The Hunger Site- An Internet Marketing Case Study

[Today's tip was specially-written by Web Ad.vantage's own Loren Baker. Thanks Loren!]

Way back on June 1st, 1999, a new web site was launched which was an innovator in its field. The idea was not an online toy store, grocer, or day trading web site. Instead, it was a web site that only asked for one thing, the click of a mouse. That click alone had the potential of donating up to 3 cups of staple foods to feed the world’s hungry. The web site we are talking about is known as The Hunger Site and delivers a striking message; “Every 3.6 seconds someone dies of hunger. 75% are children.”

The Hunger Site was started with a simple idea - when people visit the site and click on a button to donate food to the world’s hungry, they are taken to a separate sponsor page. Sponsors are those companies who are actually funding the amount of food that is distributed through the United Nations World Food Programme to some of world’s hungry. The amount of food donated each day is dependent on both the number of click-thrus and the number of sponsors.

In the tradition of “viral marketing,” a good idea can go a long way, and with a little help from great off-line buzz fueled by word-of-mouth and radio and televison news coverage, The Hunger Site attracted world wide attention. With that attention came more clicks, more sponsors and, of course, more food for the hungry.

In fact, The Hunger Site actually became so popular that it was too much for its creators to handle and the site is now managed by GreaterGood.com. The Hunger Site already had the advantage of a priceless following, but when GreaterGood.com took over, they added some simple Internet marketing features that most any web site can also learn from.

• One of the first additions to the site was a “Make This Site Your Homepage” link. This brings web users back to the site on an almost daily basis.
• A link was created from The Hunger Site to the “Hunger Site’s Shopping Village,” a GreaterGood shopping portal. By shopping at this online portal, an additional cup of food for every dollar spent will be donated.
• A simple reminder to “tell your friends and family about The Hunger Site” was added.
• With all the traffic coming in, GreaterGood.com began selling advertising space on the home page of The Hunger Site, generating revenue for site maintenance and further marketing.
• A weekly opt-in e-mail newsletter was then created. As an incentive to subscribe, GreaterGood offers an extra 5 cups of food for every new subscriber brought aboard.
• GreaterGood created a library of banners that supporters could place on their own web sites (much like an unpaid affiliate program)
• Through an on-site donation tracking chart, supporters can seethe impact of the combined total efforts.

Other Internet marketing techniques that have been initiated include:

• A contest to raise over 1/2 million cups of food
• Translating the site into over 60 languages,
• A strategic partnership with The RainForest Site, also operated by GreaterGood.com.
• Direct links to branded products only available on the World Food Programme’s shopping portal under Greatergood.com

Because of its unique service and public acceptance, The Hunger Site did not have to go out and purchase millions of dollars of paid advertising and sponsorships in order to drive traffic to their site. But they were smart — they didn’t rest on their laurels and just expect the traffic volume to continue to grow. Instead, they have continued to think of and implement simple and sometimes overlooked Internet marketing techniques. Lessons worth learning from.

Related posts:

1. Marketing Can Make or Break Your Web Site
2. Adding Value to a Web Site Doesn’t Have to be Expensive
3. Web Site Marketing on a Shoestring Budget
4. The Internet Marketing Parasite

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