Boulder County Business Report
by Wesley Picotte
Assume that your website sells bicycles and that you have to remove one of its two basic elements – graphics or copy. Oh yeah…whichever you choose to remove, your site must still make sense.Continue assuming: on your site’s pages are many cool graphics. Red and blue and green bikes catching air, doing flips, winning races, you name it. Makes sense...the Internet is a visual place and graphics are an integral part of it. They enhance the message that your company’s bikes are the lightest, strongest, and best handling. But do they communicate uniqueness? Do they compel customer actions (such as clicking on a ‘buy’ button)? Do they thrust your company’s message into the minds of its prospects?If you sell bicycles, I’m your target prospect - shaved legs and all. Now, what do I need to know to buy one? Information such as frame material, components, and weight is crucial. Cool graphics are great but abound on sites hawking bikes, meaning those on your site don’t convey “unique”.Understanding why your bikes are unique (along with a well-communicated call to action) gets Wesley the Cyclist to clicking. Lacking this, I’m just an enthusiast who has surfed away without buying a thing. Words are the Way: Why would a company skimp on the elements – compelling copy and informative content – that enable the intended function of its website? Why are so many guilty of cut and paste marketing – or of dropping brochure copy onto their Web pages? Naturally, the writer in me is baffled, but the business guy’s guesses go as follows. Companies believe that:
Will The Real Web Please Stand Up? Both the writer and business guy in me disagrees. Cut and paste marketing is common and expensive...common because it’s easy; expensive because people are more sophisticated than you might think.The first of the reasons for cut and paste marketing – cool graphics and Flash files will get the bites – we’ve already covered. I’m just an average Web user and I don’t care about Flash files, which are so prevalent they no longer illicit a ‘wow’. Instead, they just make me sad that I’m on dial-up access. Most important, though, their ubiquity prevents the conveyance “unique”.Like many of the 100 million people on the ’net worldwide, I use it to access information (even if it is just to feed my obsession with cycling). I use it to communicate with clients, prospects and friends, perform research and, like many businesses, maintain an online presence. Then I get on with my busy day.The ‘net began as a way to convey information – including bicycle frame weights – and despite all the technology and dotcom millionaires, this fact hasn’t changed. Fortunately for all you programmers and CIOs out there, technology facilitates this, but online, words ultimately sell it. The second reason – to save a buck – is a fallacy. The scenario goes like this: I order your bicycle brochure, read it and then visit your site only to find nothing I don’t already know.Because your site gives me nothing new it fails to inform, fails to connect with me (I know I’ve connected when I can actually taste chain lube), creating the sense that my business (and money) is unimportant. Well, so are your bikes.Online and Offline Marketing is Different: Remember the assertion that the Web is a place where the “users” do the talking? A brochure persuades. It talks at, not with. It sells and, to make the sale, is as lengthy as necessary. Online, the rules of persuasion – Gain Attention, Focus on the Customer, Stress Benefits, Be Unique – haven’t changed, but the presentation has. Successful offline persuasion often is slick marketing hype; online it’s more like an engaging conversation between friends or colleagues. Online, people want information, not hype.And if you transcribe a conversation between you and a colleague, what does it look like? Long blocks of text or bite-sized chunks?Web pages on great websites don’t present lengthy blocks of text. One reason is that they’re relating to prospects in their own living room, den or office. Smart businesses know they’re sharing this space, not shouting in it. They present information in poignant, informative language that’s persuasive (but not in a Madison Avenue way), and that asks for action.Websites can and should sell – even if compelling a prospect to call your office or register for a newsletter equals a “sale”. But avoid treating the Internet as traditional. Your prospects are empowered there. People like Wesley the Cyclist decide what works and what doesn’t.