Given that the Kindle is sold out, and delays are still at 7-9 weeks, its a reasonable assumption that the Kindle is something of a success. In the absence of actual numbers from Amazon, the extent of the kindle’s success is open to debate. What I am actually much more interested in is the effort to results ratio i.e.
Are Kindle Sales impressive given the amount of marketing and promotion Amazon has done?
I’m actually going to state some facts, note down some of my own thoughts and leave you to draw your own conclusions -
- For most of its release life, the kindle has been featured on the front page at Amazon.
- A whole new department was opened at Amazon for the Kindle. There were 3 links (and still are) to this store – under digital downloads, under books, and under electronics. There is no other product or category at Amazon that is featured so heavily.
- The Kindle was (and is) promoted on the main page of the Amazon Books Store so that most people interested in books are made aware of it.
- Kindle was also promoted on the main page of the Electronics Store (still is). Again, that’s a lot of people interested in electronics being informed about the kindle.
- The Newsweek cover article and flurry of press and blog attention around the kindle’s launch (Nov 2007).
- The continuing press coverage due to the Kindle being sold out (end 2007 and early 2007).
- The coverage and speculation due to no information on sales figures, and lack of news on Kindle 2.0 (all through 2008).
- The Oprah recommendation and huge spike in interest and speculation (Oct 2008).
- The buzz due to the kindle getting sold out in end 2008. And the resultant speculation and questions.
Combine the promotions on Amazon and the press and blog coverage and you’re looking at a really, really huge amount of effort put into introducing and marketing the kindle.
Is this amount of effort justified by the current Kindle Sales if there have been 250,000 kindles sold? What if a million plus kindles have been sold?
Here are a few of my thoughts -
- Any projections or predictions of Kindle’s future sales should keep in mind the amount of marketing already done by the Kindle.
- What percentage of prospective owners are simply unreachable via amazon.com, blogs and other online mediums? Obviously, the impact of Oprah recommending the kindle on her TV show highlights the importance of other mediums.
- What role has word of mouth played? Does Amazon have any figures on the number of people who bought a kindle based on real-world interactions? What is Amazon’s strategy (other than ‘See a Kindle in Your City’) to increase real-life interactions?
- Take something like netbooks that had sold 1 million or so units in 2007, and in 2008 sold 14 million units. Is the sale of kindles increasing steadily or exponentially? Does Amazon’s inability to maintain supplies indicate a close to exponential growth?
- What happens when KindleText comes out i.e. Is the textbook market going to make the current sales seem inconsequential? After all, Steve Jobs’ famous ’40% of adults read less than 1 book a year’ dismissal is completely irrelevant for schoolkids and college students.
I think 2009 is going to be really interesting – not just in terms of Kindle 2.0 and the Kindle TextBook Reader, but especially to see how Amazon modifies its marketing and sales strategies. The impending arrival of a variety of competitors of various sizes and types adds to the mix and makes 2009 a particularly crucial year for Amazon.
Filed under: kindle Tagged: | kindle effort vs results, kindle market size
To answer your question from the start of this post, yes, I definitely think the Kindle is a success given the marketing effort versus its sales. As you stated, without knowing the actual sales numbers, we can assume it’s a success due to a few indicators – the multiple times it’s sold out, the frequent posts on Amazon and other websites from users, and the current wait for product. Your question asks if Kindle is a success compared to the marketing effort, not just a success based on presumed sales alone. Amazon has put forth minimal effort to market and promote the Kindle, so given the buzz and the sell outs, I think it’s doing great.
Other than Oprah, Amazon has hardly gone outside its own territory to promote Kindle. I don’t think that’s a bad thing; as someone with a career in marketing, I’m terribly jealous of Amazon’s set up. Sure the Kindle is featured on the main page and linked to every book page on Amazon.com, but that’s all Amazon territory. How much effort can it take to advertise on your own company’s website? I’m just considering the effort to market and promote the Kindle, not the development that went into the physical product and the Kindle Store. Amazon set up links on its website, developed some press releases and images for the media, made a couple medium budget videos, and it’s a hit. I’m not sure what it takes to get on Oprah and if that’s an unsponsored lucky draw, but even if it’s not, it’s Amazon one and only major promotion outside its own website.
Amazon and the Kindle make a great marketing case study. Anyone with experience launching consumer products knows it’s incredibly expensive to get your product and materials in the right place to get your target market’s attention. But Amazon has the right place already in existence and under its control, so while development was probably a great effort, the promotion looks like a breeze. Additionally, Amazon gets feedback, suggestions, complaints from users and critics – even what people say they’re willing to pay – just handed to it. Kindle owners are even setting up their own meetings to show / promote their Kindles to non-owners. And I suspect the Boy Genius images of Kindle 2.0 were an intentional leak by Amazon. What easier way to get a preview of market feedback before committing to a design? From a business perspective, there’s the cost of investment and development to consider, but I think Amazon’s marketing team done a brilliant and very economical job of promoting the Kindle.
[...] are welcome… This article is interesting : http://thekindle.wordpress.com/2009/01/06/kindle-sales-vs-amazons-kindle-marketing-efforts/ regarding the efforts Amazon puts into marketing the Kindle vs the [...]