[tweetmeme]Normally when a website is down, the business suffers — no sales, no clicks on ads, visitors are turned off and may not come back, etc. But not Apple.
Ever the innovator, Apple has learned to turn a negative into a positive. When the site is down and a note “We’ll be back soon” is posted on the site, media, bloggers and customers now know that new products will be launched. Tech blogs such as Engadget and Gizmondo and business publications such as BusinessWeek are all abuzz as to what these new products are.
On February 5, for example, Apple’s site went down. And went live with two new products: The 16 GB iPhone for $499, and a 32 GB iPod Touch, also for $499.
Apple’s obsessive customer base and their rep for being highly innovative allows them to get away with using a site outage into a publicity stunt.
It’s hard for a small business to get away with this type of marketing strategy (will anyone really care that your site is down?). But it is a good lesson on how to think out of the box and finding new ways to generate buzz for your business.