Dell Makes Millions via Twitter June 12, 2009
Dell has made millions using Twitter as a direct marketing tool for the Dell Outlet store. @DellOutlet has over 600,000 followers, and every single sale has been made via Twitter.
From Mashable (source):
For those unaware, @DellOutlet is a Twitter account owned by Dell that tweets out major discounts for Dell computers and products. All of the deals on @DellOutlet are Twitter-exclusive.
It has gained quite a following (620,000+ followers) and sold a lot of computers – at the end of last year, they surpassed $1 million in revenue, after about a year and a half’s worth of tweeting.
Well throw those numbers out the window, because Twitter’s phenomenal growth and Dell’s social savvy have pushed sales from Dell Outlet to over $2 million, in 1/3 the time needed to pass the first milestone. And @DellOutlet is still on the rapid rise.
I consider this to be one of the first major business success stories for Twitter, and the reasoning is simple: We finally have a solid example of a company using Twitter to turn a profit. The ROI is measurable and the numbers are concrete. This isn’t some intangible “whuffie” factor – this is good ol’ fashioned money in the bank, and it’s been growing at a steady rate.
- Create Twitter account.
- Offer deals on products exclusively through said Twitter account, provide a code via updates.
- ??? Sell product.
- Profit!
The most brilliant part of this entire thing is that the concept is bloody simple, and it doesn’t fall far from the old-school advertising tree.
In traditional direct marketing, advertisers use coupon codes as a way to gauge how effective a particular campaign (or portion of a campaign) is. And it makes so much sense. Dell systems showing up in stores is a recent occurrence, so this falls right in line with the direct marketing that they’ve been doing for years.
And now Dell has effectively nullified the cost of their direct marketing for Dell Outlet to $0.00.
- No postage.
- No shipping.
- No printing.
It’s a tweet with a code and a link. More measurable, more environmentally friendly, more effective. (Not to mention that the @DellOutlet account can still be used to maintain that community interaction vibe with customers.)
Sure, the amount may be peanuts compared to the billions that it makes overall, but $2 000 000.00 is still far beyond any other dollar figure I’ve seen come out of Twitter-based campaigns in the past couple of years. So kudos to you, Dell – freakin’ well done.
Posted in Internet Marketing, Social Media