A while back I purchased a Kindle from Woot.com, the online store and community which offers a deal on just one item per day (which was recently acquired by Amazon). To inspire me to purchase from them again, they sent me a hilarious email (see below) with a link to a deal on a Kindle cover with a book light. Far from your normal followup marketing email, Woot.com’s email was well written and funny enough that I read it all the way through (plus it got forwarded and blogged). As I’ve said before, a bit of humor can be good for business (also shown by Sharpie) and can inspire, not only repeat business, but customer loyalty and evangelism.
From email titled, “Re-Kindle the passion with Woot”
Hey there,
Woot here. How ya doin’? How’s that Kindle you picked up treatin’ you? Nice, right? Well, not that you asked, but we’re doin’ pretty well too. Big things going on, lots of moving and shaking, y’know. Busy busy busy, that’s us. Yep.
Okay, look; we’re sorry about that “not that you asked” part. That’s not how we wanted to start this. It’s just that, well, things aren’t really the same between us. Don’t look at us like that. We know you feel it too. The distance. The walls we’ve both put up. What happened? We used to spend hours at night just talking. We would look into your eyes and you would look upon our daily deals and things just CLICKED.
This is coming out all wrong. Sorry, sorry. Look, just forget we said anything. No, really. It’s our issue and it’s wrong to pin it on you. In fact, to make up for this, come on by right now and we’ll give you a great deal on a Franklin Kindle Cover with Book Light. It’s the least we can do.
We’re sorry we lashed out like that. You make an effort to just ask us how our day was more often and we’ll make an effort to be more understanding that you work hard all day and you don’t always need us starved for attention when you come home at the end of the day.
Love,
Woot
Will I purchase the Kindle cover from them? Probably not since I’ve already purchased a cover (maybe if it had been closer to the original purchase). But the email did put them Top of Mind again, which can be a challenge in these days of email spamming.
How do you use humor or fun in your business?