SERIOUS mistake in the way they conduct business and may be the mother of all Branding Boo Boos!
First, you need to understand a term to understand the gravity of the situation for Amazon.

POD stands for Print On Demand. Instead of printing thousands of copies of a book and hoping they sell, these publishers can print only the number of books that actually are sold. That’s a great business model, however Amazon has decided that the only POD books they want to sell on their site are the ones printed by their own POD service: Book Surge.

Angela Hoy is the publisher of the Writer’s Weekly which she uses to promote her POD publishing business, Booklocker.com. Last Friday, Angela launched a firestorm when she reported that Amazon is putting the squeeze on POD publishers.

FIRST MARKETING SECRET THAT AMAZON FORGOT: Customers are the life blood of any business.

Angela Hoy reports spending over $1500 with Amazon last year. Sure, that’s just a tiny drop of income in the Olympic sized pool of profits generated by Amazon… but she’s a customer none the less and their bullying tactics really rubbed her the wrong way. They’ve lost her as a customer… but wait … that brings us to Marketing Secret Number 2.

SECOND MARKETING SECRET THAT AMAZON FORGOT: A satisfied customer will tell 3 friends… a dissatisfied customer will tell 16.

In Angela’s case, she’s the editor of the largest ezine publication for freelance writers in the world, so instead of telling 16 friends she’s using her newsletter to tell over a hundred thousand. She’s ignited quite a firestorm.

THIRD MARKETING SECRET THAT AMAZON FORGOT: People hate doing business with a bully.

Apple’s agency recognized this secret when they created those memorable Mac vs PC spots. The Ladders.com also capitalized upon this marketing secret as well. Not only are these strong arm tactics not going to play well with POD authors… they’re not going to play well for MANY “regular” book buyers as well.

The firestorm ignited by this illustrates an important truth about the power of Web 2.0. While we are all seeking a way to ignite a firestorm like this to build POSITIVE buzz about a business… it seems that human nature tends to reserve such passionate “pass along” power to injustice that incites rage and indignation. It’s unfortunate, but the positive afterglow of a positive customer experience rarely inspires such a viral campaign.

Less than 48 hours after the newsletter went out, there were more than 60 online references to this story. Slashdot picked it up, so that number will increase.

In the spirit of Web 2.0, I’ve included a list of sites reporting this story. Feel free to grab the list below and add it to your own blog. If you want to add your post to the “cause”… the post a comment to this post. The more links to these posts… the more “traction” this cause will get.

Amazon began by providing a superior book buying experience to their customers.  Buying a book from Amazon is BETTER than buying a book in a physical book store because a reader can access other reader reviews and read excerpts online.  Amazon is about to discover that hell hath no fury like a customer scorned.

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