Where's My Cookie?

Marketing should give customers something. In retail, direct mail, print, or the venerable 30 second spot, we try to show what our product does and what’s in it for the customer. Our communication and programs associate our brand with a customer goal, sometimes called a "cookie." 1 Depending on customer needs, a cookie could be information such as a product description, prices, free samples, the ability to do or buy something here and now, etc. We don’t deliberately challenge readers or viewers to work long and hard to figure out where the good stuff is. Once we’ve understand which cookie customers want, lift notes, end aisle displays, and headlines take them there.

There are some notable exceptions. If you’ve ever stayed at a Las Vegas casino hotel, you have probably had the frustrating experience of having to navigate acres of gaming tables on route to your room.

That’s Vegas. In the real world we don’t deliberately frustrate customers. What about the virtual world? After we manage to get prospects to our web site can they find their cookie? This is a four part problem:

1. Finding the site
2. Finding the relevant page
3. Finding the relevant content on the page
4. Being able to get to the next step by clicking, calling, or going somewhere

Trying to negotiate many sites feels far too often like being trapped in a labyrinth. The bounce rates on many landing pages, show that visitors get frustrated, fed up, and leave.

Far too many web sites are more concerned with design than usability. In post mortem interviews within companies having dysfunctional sites (some of which were “award winning”) we often find no consensus on what the site was supposed to do. In some cases it seems the cookies are missing altogether. Where do you hide your cookies?

1) I am indebted to Nadia Direkova of Razorfish for this metaphor.

No Time To Add Content To Your Website - Let Your Visitors Do It

Your company has a web site, but few visitors. You’re hardly alone, but what are you going to do about it?

This is not a post about the finer points of search engine optimization. Rather it’s about one straight forward step you can take to boost traffic. Google and other search engines look for relevant terms a.k.a. key words. More relevant key words help the rank of your web site. If your company sells ball bearings, your site will have a higher rank if it contains lots of information about ball bearings.

How do you credibly add key words to your site? You could, of course, write lots of to the point content about your products, services, and industry. Many high ranking sites do this. It pays, but it can be a lot of work. Recently, one of our clients lamented the modest traffic on his fledgling web site. Still he despaired of adding content, because it would be too much work for his start up company.

There is another way - let your customers do some of it for you. You can do this through easy to add components such as blogs, public wikis, and product reviews. This user generated content is at the heart of Web 2.0. Yes, it does mean you give us a measure of control along with a lot of labor.

You can and should filter offensive content, but this is uncommon. If your product gets an unfavorable review, you’re more likely to learn about in time. Reviews also give insight into what customers like about current products and what enhancements they want. Just let your visitors do the typing.