When you advertise in print, the competition for attention means you’d better dumb down your message and make it big, bold and obvious.
When you advertise in print, the restricting nature of the medium forces you to use only static text and few (if any) colours for basic images.
When you advertise in print, the cost of the space forces you to restrict the number of words you write.
Then along came the internet and everything changed. The problem is… it didn’t need to change.
The problem is that we all forgot that one thing remains consistent in all forms of advertising:
“the audience time is precious, and you can’t afford to waste it”
So, I love your new website with it’s flash animation and tasteful colour scheme, and technical data, and story about how you started your business in a damp shoebox you found in a bin, and how you put customers first and you put value and quality above all, and that you say you are number 1, and your glowing testimonials, and your pictures of the team, and your news feed, and your twitter feed, and your facebook page blah blah blah.
But you (yes YOU) forgot that my time was precious. You got so carried away in what you thought was “marketing” and “branding” that you forgot to tell me what you sell and why I should buy it in as few words as you could articulate it.
You were so busy trying to word “professional” sentences telling me why you are so good, and honest and customer focussed, that you forgot to just tell me what I want to know…do you have what I want, and what does it cost.
If you can do that, I might (MIGHT) have a browse through your site and make my own decisions about how good you appear to be. (Hint: writing “We pride ourselves on XYZ” will not make me beleive it).
Just because the medium of advertising changed, didn’t mean that people suddenly couldn’t get enough of your advertising. People didn’t suddenly develop an inclination to go hunting for company profiles and cheesy animation.
As a new business owner (or new to the internet) it looks good when you see your name up in lights (or pixels). You felt all posh and businessy when you found that profound quote, or the metaphoric picture of the sapling (acorn, puzzle, cog, piggy bank, smiling team). It looks good to you…but I see Apple, and Coca Cola and Marks & Spencer advertising all the time. That means I’m unlikely to be impressed by it unless you have done something truly EXTRAORDINARY.
Of course I’m not saying don’t have a good looking website, don’t have any animation, testimonials, company history, quotes, stock photography. Of course I’m not saying that!
What I’m saying is let me access the cheese when I choose. Treat me like a print reader, and that is to say communicate with me like your life depends on it, and I might just taste your brie.
So, you’ve just spent your hard earned on a (hopefully) shiny new website, and it’s time for the search engines to start sending visitors through to your website, right?