When was the last time you reached for the Yellow Pages to find something? Been a while, I’ll bet.
Most of us sit in front of a computer a lot, so clicking Google is a lot faster than finding — then flipping through — the phone book. Not to mention you can’t enlarge the font in the phone book, like you can in your browser. (How? Click CTRL and the + sign of your numeric keypad.)
So it’s no surprise that telecommunications companies in many states are getting the OK to discontinue printing and distributing those dusty old relics of a bygone era. Even the phone companies themselves admit that most people now use the Internet rather than letting their fingers do the walking when they want to reach out and touch someone.
That’s also why it’s essential for your small business to have a website today.
Footnote: Ironically, today is the last day of operation for Google’s free 411 alternative, 1-800-Goog.
]]>II. Thou shalt honor thy customers worries and problems, for that is what keepeth them awake at night.
III. Thou shalt focus thy copy on the customer, not thyself. Show them how you can help them end their wailing and gnashing of teeth, and thou willst be an answer to their prayers.
IV. Thou shalt not glorify thyself by making empty promises thou cannot keep. Indeed, thou shall back up thy promises with proof: case studies, testimonials, etc., of how how thou hast helped others like them in the past. In other words, thou shall put up or shut up.
V. Thou shalt not bore thy visitors, who art afflicted with a short attention span. Thou shalt trim the fat.
VI. Thou shalt ask for thy visitors’ e-mail addresses and permission to follow up in the future. But thou shalt not browbeat them with over-aggressive or over-frequent missives.
VII. Thou shalt offer value in exchange for their e-mail addresses. This may taketh on many forms, including expert guidance within thy field of endeavor. (Stone tablets optional.)
VIII. Thou shalt optimize thy website for the great god Google, lest thy website be cast into the wilderness and ignored by those searching for thy goods and services. Ditto for the lesser deities, Bing and Yahoo. Yea verily, these are false gods, but hey, business is business.
IX. Thou shalt optimize the layout of thy copy to pleaseth the eye of thy reader. This meaneth headings and subheads, wide margins, white space and bullet lists. Banish thy clutter to the dark, unspeakable places.
X. Thou shalt not bully, browbeat, or hard-sell thy beloved customer. Rather, thou shalt partner with them, embrace their problems as thine own, and help them achieve their goals.
]]>Now a PR firm has agreed to settle charges it had its employees pretend to be unbiased videogame buyers and post gushing, rave reviews at Apple’s online iTunes store.
When I read that, I felt like the French police inspector who was “shocked, shocked!” to discover gambling at Rick’s Cafe in Casablanca.
The same thing is happening elsewhere, of course, including Amazon and other high-profile online merchants.
My suggestion: take all reviews with a degree of skepticism. Look for more than a handful of reviews, Be especially wary if all of them were all posted within a few days or weeks of each other. You want to see 50+ reviews, spaced over the course of many months.
Two habits that will help clean up deceptive online marketing:
- To keep the practice of phony reviews from spreading, simply never do business with a company that would engage in such underhanded practices.
- Ditto for spam: Never do business with a company that sends out unsolicited spam. Period.
Zero tolerance. If we all followed those two simple rules, both practices would simply fade away.
Agree? Disagree? Maybe you’ve got an even better idea? Let’s hear it.
]]>That’s according to one of their ads. I haven’t seen that particular ad, but I read about it in the NY Times, so it might be true.
I did see one TV ad claiming the new sneakers tone leg and buttock muscles better than regular walking shoes. Is it just marketing BS, or could it be true? A lot of people seem to think (or at least hope) so. Sales are smoking hot, just like your legs will be.
Reebok says the EasyTone is their biggest hit in five years. And no wonder. They were designed by a real rocket scientist, former NASA engineer Bill McInnis, now Reebok’s head of advanced innovation.
But what about the controversial claim? Can the shoes live up to the boast? According to the Times,
“The claim is backed by a single study involving just five women, walking on a treadmill for only 500 steps. Some wore the EasyTone or another Reebok walking shoe, some were barefoot. Sensors indicated that the EasyTone worked glutes 28% more than regular walking shoes. Hamstring and calf muscles worked 11% harder.” (Edited slightly for length, clarity and emphasis.)
Wait — who cares if your leg and butt muscles work a little bit harder? All we want to know is, do boobs really get jealous?
]]>Ask yourself, what do they want? What are they really looking for? How can you make it clear that you have what they want? (Or that they want what you have?)
Knowing what a prospective customer is thinking when they first arrive at your website makes it a lot easier to hook ’em with your copy. Luckily, it’s not too hard to figure out. In fact, I’ll show you exactly what’s going through the typical visitor’s mind. Let me borrow my crystal ball from this turbaned fellow and we’ll walk through the process together.
Peering into the brainpan: What website visitors are thinking
How do most first-time visitors find your site? If you guessed Google, Yahoo, or one or the other search engines, you’re right. Chances are, they typed in one or two keywords to describe what they were looking for, then clicked the SEARCH button.
Almost instantly a search results page popped up, containing a long list of links to websites. Most of them, they’ve never heard of.
Which one will they click?
This, too, is pretty predictable. Statistics show that 80 to 90% of them will click one of the first four listings – which is why it’s pretty important to optimize your website for search engines.
OK, they’ve clicked a link and, miracle of miracles, they land on your website! How cool!
Then what? Well, put yourself in their place. What goes through your mind when you land on a website you’ve never seen before? There are three things you immediately want to know:
- Am I in the right place? Is this where I meant to go? Or did I click the wrong thing?
- Does this site have what I’m looking for? This is a biggie. If you don’t show them instantly, they’ll hit that BACK button and be gone faster than you can say, “Huh? Where’d everybody go?”
- How do I feel here? Am I comfortable? Or is it creepy or sleazy? Can I trust these people — or are they just trying to rush me into buying something? Do they even know what they’re talking about?
Oh, by the way. You only have a few seconds to get all that across.
Why the big rush?
The dazzling speed of computers and the Internet has conditioned us all to be very, very impatient. Admit it. If you don’t find what you’re looking for instantly, you look elsewhere. Right? If a link doesn’t open fast enough, you click somewhere else.
We all do it. And so does your website visitor. If she doesn’t see the answers she’s looking for instantly – I mean within the first 3-5 seconds – you have very little chance of keeping her around.
How in the world can you possibly communicate all that in just a few seconds? I’ll show you how, in the next installment of today’s exciting adventure.
Next: How to write copy that gets to the point — without getting obnoxious.
