Dress Appropriately
by November 7th, 2006 Patrick GreerI just read a good post on the Brains on Fire blog about companies having a tendency to get bored with their marketing plans. It’s very easy to get enticed by new ways of communicating who you are and what your company is all about. Sometimes it is good to refocus and to redefine your mission. About six months ago we split our company into two parts because the original way was confusing to customers but we have also been careful to transition slowly and keep the core of who we are and our mission of being a place where small businesses and organizations can come to for cost effective marketing and information sharing with a commitment to quick customer service. The music side of the business also shares similar goals except on a more personal level.
Before you go changing things like your web site or print material ask yourself if what you plan to do is for yourself because you think it’s “neat” and “cool” or is it from the customers you are trying to reach. One of the biggest requests we get but will more often than not encourage our customers to reconsider is the use of flash or splash pages on their web site. It’s very tempting to use this kind of technology because you think it will make you impressive as if you were wearing the finest designer clothes available but you don’t want your plumber or mechanic working on your car that way.
Most people want to go to a web site to find information quickly and to interact with the owner of the site as quickly and efficiently as possible. I’m definitely not saying it’s wrong to use impressive presentations with clever animations but consider the purpose. I love it when real estate sites use 360 degree views of their properties or when a movie studio uses a flash presentation to showcase an upcoming feature. I also love it when I can go to site for quick information and not have to endure annoying music, industry buzzwords and difficult to figure out navigation.
