[thelist] Old Browsers old Software, cut bait and move on.

[Martin]

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A. Erickson wrote on 11/7/01 4:52 pm

>> > i've worked with marketing departments too, and in my humble
>> opinion, they
>> > just don't get it
>>
>> We DO get it. We know better than anyone
>
>Okay... see, here is where I disagree with you. You know it better than
>anyone? Okay, I hate to say "you" here because you sound like you're on the
>ball and maybe not the pushy and clueless marketing type that I've dealt
>with in the past but that attitude is very frustrating in cases where you
>*don't* know it.

This is true in some cases, to be sure, because this is a new medium for
most marketeers. Because they've been doing print/tv/radio for ever,
they understand them, and have expectations based on them, and that's
OK.

But things are getting better, as marketeers see their sites fail to meet
their potential. I'm working on a site at the moment where yes, they
get a million visitors a year. But their potential audience of consumers
who use their product regularly is maybe five times that in the UK
alone. And they're not converting one-time visitors to regulars.

Part of the reason for this is that there's little value for a repeat
visitor - you go there once (and they have a *very* loyal consumer
group - if one of their consumers is online, it's a pretty good bet
they'll have been to the site), had your brand experience, downloaded
the goodies... and then what? There's no motivator to come back.

The marketeers are now starting to realise that while the site *is*
a success in that it gets a million visitors a year, it's not hitting
potential. So it's being reworked.

And the marketeers have stepped back from the place where they
dictate exactly what that will be (which would usually be in terms
of other media they understand), and have simply specified "This
is the overall journey we want the consumer to take as a wholistic
relationship with the brand. How can you support that by this site?"

So I really expect the next evolution of the site to be an order of
magnitude (or several) better.

Another reason why marketeers are increasingly getting it is
that marketing education is increasingly encompassing online
marketing, with an approach which says "How do core marketing
processes and imperitives translate into a new environment?"

A core direct marketing approach is that targeting an offer
correctly gets better results than almost any other variable,
including varying creative, product and timing. So why would
a good marketeer indulge in spam?

>> what the customer wants
>> because we’
>> re the ones who are in touch with market data, focus groups,
>> sales reports,
>> and above all, the customers themselves.
>
>This is true. However, how does that relate to the web? Do you know what the
>customer wants *on the web*? And do you know the consequences of what your
>customer wants? Building a website is all about decisions and compromises
>and scenarios.

And raising those choices and their implications is our job, so that the
business (ie the ones with the money...) can make a call based on sound
evidence. But it takes a *lot* of care to ensure that they own the result,
otherwise you're just the crazy web guy who's still living in drug-crazed
reverie of the dot-com good times.

Example today - a client clearly has a need for good web writing, or
at the least strong sub-editing of the material they already have. But
their pushback is that "We have (subject matter) experts inhouse -
can't they just rewrite it" and (worse) "You seem to know this stuff,
why can't you edit it?"

But with some time and care, they're starting to see that it will be both
quicker and cheaper to get an agency with that core skillset (and I'm not
a professional writer) to turn it around.

Nobody says it's easy - but that's where you as an 
adviser/agency/contractor/
consultant add value.

Cheers
Martin

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       martin at members.evolt.org      snailmail: 30 Shandon Place
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