Woot-Style

Woot ist eine ungemein erfolgreiche Shopping-Plattform, mittlerweile weltweit hundertfach kopiert. Eines der „Erfolgsgeheimnisse“ war und ist die Art und Weise, wie Woot mit seinen Usern spricht. Nach wie vor ungeschlagen im Netz. Dazu ein Beispiel anhand eines frischen Newsletters:

Hi there, RobGreen!

That odor of packing tape and desperation wafting through your Inbox can only mean one thing: another Woot Newsletter has darkened your electronic door. A detailed dossier of our recent movements and activities follows.

Have You Hugged Your Sellout.Woot Today?
Whoops. We keep forgetting to tell our newsletter readers about Sellout.Woot, our partnership with Yahoo! It seems that they just couldn’t get enough of our special magic, so they had to have a Woot channel of their very own. But they’re willing to share: go to Yahoo!, click „Shopping“, and scroll down to the Deal of the Day. Or just go there directly. If you’re still curious, read all about Sellout.Woot on our blog. We figured we should let you know about it now – if Yahoo! gets grumpy new owners, chances are they’d rather not be seen in public with the likes of us.

De-Crap Your Calendar
Did you buy a 2008 calendar during our great random calendar blowout of aught-seven? You know, the ones we told you were crappy? Turns out they actually are crappy, as you know by now. But we’d rather light a candle than curse your crapness. So we’re offering a free, original illustration every month to cover up the crappy calendar pictures we sold you. Just print it out and tape it over that month’s ballerina kitten or Trans Am or whatever, and zap: your calendar, de-crapped! February’s artwork is available now, and here’s January’s, too, if you’re some kind of obsessive completist weirdo. New illustrations shall appear henceforth on our blog around the first of every month. Print them out or forever hold your crap.

Our Valentine: Print Our Valentines
As long as you’ve got the printer fired up, why not download and print out all-original, all-free Woot Valentines, courtesy of shirt.woot? They come in two flavors: Sweet (hurray for Valentine’s Day!) and Bitter (down with Valentine’s Day). We’re not just imposing our vision of Valentine’s Day on you, the buying public. We’re empowering you, or something.

The Woot Podcast’s Greatest Hits – Out Now!
You’re a person with taste, discrimination, and excessive free time, right? You’ve been listening to and laughing with our daily Woot Podcast, right? So that means you’ve downloaded Savage Sounds of the Woot Podcast, the first-ever collection of the podcast’s greatest hits, right? And you’ve also been participating in the vigorous discussions in the all-new Podcast discussion forums, right? Right? Right?

The World’s Happiest Labrats
Our little brother Wine.Woot is a snooty kid, but he ain’t so bad once you get to know him. With careful selection of wineries and the industry’s best prices, our little wine stop is building a reputation as a source for both excellent juice and excellent conversation. That’s why so many winemakers stop by the forums to chat with our members. The latest addition to the conversation comes from our Labrats. Every week, a few lucky Wine.Woot users are rush-shipped an additional bottle of that week’s wine gratis, under the condition that they come back to the forums after tasting it and do their best Robert Parker impression. All you have to do is sign up at labrat@woot.com, make a Wine.Woot winery purchase on Monday before 10 a.m., and you just might have a Fedex delivery on Tuesday with some extra vino. If so, you’re hired! We expect a full report.

The Woot Blog Awakens!
How do we get any work done when we spend so much time checking out the web links going around the office and making dumb jokes with our friends? It’s a trick question. When you’re a blogger, all that stuff counts as „work“. From throwaway gags like this brief list of Cloverfield jokes to full-scale features like our CES 2008 Wootable Awards, the Woot blog team has been dropping mad content lately. We’ve uncovered the dark secrets of economic stimulus, learned how not to raise money for charity, and found the limits of free speech. We even told iPhone users how to get stylish, convenient Woot icons on their homescreens. If you’re not checking the Woot blog every day, you’re depriving yourself of the most precious gift of all – the gift of laughter. And we hate to see you do that to yourself.

Will Pay For Work
It’s a tragic fact of life: if you want to treat yourself to the occasional LeakFrog, you’re going to need money. And to get money, oftentimes one must work. If you’re going to put yourself through that, why not consider the open job positions at Woot. We’re in desperate need of a few individuals at our Dallas and St. Louis offices, pronto. And we’re always adding new listings to that page, to replace those who fall under the demands of the grueling Woot lifestyle. So get a resume together already. How do you expect to amount to anything if you won’t make an effort?

Let’s see: Valentine’s Day, calendar stuff, podcasts, blog, Wine.Woot Labrats… yeah, that’s about it for now. Oh, we could go on all day, but we’re up to our esophagi in products to write about. End communique. This message will self-destruct when you hit the „delete“ button. Until next time, much love from yer pals at Woot!

Eines der wenigen Newsletter, die ich gerne lese, weils einem nie langweilig wird dabei.