June 13, 2004
I Love You Until Someone Better Comes Along
Standard & Poor's Equity Research Services reported on last Monday that while 83% of search engine users rate themselves as 'extremely pleased' with their current search engine, a full 63% would switch search engines if a better service came along.
This apparent contradiction isn't surprising. In fact, I think these numbers are about what any good online business can expect from here on out. Even if you get most of your customers to love you, they'll still leave you very quickly when someone better comes along.
And online it's much easier to find out that someone better has come along. This is true because of search engines, and the 'Back' button, and perhaps most importantly because of the ubiquity of opinions.
Once upon a time (meaning pre-1996 or so) a business could piss off just about as many customers as they wanted, and unless Mike Wallace came after them the odds were that mass advertising was going to overwhelm grumbling customers and keep the doors open. Today, anyone with a little time and energy can seek out pretty complete opinions on products and companies via all kinds of web sites and in enthusiast forums all over the web. And one day soon opinions are going get organized. They're going to be one mouse click away from any web page, product number, or company name. And the raters will be dutifully rated, so the irrational flamers and paid-supports can be easily weeded out. In other words your reputation is going to be like a tatoo on the forehead of your business.
Get Ready. The challenge is clear: businesses online are going to have to win their customers repeatedly. It's true for Google, and it's true for you.
Don't believe it. Consider this - when Google took over from Yahoo as 'the search engine' there were no blogs, about a zillion less news and opinion oriented web sites that people visited regularly, and a relatively small percentage of the population was actively online or interested in the concept of search. Imaging that a really great and far superior to Google search engine came online tomorrow. I mean something with much more relevant results, a fast yet more information rich layout, absolutely no search spam, and three really cool features that neither you nor I have thought of yet.
Would it take hours or minutes before news raced around the blogosphere and soon thereafter the news sites? Would it take one day or three before it got 60 seconds on the evening news? If it held up - people who used it liked it - would it take two weeks or three to make Time, Business Week, and even Teen People? Would it take a month before your parents or grandparents had heard of it? If everyone went and tried it, and it was really really better, would anyone go back to Google for 'old times sake'?
It could happen. To them and to you.
June 12, 2004
Case In Point: Offermatica
Following up on my earlier Seinfeld post, consider Offermatica. This software company, which has generated some buzz lately, makes it easy to do A/B testing on landing pages. The problem is, I cannot learn very much about the software or service from their web site. And I'm an interested potential customer. Not good. Their site, has a home page with six (count 'em 6) links that try and get you to sign up for a 'free 30-day trial'. Fair enough - that's what they want to push. But there is only one link, and subsequently one page, that tell me anything more about the service if I don't want to sign up (yet). And that one page isn't very complete or compelling. Instead the page is full of descriptive marketing text, by which I mean it does tell me something about the product and its use but it's mostly flowery hype. And the page has a nice little process-flow animation, but it only provide the most general overview of how the system works. * Where are the examples? * Where are the case studies? * Where are the screen shots of the reporting tools? * Where is the 'here's exactly what it does and how you'll benefit page? These are the things I wanted to read. They didn't offer them. So I left. The company itself should know better. Their background says that they're long time ecommerce consultants who have turned to this ASP-software business, and earned some significant venture backing. Combine these with the fact that their target market is online marketers and you might expect a compelling online sales experience. I did, and was sorely disappointed. Of course, maybe the site that I experienced was just a test, and other people are seeing the deep, rich, highly communicative site...Yadda, Yadda, & Yadda Some More
Seinfeld tells you why your web copy doesn't have to be brief, and your web pages don't have to be short. From an interview in the Wall Street Journal:
WSJ: Most ad folks think the 30-second commercial is the optimal format. Your "Webisode" lasts for several minutes. Do consumers have that long an attention span?Mr. Seinfeld: There is no such thing as an attention span. There is only the quality of what you are viewing. This whole idea of an attention span is, I think, a misnomer. People have infinite attention if you are entertaining them.
Or if you're informing them. You have to be brief to get their attention. You have to quickly prove that you've got what they want. But once you do, people want details. They want deep and extensive information about your products and services. And different people want different information, which means your site needs to have a lot of content.
(Quote via A Penny For..)
