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Don’t look at your website like a diet plan

Many businesses look at a website as some one shot deal, like a diet.  As soon as they reach their goal (say lose 50 pounds or in this case, the website is online), they completely walk away from it.  They expect it to just work by itself.  You have to constantly improve upon and look at current technologies.  If you are business owner and absolutely cannot do it for yourself, you should hire someone to do it of you.  You must look at your website as a long term strategy, not a short term diet plan.

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About two years ago, I was looking for a special type of shoe*: white boating shoes with laces. (Believe me at the time they were very hard to find, both in the offline world and the online world).  For nearly a year, I could not find what I was looking for.  Finally, after giving up for a year, I did another search online and I got to endless.com, Amazon’s shoe outlet.  I found my shoe. Yay!. 

For three months after my purchase, endless.com sent me their newsletter (or whatever it was supposed to be) by e-mail every single day.  I unsubscribed.  So, I no longer received the annoyingly blatant “Please buy from us today or we will remind you tomorrow” newsletter anymore. Out of site and out of mind.

Two years later I was racking my brain trying to remember what the name of the Amazon shoe outlet was.  I wanted some new shoes and I knew it was a great place to buy shoes.  Just like Amazon, endless.com has a huge selection.  But even knowing how much I loved the online retailer was not enough to recall the name of the website.  Needless to say, it was quite frustrating; especially when I wanted to tell at least three people about the website.  I was wishing things would change. 

Today, I received one of their postcards in the snail mail (I didn’t get off that list) and there it was: endless.com.  Great! 

What am I getting at and how does it relate to Branding? A very forgettable brand name is what prompted this post.

So, here is a company who was genius enough to come up with a name you could easily use in the offline world (the world we live in) and it would be very memorable: Amazon.  “I got it on Amazon,” you could say to your friend as you stand in line at the bank.  But Amazon in their infinitive wisdom came up a rather generic adjective for their new venture. Nice.  “I got these on endless” just doesn’t have the same oomph to it as “I got this on Amazon.”

That’s branding.  Don’t get caught with the .com domain name syndrome.  You are not a brand just because you have a .com after your name.  Whatever happened to broadcast.com?  And what is a broadcast anyway?  How do I get one?

*As I re-read this post for proofreading purposes, I realized how pathetic “special type of shoe” equating to standard white boating shoes really sounds.  But I’m not changing it because it really was nearly impossible to find a regular pair of white boating shoes with some regular laces.  And that’s the fact, Jack.

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Money, Media and the Other Thing

Barack used all sorts of media to his advantage and had a great budget to back it up.  So, what does this have to with a blog about website development?

Budget.  You should have a realistic budget for your website.  If your website is your business or an extension of your business, you must have a realistic budget; otherwise you are literally wasting your money.  Ask John McCain.  Every dime he spent on his campaign is wasted money—because he lost.  He gets no value out if it.  None at all. 

So, how does this factor out?  Let’s take a quick look:  It is written that Obama had four times as much money to spend as McCain.  So, McCain (as the loser) can write one book about losing the presidential election.  How many books do you think Barack Obama can write about winning the Presidency and the next four years being a President?  A lot, right?  So, do you see how putting up a good strong front with a healthy budget is really going to pay off for you later?

Having a lackluster budget which will give you a lackluster website will create a losing situation for you.  Therefore, you have wasted your money.  If you have a budget of about eight hundred dollars for your website, you have lost and wasted your money.  If your budget for your website is close to five thousand dollars or more, you have a good chance of winning. 

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If you want people to click on the Buy Now button (as opposed to paying with some other method) you have to offer some incentive to do so.  I see many websites where the Buy Now button is placed where you wouldn’t normally buy such a service.  

Recently, I was working with a client who had a website (developed from a do-it-yourself online hosting company) for her professional massage practice and had several Buy Now buttons placed where buying online wasn’t really necessary (in order to receive the services) which were offline at her massage studio.

On her web site there was a series of massage packages as part of her services.  The services were listed as: 60 Minute Session: $60.00, 30 Minute Session: $30, and so on.  Next to each massage package was Buy Now.  That’s it.  Nothing else.  No, Buy Now and get 20% off the walk-in price.  It was just Buy Now.  No one is going to pay upfront–site unseen–without some strong (like 20% off) incentive to do so.  In her practice (massage therapy) it is customary to pay after the massage, so no one would pay online before booking the appointment.

When you have situation where people can either pay upfront (and online) or pay after they get a service, you need to offer some incentive to do.  Just having sign that says Buy Now is a waste of time and looks rather weak on a website.  In my practice, I usually charge 30 – 40% upfront for my web design projects, but if they pay me 100% upfront (my version of Buy Now), they get a 10% discount off the entire project.  It works every time. 

People want to save money and you have to give them a reason to do so.  So, let them Buy Now and save 20%!

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I saw a BMW the other day from about forty feet away.  I saw a Volkswagen Beetle from about two hundred feet away the day before that.  And the day before that, I saw a PT Cruiser about three hundred feet away. 

I’ve ridden in about a half dozen Chevrolet, Ford and GM cars in the past several months and I couldn’t recognize one if it was staring me in the face. If it sat on me or ran me over, I wouldn’t know if it was a Ford Capri or a Chevy CheesePuff.  (As you can see I just made up some names; that’s because I couldn’t recall any actual car names and models for this blog entry!)  But a PT Cruiser, Volkswagen and BMW come to mind so easily.  They come easily because they are designs that are so recognizable.

Volkswagen doesn’t need a logo. It is a logo!  The PT Cruiser is a logo.  These models have not changed in years and it is so easy to recognize them from so far away.

If I saw a well detailed Volkswagen Beetle, I would not know in what year the car was produced. It could be a 2002 or a 2008.  I wouldn’t know. I’d have to ask.  But not true with so many cars out there.

I saw a Honda Accord the other day about twenty feet away and going about forty miles an hour past me, but I knew immediately that the car was at least ten years old.  I knew this because Honda Accord has changed its body style about ten times for the past ten years.  Each new model dates itself.  How crazy is that?  (By the way, I recognized the Honda Accord because I had previously owned one, otherwise it would have been just another car to me.)

If you have memorable design (that is consistent and uniquely you) you don’t have to work that hard on building your branding.  It comes naturally.

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