This and That on a Friday
Posted On: 2007-02-23
This is definitely one of those weeks where I've been hanging out for Friday. Work has really been non-stop all week and almost every task that Steve and I have worked on has been totally different from the one before. That's meant that we've had a very interesting week but we're glad it's just about over.
One interesting job we've handled this week has been a half-page ad in a local newspaper for a small business here in town. The challenge was not to fill the ad with too much text as some competitors do every week but to get the message across in as few words as possible and that's a good exercise for new Webmasters here in adult to try.
A half-page ad in our newspapers is about the same size as an A4 sheet of paper set out in landscape. Try using around 100 words (and that includes the headline and business address) to get your message across in a space that size.
It's not easy and we won't know just how effective our ad will be until the paper hits the streets. Fortunately though we knew exactly what will appeal to many readers and were able to nail the headline in just three words.
But will the remaining text in the ad be strong enough to pull in some business? We really can't wait to see the results but they won't start happening for about two weeks. If the ad does work the business owner wants to take the ad to the next town where he's never advertised before.
Frustrating Online Shoppers
I've just been reading the report on a recent survey of online shoppers and some of the findings are very interesting and very relevant for anyone who sells anything online. 82 percent of online shoppers said that if they had a frustrating experience at a retailer's website they would be unlikely to come back again.
It's easy to think of a 'frustrating experience' as meaning things like poor navigation or a badly designed site but it seems that consumers see other things as frustrating too. A lack of adequate and meaningful product descriptions was high on their list of things that frustrated them. Nearly 70% of them wanted to be able to 'feel' the products through better product descriptions.
When you think about it this is something that online marketers should have been aware of all along. In mainstream people touch and feel things they're thinking of buying. Even big electrical items get touched and the knobs get played with so why should we think that people will come to buy something online when all they might see is a title, an image and a price?
Perhaps that's all the more reason to practice writing killer ads in 100 words or less that will help the potential buyer to 'feel' the product you're selling.
How would you help a potential customer 'feel' what he was looking for in an adult site? I'm not sure but perhaps thinking about a guy who goes into a brothel might help. He meets a few girls and assesses them from what he sees and how that fits with the fantasies he's had about the visit. He then makes his choice based on that assessment so how would you pitch your adult site at someone who is thinking like that?
Site Assessment
This week we were also asked to cast a critical eye over a new site that's in beta and not performing to expectations. The owners want us to come up with some suggestions on how to improve the site's appeal and that is going to be a challenge.
Obviously one of the first things to look at is the leading site in their niche and then compare that site to the one we've been asked to review. That was a real eye-opener because there is just no argument about which site is the leader in this niche and the comparison is stark when you can have each site open on monitors in front of you.
One site uses bright colors, a lot of lurid text (lurid is my word of the week in case you haven't notice) text and lots of promises. The other site has subdued colors including a lot of white, very plain matter-of-fact text that talks more about statistics than hardcore words that might get the readers hot and horny and three or four small images - none of which you would call hardcore.
And it's that understated site that players in the industry recognize as being the leader.
There are some serious lessons to be learned there.