I recently began reading Malcolm Gladwell’s, What the Dog Saw. In the first chapter Gladwell takes an in-depth look at brilliant marketer Ron Popiel, founder of Ronco, and inventor of popular kitchen gadgets such as the Showtime Rotisserie & BBQ.

While I found it interesting to learn about the Popeil family legacy of inventing and entrepreneurial spirit, what fascinated me the most was the fundamental reasons behind Popiel’s marketing success.

Gladwell attributes Popeil’s empire to the fact that Popeil consistently positioned his products as the star of the show. Popeil designed products that could easily sell themselves and didn’t need a whole lot of explanation.

His infomercials focused on how simple and user-friendly the kitchen gadgets were to use.  Popeil passionately showed his audience how his products worked and provided visual demonstrations of why Ronco products, while often higher priced, were better than the competitors.

Since infomercials are a thing of the past, one way to leverage the Popeil approach is to create a microsite focused on one or two of your products. Since there is much more creative flexibility and freedom with a microsite as opposed to a corporate site you can put your product in the spotlight.  Here are three tips to keep in mind when using the web to make your product the star.

1. Show them how it works

The is no substitute for showing someone how something works. Utilizing video to demonstrate your products capabilities, differences, or ease-of-use is priceless. Think about it this way, if you are buying some sort of gadget would you rather buy it from Company Z that sells the product for $100 but you have to read 10 pages of web-text to figure out how the product works and if it’s right for you. Or, would you rather buy the gadget from Company X that sells the product for $25 more but has a plethora of videos on the site that detail how the product works in a variety of applications and shows you how easy it is to use. I’d gladly pay the extra $25 to not waste my precious time reading and gleaning through gobs of text when I could watch a few short videos instead.

Just as users have ADD about reading, they have ADD when it comes to length of video. Keep video segments short, no longer than 3-4 min each, and separate them out by topic or feature. That way if someone is interested in only knowing how one small portion works, they can just watch that one video rather than having to watch an entire 20 min segment about your product.

2. Get out of the way

Chances are your customers don’t really care about you or your company.  They are looking for information about your products or services and they don’t truly care about how great your CEO’s are or how your employees raised money for charity. Those things are important but they come secondary to your products and services and should be treated as such. Get out of the way and let your products be the star.

3. Keep it simple

The genius part of Popeil’s marketing message is that it’s so simple. A seven-year old can easily grasp how his products work.  While his infomercials can be a bit cheesy, they work because they keep things simple and focus on the most important selling points of his products. He doesn’t go on and on about how the gadget is made and how he got the idea for the invention-blah, blah, blah. Instead, Popeil focuses on what the customer wants and needs to hear in order to make a purchase. That should be your focus too.  Keep it simple. Be continually looking for ways to cut the fat out of your marketing message and you too will have your customers reaching for their wallet.