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What's your "Hot Donuts Now " sign?
11 Aug 2003 by Scott Heiferman
Fortune Magazine: “Everybody knows that when a Krispy Kreme store flips on its neon hot doughnuts now sign, the doughnuts are coming right off the line. Around 1980 the folks in Winston noticed sales at the Chattanooga store were going through the roof. HQ decided to send a man up to Chattanooga for a look-see. Turns out the store manager, Bob Glidden, had printed up an ordinary block sign that read hot doughnuts now. But his customers complained that he kept the sign up all the time, even when his doughnuts weren’t hot. So Glidden went down to J.C. Penney and bought a window shade. When he wasn’t making doughnuts he pulled the shade closed; when he was cooking, he pulled open the blind and customers streamed in.”
10 comments so far (Post a Comment)
11 Aug 2003 | Jon Gales said...
I live and die by that sign :).
12 Aug 2003 | pd said...
Don, you dirty dog. Run for your lives everyone!
12 Aug 2003 | hurley #1 said...
My variation on this strategy, which I haven't implemented yet but hope to do really soon:
Lots of people have a PayPal "Make a donation" button on their Web site or blog. But nobody (that I've encountered yet) tells you how much they've received.
Here's my plan: Under the PayPal "Make a Donation" button on my site, I plan to add the following text:
Annual Web hosting fees and other expenses for maintaining this site: $200.
Donations received this year as of [insert last date of update]: $x.
That way, instead of donating money into a black hole, my site's users can see exactly what they and their brethen and sisteren can do to help make my site self-sustaining. So far this year I've received $60 in donations (not too bad since I only added the PayPal button in July).
Hopefully once I make this change the donations will start rolling in faster, and my site will pay for itself. Hey, over 35 years I might make enough to open my own Krispy Kreme franchise.
12 Aug 2003 | fajalar said...
My Web site has something like you have suggested hurley #1, but it only displays after someone makes a donation. Hence, that functionality will probably never be used. ;)
25 Aug 2003 | hurley #1 said...
Hopefully once I make this change the donations will start rolling in faster,
I made that change to my site a few weeks ago and the result, so far: zip. Offering people several ways to donate would probably have more effect (right now I only use the PayPal option).
Oh well, so much for good ideas!
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