For Christmas, my daughter bought her brother a present at the school fair. It was a McDonalds McFlurry Maker and he was thrilled. However, there were only 3 packs of mixture, so we went online to try and find refills.
In doing so, we realised that the machine was 10 years old and they don’t make them anymore! But the good news is that I found this amazing YouTube channel which is produced by a toy shop that specialise in retro toys. They demonstrate how the toys work with full instructions. Very helpful if you’re faced with a box, several pieces of odd shaped plastic and a couple of excited children.
The video is home-spun and kind of rudimentary but that all adds to the charm. At one point he actually says “A lot of people comment, why do you sit there and show us the whole thing? Well why not? You get to see the entire process. I have no idea what’s going to come out of this thing.”
He also makes remarks as he’s going along, exactly if he’s talking to someone – you feel as though he’s talking to you personally.
“Who wants a salty McFlurry? Not me!” and “Ooh, I like that squeaky sound”.
What I loved about it is the fact that they are providing relevant, helpful information not just to their customers, but to anybody who is looking for it. And once you’ve found it, you’re interested to find out what else they’ve got in their retro toy shop. There have been over a million views of the McFlurry maker video, and the other toys featured attract similar numbers. If you’ve got 15 minutes to while away, have a look at the video here …
Failure to capitalise on this success
Where it all falls down though is their website. I couldn’t find out their address (perhaps they don’t have a physical shop but at least an indication of where they are would be useful) and the overall website and online shop was pretty poorly presented. There’s no introduction, ‘about us’ or back story so I don’t really understand who they are, what they do, and why they do it other than what I’ve concluded in watching the video and brief glimpses on the website. I see that you can Log In or Register but it doesn’t entice me to do so – what will I get? Why should I register? There are so many things they could do, but I drew the conclusion that this business is more about genuine enthusiasm for retro toys, and less about making large profits.
What can we learn?
It did strike me how useful it would be to show your customers how to use or assemble your product via a short video on your website. And if it’s a specialised product from a big brand name like McDonalds McFlurry, you are bound to generate traffic so long as your website is properly optimised. Here’s my thoughts on what they could do better…
- A prominent link back to their website
- A proper introduction – draw people in
- A better presented website so it’s easy to find what you’re looking for
- Explain the benefits of subscribing to the You Tube channel or registering on the site
If you’ve got any other ideas, why not join the conversation on my facebook page?