Expert Advice for Inept Online Marketers
ONE OF THE least exclusive claims anyone in our business can make is being an expert on Internet marketing.
I’d guess we have about 8 million Web sites ending in .com-and about 9 million experts.
You’d think with all us experts hovering around the keyboard we’d have greater unanimity about what makes a Web site successful. But I guess the answer depends on your motive.
A typical Webmaster (how I hate that word) regards a site as successful if it looks jazzy. A typical entrepreneur regards a site as successful if his or her name is plastered all over it. A typical Fortune 500 company regards a site as successful if it has so many pages the average visitor grows hoary and weak finding a path through it. A typical direct marketer? A typical astute direct marketer regards a site as successful if it holds a first-time visitor for two click-throughs.
So without too much fear of contradiction from DMers, I offer two rules for Web success:
1. Stop surfers in their tracks.
2. Quickly offer a terrific deal.
After all, the Web is the one medium that depends heavily on promotion in another medium in order to attract a visitor in the first place. Unique, isn’t it, paying for advertising whose purpose it is to divert somebody to another advertising medium?
Now, I admit I’m a sucker for wristwatches. My wife Margo buys me a watch whenever she senses I’ve seen one I like. I’ve long since crossed the Rolex border into Patek Philippe territory. I have so many watches I sometimes wear two, just to keep them running.
Margo saw an ad in The Wall Street Journal:
FINE SWISS WATCHES
WORLD’S BEST VALUES
AMERICA’S 1ST DISCOUNTER
We had been to Paris a few weeks earlier; in a little store in a flea market I saw a Breitling watch and made the mistake of admiring it. She wanted to buy it on the spot, but I was convinced that we’d be able to drive a better bargain closer to home. And, after all, I wasn’t exactly watchless.
Margo called me over to her computer. There, on the screen, was a Breitling watch. “It wasn’t easy finding this,” she said. “I entered the .com address and got page after page of ‘How great we are.’ Then, when I finally was able to click to actual offers, I had to wade through about 100 watches before I found this one.”
I looked at the picture on the screen: nice Breitling. “Welll…”-my standard semi-guilty reaction to seeing something I like but don’t need.
Ordering wasn’t easy. She had to call a toll-free number and wait forever to get attention. She ordered the watch.
Within a few weeks, the watch showed up on her American Express bill, but not in our house. After about six weeks, she called. “Oh, Breitling was refurbishing the watch and left out a seal. We’ll ship within 10 days.”
Two weeks later, Margo called the company again. “It hasn’t come in yet,” she was informed. Hell hath no fury! “Are you aware you’re in violation of the FTC 30-day rule?” she snapped. With some promoting from me, she canceled the order, demanding a credit on her AmEx bill.
That afternoon she went to a local jewelry store and picked up the identical watch…for about $100 less. I’m wearing it as I write this, although when we go to a dinner party tonight I’ll switch back to the Patek Philippe.
Now, the point of the story isn’t that the online marketer lost an easy sale. It’s that the online marketer acted unprofessionally in every aspect of its business. The home page has zero information and just one link. Click on it and you get a letter to the owner from a 30-year customer. (The first sentence is a hoot: “I have just learned that our relationship goes back over 30 years.” Wow, what an unexpected revelation!)
Again, only one link. Click: a copy of the company’s trademark. I’m not kidding. And again one link. Click: a page of puffery with a picture of the owner. And again just one link.
Click on that one and options appear. But nowhere is the opportunity to select or specify what you want. So that’s Dereliction A.
Dereliction B is considerably more serious, tied to the company’s arrogance rather than to its Web site. What does any direct marketer do when a shipment is going to be late? Right! He communicates with the customer. Not this company. Every follow-up call came from us.
And Dereliction C follows right in line. When you have an irritated customer, you soothe the irritation, right? Nope, not here. Since canceling the order we’ve heard nothing, even though the company had not only our street address, phone and fax but also Margo’s online address. Yes, it did issue an AmEx credit; but light-years of difference exist between the result of this transaction (the words you’re reading, for example) and what it might have been (an ongoing customer).
That company isn’t alone in assuming that the medium is the message. Here’s an ad in The New Yorker. I’ll quote the entire text:
Brand Name Closeouts Over $200 million worth of brand name Closeouts & Liquidations of consumer products from hundreds of bankrupt and overstocked wholesalers, retailers and distributors. Thousands of products are posted weekly at up to 90% off original wholesale prices.
www.productdiscounts.com
You might want to check it out; before you do, jot down what you expect to find. Lots of luck.
Research company Jupiter Communications says that during the 1998 holiday season 14% fewer shoppers were satisfied with Internet retailers than they were before the holidays: Slow-w-w-w-w sites and out-of-stock items were two of the common gripes. Hey, there’s no reason whatever for a Web marketer to be out of stock, when the Webmaster (how I hate that word!) can knock an out-of-stock item off the listings as fast as the item disappears from inventory.
What burns me, as one of the 9 million certified Web experts, is that those who misuse what’s going to be the most dynamic medium in the history of communications are killing off its best buying prospects.
Ahh, I know it isn’t possible to dump the dumb. But from now on I’m going to measure the amount of time I waste on those marketing Neanderthals…on my new Breitling.
