So, You Think You Can Dance, Round 2

Welcome to Round 2 of So, You Think You Can Market? in support of TheBargainQueen.com. As we only received FOUR entries, the winner of this round will go up against the winner of Round 1.

First up, an UPDATE:

Round 1 went, in a LANDSLIDE, to Casey Degon — claiming 95% of the unexpectedly LARGE vote. Casey clearly understands the potential and approach to activating an online network!

To recap … in this competition marketers will put forward their best ideas based on this brief from Sara. The entries will be published here … and the best idea in each round will be voted on by a wide, wide panel of marketing experts — YOU. That’s right, you get to decide on which idea proceeds to the next round … and which idea, ultimately, will be worked up in time for a Christmas promotion.

Round 2’s entries are:

1. Paul McEnany – Empower the Current Readers
   The fundamental issue here is that The Bargain Queen is a site for
   women. One look at it and a guy like me starts to get nervous. I can
   start clicking around, but even if I do find something she may like,
   how can I be sure? I never really know if she likes something I gave
   her in the first place.
   So, with this particular site, I think men become the secondary
   target. It’s just too obvious from the beginning that this is a
   women’s site, so we really have to be the site that offers an insight
   into his specific wife/girlfriend the best, not just women in general.

   So, I’d start by making it easy for readers to send suggestions to
   their husbands/boyfriends. Each post should have a "send to him"
   button where a woman can anonymously hint that this may be a good gift
   for her.

   Secondly, I’d build a widget for these readers to drop their favorite
   selections from the site into. She can send this widget to her husband
   or boyfriend, or just post it on her myspace page for him to find.
   Same goes for facebook by building a similar facebook application.

   Now, if you were to send men straight to the site, I’d make a link to
   "The Bargain King," as well. Maybe a little obvious, but sometimes
   obvious works. This page would have testimonial video of various types
   of women, with more in depth descriptions written out. For each type
   of women described, we’d create gift packages for her with various
   gifts chosen by the experts (readers and editors of the Bargain Queen,
   of course).

   So, these are just a couple simple ways to get men to find their way
   to the Bargain Queen this Christmas. Obviously, I’d put my money on
   empowering the sites current readers. Their advocacy is probably the
   fastest way to get to their husbands with the least waste.

2. Jason Collins – Fashion SnapShots (Jason, send me a link to your blog)
   My solution would start with the women. If men don’t know what to get their partners, then the gals often make the suggestions themselves. Why not make this easier?

   And what does every gal do when she goes shopping? Takes her cell phone. The Bargain Queen should write a mobile app that encourages gals to take photos of products they see when they are out shopping. These should then be sent to The Bargain Queen’s Flickr group (direct from cell or via upload). The Bargain Queen editors would do a "close enough" match with existing fashion profiles and link send an email to the "Bargain King" (the gals partner). The partner can login and see the pictorial wish list and or select from other recommendations from the Bargain Queen editors.

OK … Now, you have read the last two responses … now is your chance to VOTE!

You have until the end of Saturday, November 11. Next week we are in to the FINAL PLAYOFF.