Want to make your Product a success? Use your Loyalty members.
by Joshua Tretakoff | EVP, Services
According to TechCrunch, Amazon is attempting to make a revolutionary counterattack to Steve Jobs. If you haven’t followed, Amazon introduced the most successful e-reader to date, the Kindle. It’s been so successful, it’s been compared to do for books what the iPod did for music. Naturally, there’s a certain CEO in Cupertino who decided he wanted that segment, so he introduced his answer, the iPad, complete with iBooks.
Now here’s where it gets interesting. Does Amazon simply lay down and surrender their leadership position to Apple? Not according to TechCrunch: they have decided to fight back by giving away a Kindle to every one of their current Amazon Prime subscribers. Amazon Prime allows loyal Amazon customers to pay $80 a year for the privilege of getting all of their purchases shipped 2-day air, free of charge. That’s a profitable and loyal customer base; if you have paid for Prime, why would you ever shop anywhere else? Now, reward that loyalty with a Kindle, and you have an enormous customer base who can only buy content through you; if even a portion of those loyal customers buy a few books, you dominate the space, and the iPad plays catch up.
Will it work? Will they do it? Stay tuned, but one thing’s for sure: Loyalty will tell the tale.
