The other day I received two emails, both with the same
question, why didn't we have a direct call to action on our
website?
Sales people are taught, you always need 'a call to action,' a
request to act or lose the opportunity of a lifetime. I'm sure
you've seen the infomercials, website presentations, online
direct marketing come-ons, and even high-pressure seminar and
tradeshow presentations that will never be repeated, so you
better act now. You're familiar with the language used: "act
now and we'll send you two pieces of junk you don't need, but
wait there's more, call in the next ten minutes and we'll add
a third useless item." Does any intelligent person really respond to this kind of
pitch, and what self-respecting business would actually behave
in this manner? The fact is, if you sell something of value at a
reasonable price, and you treat your customers with some
respect, you will get your share of business. You may not get
all the business, nobody does, but the business you do get, will
result in more satisfied customers, more word-of-mouth
referrals, and ultimately more sales. High-pressure tactics, and
demands for instant commitment, frighten off as many potential
clients as they ensnare. Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics Statistically it may be true that if someone leaves your website
without ordering, the chances of them returning to order are
low, but as Shakespeare's Cassius said, "the fault, dear
Brutus lies not in the stars, but in ourselves." The problem is
NOT the customer; it's what you're saying, how you're saying
it, and the expectations you've set for determining your
site's performance. Success is not a question of attracting more traffic, especially
if your message is weak, unfocused, and lacking in emotional
context. Success is a question of how many people you connect
with both directly and indirectly, and how many people come back
to your site because they are intrigued by what you have to
say. To start, many products and services are either too complex or
too high valued to expect people to make an instant decision;
and demanding one just frightens people away. Asking for an
order is asking a lot, and leads to resistance. Inviting someone
to call or email is reassuring and friendly; it's an offer to
communicate, provide assistance, advice, and information, and
it's easily accepted. Orders are the result of building relationships and
relationships are built on communication. You may not be able to
speak to everyone who comes to your website but that only means
that your website's primary job is to communicate what needs to
be said so that it makes a memorable impression, and provides
something more meaningful than a 'buy now' button. E-Commerce Gone Bad The e-commerce industry with it's easy to implement technical
solutions has created a class of entrepreneurs who think all
they have to do is display a product photo, description, price,
and order button, and the sales will follow. This approach may
work for mega sites like Amazon.com but it's not going to work
for you. You've got to be smarter than that. When small and medium sized companies try to emulate major
corporate business models, they are looking for trouble. It's
one reason why so many websites are so bad, and why so many
under perform. Tom Peters and Robert Waterman didn't do entrepreneurs a favor
when they wrote, "In Search of Excellence." What they should
have written was 'In Search of Failure,' since we learn more
from things that don't work than from things that do. In the
world of Internet marketing, creating websites that are nothing
more than online catalogs, digital brochures, or direct
marketing come-ons, is a waste of time and money, not to mention
all that effort devoted to attracting website traffic. Redefine Successful Website Performance
Orders are not the true measure of a website's success. Nor is
the volume of traffic a site attracts. You can have loads of
traffic, but little of it ever gets turned into business, and
you can even get some orders, but few long-term clients. The primary objective of your website should be to initiate
contact either by email, phone, or in the case of brick and
mortar companies, store traffic. In order to achieve that
objective, your website presentation must be engaging,
enlightening, and above all memorable. Potential clients want a
little foreplay, a little respect, and an understanding that you
are asking them to put their faith in you. Marketing Is More Art Than Science Marketing is about human nature, and the idea that all aspects
of human nature can be quantified, and that meaningful results
can be extracted and formed into an action plan guaranteed to
produce results, is simply over-reaching. The human brain is far
too complex, and human motivation is the result of far too many
interdisciplinary factors to be boiled down into a unified
mathematical formula. The movie and music industries have been
trying for years, and still neither one can accurately predict
what will be a hit. In an effort to always maximize productivity, business has
bowed-down to the false idol of statistical razzle-dazzle, and
succumbed to its faux extrapolations. As a consequence business,
and especially Web-business, has forsaken insight, intuition,
and a 'consilience*' approach to marketing, one built on
continuous creative experimentation and implementation. *Consilience: "the linking together of principles from
different disciplines especially when forming a comprehensive
theory" - Merriam-webster.com.
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Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design
firm that specializes in Web-audio and Web-video. Visit
http://www.mrpwebmedia.com/ads, http://www.136words.com, and
http://www.sonicpersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com
or telephone (905) 764-1246.
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