What I’ve Learned in
2002—Part II
NoSpin Debunker
#57: December 30, 2002
I appreciate your readership in 2002 and hope that you and your business prosper in 2003. Please take the last NoSpin Poll of the year and sound off on what you think about NoSpin Debunkers this past year.
Thanks for your comments on Part I! The winner of my contest for sending the best pearls of wisdom re: what was learned in 2002, business and marketing-wise, is Phil Suiter, President and COO of NotifyMD. Phil wins a copy of Harry Beckwith’s classic, “Selling the Invisible.” Here are Phil’s pearls of wisdom from 2002.
I’ve written a lot over the past year and a half about web sites as marketing vehicles and learned many a lot along the way. In this final Debunker of 2002 I’m going to discuss some of the things I’ve learned while analyzing a lot of web sites and creating and revamping sites for a number of businesses, including my own.
First, a brief confession. I continually struggle to accomplish all of the things I’d like to do with my own NoSpin Marketing site. I’ve always got a list of 10 or 15 items to add or change, and I never seem to keep up. It’s time consuming hard work, and I fully appreciate the difficulty that businesses have in maintaining high quality web sites.
But because so few businesses do the following, you’ve got a gigantic opportunity to upgrade your web site and transform it into a key marketing tool for your business in 2003. One of your marketing objectives in 2003 should be to have the best web site in your business “space” and you can do it if you:
Fortunately for companies that want to take that next step in developing an effective web site, most of their competitors are beset with one or more of the following nine syndromes. Hopefully you won’t see yourself on the list below:
ü
Ostrich
Syndrome
ü
Doubting Thomas (or Sales
Stud) Syndrome
ü
Ebeneezer Scrooge
Syndrome
ü
Old Shoe
Syndrome
ü
Field of Dreams
Syndrome
ü
Flashdance
Syndrome
ü
Status Quo
Syndrome
ü
Techie Control Freak
Syndrome
These people know they have lousy sites and freely admit it, but choose to bury their heads in the sand and do nothing. “Sure, we’ve got one (a web site). Yeah, it’s so-so at best. Heck, I don’t even look at it much—OK, basically, it stinks. Maybe we’ll do something about it at a point, but just don’t think that it’s embarrassing us (enough yet).” They need to wake up and smell the roses, blow up their current site, suck it up and JUST DO IT—so that more potential business is does not wander by while their heads are buried.
An interim recommendation is to put up a “homepage” site: ONE good, quality page that succinctly describes business and includes the right contact information. Much better than a lousy site.
These businesses have web sites (and other marketing fluff) that tend to overuse prominent superlatives like “top,” “premier,” “leading,” “superior,” “unique,” etc, etc, etc. to describe their respective products and services. “We’ve got to expound that we are the best and the most different,” they say. Actually no—that assertion alone is what immediately turns lots of folks off and causes them to click off your site.
Much better are approaches to SHOW versus tell visitors that you are better and different than others. How? Web sites offer lots of ways to illustrate versus merely tell: an impressive customer list, real testimonials and customer stories about actual business benefits, links to real world examples, free “samples” or sneak previews that show the product and service e.g. with pictures and sound, demos of the product(s) itself, etc. These companies need to prove that they’re the leader versus just saying it. An excellent mechanism is via their web site.
If a business has this particular syndrome, it’s often the VP of Sales talking, “We don’t get any (or many) quality leads or sales now from our site. I just don’t see the pay off. Maybe if I could see more actual sales (resulting from our site), we’d pay attention to it. We need to be out there on the street selling and not worrying about our web site.” If a business is indeed generating all the sales it wants, that VP might be right; otherwise he or she needs a lesson in deductive reasoning: IF a good web site THEN more sales. More often that not, even the biggest doubters become true converts when a new web site helps increase their sales commissions.
“Bah, humbug.” Since it’s the holiday season I couldn’t resist. These Ebeneezers may want Bob Cratchit to develop a high quality web site in his spare time after working 8-12 hours a day, but then it could take months or years—IF Bob knew what to do. Maybe they are lucky enough to have the internal resources, but if not, they are going to need to pay for professionals to develop content and design the site itself. While a high quality web site does not have to cost an arm and a leg (no Tiny Tim pun intended), it costs more than few farthings. But is an investment that can easily pay off within the year.
Typically you should pay at least 2/3 of your investment for a web site plan and content and the other third for design and construction. And yes, you’ll have to pay for ongoing content, site updates and , maintenance, search engine optimization, etc. No such thing as free lunch.
Once a pretty good site goes up, there’s a definite proclivity for many business folks to let it immediately go to the dogs. Regardless of the dollars invested in the new or revamped site, it’s ignored like an old shoe. Nobody pays attention to updating even the simplest content, marketing the site, increasing traffic via SEO, or following up on leads that are generated daily (an almost inexcusable sin).
As I’ve mentioned before, web sites are truly are like gardens (or pets) that need TLC and need to be tended on a regular basis—or you wasted most of your time and money. If you are really pressed for time and resources, at least do these things: keep your homepage (if not all content) updated at all times, make sure that your url is prominent on all of your marketing materials, and try to respond to every request for information or sales presentation that same day. Otherwise just put up a “homepage” site and be done with it.
Build it and they will come. Right? Now we’ve got a great web site for selling our great stuff. Wrong! Currently, there are billions of urls on the web, and that number grows every second. If a business has products and services that a market(s) wants and has a good web site, they will come IF you help them through the maze to find your site. You need to provide them short cuts to find your url via search engines (and not via of the “sign up for millions of search engines” services).
One of the best resources for SEO is a web site called http://searchenginewatch.com/. Check it out. SEO starts with good content on your site, but that’s only Step One. It is not easy, but well implemented SEO tactics can help increase your web site traffic immensely. I’ve increased mine by a factor of four. And you’ve also got to help market your site using offline online marketing campaigns. Businesses have to tell people about their web sites on regular basis—or the field will remain a dream.
“If we only had a Flash intro to our site, that would put us in the big leagues. Then we’d have a cool web site that everyone would love.” I gag when I hear this kind of comment. Don’t get me wrong--I like Flash animations on web sites—just not as intros to sites. Why? Because a lot of them still take too much time to load, most business people think they are obnoxious and too long (as do I), and they interfere with search engines (that read html text and not Flash). Maybe if you’re selling in the entertainment business or selling video or online games, or otherwise need to show off your Flash development skills, then you might want a Flash intro. Otherwise, don’t dance with Flash.
“We’d change our site and our homepage, but we really want to maintain that special continuity for our visitors and not hurt our brand.” Poppycock. Maybe Amazon, EBay, and a few other big time retailers that get millions of hits need to be careful about changing their navigation and functionality a lot. But even they are continually evaluating how visitors interact with their respective sites and making changes. For everybody else, the status quo argument is just an excuse to do nothing.
Too many companies still have IT software/programmer types that have way too much control over what their site says and what it does—and what gets done and when. That’s nuts, pure and simple. If you’ve got a techie type who calls your web site shots, you’re almost always in a heap of trouble, and the chances of your business having a good site are slim. Web sites belong to Marketing, and IT types need to follow orders and be good implementers. Top-notch technology skills are necessary to ensure that web site functionality works 24/7—and especially back-end functions like e-commerce and CRM. But techies should not control the show.
If you’ve got one or more of these syndromes, HEAL Thyself! Start with an assessment of your web site in relation to your marketing and get ready for more business in 2003.
A quick year-end reminder about NoSpin Debunkers: If you’re NOT into the status quo, NOT hunkering down and merely waiting for things to get better, DO NOT think the great majority of businesses run like tops, and DO see the value in marketing products and services to increase sales and profits, then you’re in the right place. This is the newsletter for you. NoSpin Debunkers are intended to push the envelope, debunk some of the junk going on in business and challenge practices, myths and status quo. They also offer an initial dialogue and practical advice for making business work better—and grow more profitably. Talk to you in 2003!
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Tom Ranseen NoSpin Marketing 615.383.7157