Purple Cow

Seth Godin
Case Study: What Should
Hallmark.com Do?
Hallmark runs one of the three biggest online greeting
card services. The site grew when an ideavirus started –
people would send an e-card to a friend, who would find
out about the service by reading the card and would
respond by sending a few more cards. Within a year, billions
of cards were flying around online.
The challenge, of course, is turning this free activity
into something that can actually make money. One thing
that’s working for Hallmark is selling gift certificates.
Hallmark owns a gift certificate company, and they make a
profit every time you spend $20 on a $20 gift certificate
(complicated, but true).
Anyway, Hallmark lies at the nexus of three powerful forces
at work in this book, so I was happy to help my friend at
Hallmark brainstorm some ways to put them to work.
To start, Hallmark has permission to talk to the audience.
These are consumers who voluntarily come to the
site to send a card. No interruption media necessary. Alas,
even though they are here on their own, many of them
aren’t looking for Hallmark to have a voice in the conversation,
so they’re not listening to any news Hallmark
might want to share.
Fortunately, many of the visitors are members of
Hallmark’s Gold Crown Club. These consumers are busy
collecting points (à la frequent flyer miles) to trade in for
prizes. These self-selected consumers have a problem
(how do I get more points?) that they’re willing to look to
the market to solve.
And best of all, these Gold Crown Club members are
assiduous sneezers. They send a ton of cards (electronic
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