America Goes Online

BlueLight.com, Kmart's ecommerce arm, launched in 1999. In less than a year, it has 3.5 million customers for its free ISP.

Kinda makes slower growing firms look a little pokey, huh? Of course, BlueLight.com had an advantage most startups don't -- 35 million customers a week buy at Kmart. But until BlueLight.com launched, Kmart hadn't been able to turn those 35 million brick and mortar customers into net customers. BlueLight.com now has the attention of a non net-savvy audience. The company's going to use it to launch programs that tie ecommerce with brick and mortar Kmart stores. How are they going to do it? By efficiently giving customers something they need and want.

First: Get 'em Where They Live

BlueLight.com took a leaf from AOL's strategy book. When BlueLight wanted to get the attention of Kmart shoppers, they went where their shoppers already were. "We were able to get users primarily by hanging CD-ROMs throughout the Kmart stores," says Mark Goldstein, CEO of BlueLight.com. "When people were checking out, they'd get a CD-ROM thrown into their bags." BlueLight.com CD-ROMs were all over Kmart, easily accessible for any customer with even a hint of interest. "Our access strategy was important because we already knew that people were accustomed to and preferred to buy at Kmart," Goldstein says. "We said, 'If we could complement what they're doing when they go into the store by giving them information, special offers and Blue Light Specials online, we could put together a winner.'"

Give a Little to Get a Little

At the company's launch, BlueLight.com thought seriously about their initiatives as a company. They then planned what they'd give to customers in order to reach company goals. "We have three core initiatives at BlueLight," Goldstein says. "Initiative number one we call our access initiative, which is that we want to insure that Kmart shoppers are in fact online, either online with us or online somewhere else. At the same time we want to make sure we have their e-mail addresses. We give them the free ISP and/or give them reasons to give us their e-mail addresses, be it that they can sign up for lotteries or sweepstakes or get specialized content."

BlueLight gives shoppers something they want -- savings -- in order to get what BlueLight.com needs -- access. "Once we're convenient to them or we know where they are, we start thinking about commerce," Goldstein says.

Deliver an Advantage

BlueLight.com isn't a publicity or branding content vehicle for Kmart. Instead, the company is looking to enable both ecommerce and real world buying behavior. BlueLight.com leverages the net's efficiencies to do both, dubbing it a "sticky brick" strategy.

"We want to integrate the store and the web very tightly. We want to create couponing systems. There are going to be kiosks in stores and affinity cards so everything ties the store to the web so the web is simply an extension of the store," Goldstein says. "Over the last three years, Kmart has captured information all the way down to the SKU level in terms of what about 75% of Kmart shoppers have actually bought at Kmart. We can look in and know you've bought various things so you might be interested in a sale or a special on something else. We can make inferences based on past buying behaviors," Goldstein says. Coupons can even be automatically fed to consumers -- no more paper- and-scissors.

"We could simply tie various specials to your name, to your account, so long as you use your affinity card when you're buying in the store and/or you use your ID when you're buying online. We can make sure the right discounts get transferred to you," Goldstein says. Your business may not have 3.5 million customers, but you can still duplicate BlueLight.com's success. Give your customers what they want and make it easy to get. That's something any business can do -- and that's what will win you customers who visit, return, and most of all, buy.